Fits and Starts

That's how my Bedtime program is coming along: in fits and starts. Last night was a bit of both.

As I mentioned in this post, I can tell my mind is sinking into sleep when little nonsense phrases start popping up in my brain, so I've been tweaking the program to encourage the spread of that nonsense as much as possible.

I've also bought a computer mic and, on Lady Ru'etha and Follow the Watch's recommendation, downloaded a freeware program called Audacity that lets you create and play with audio files.

Then, a few days ago, I remembered that Neil Gaiman had used another freeware program called Babble when he wanted to come up with some semi-meaningless nonsense passages for one of his short stories. So, I thought to myself, why not create some babble of my own and use it as a background track for my Bedtime session? A search of Gaiman's blog led me to this link; which led me to download Babble itself; which turned out to be a really, really old program. The damn thing actually runs in a DOS window! But, hey, it's free (for two weeks, anyway), and I managed to figure it out well enough to produce a babble-ized text version of my Bedtime script.

Then came the fun part. I had already written a Reader Drone program which would take me deep into trance and then have me record a hypnotic session for my future self, speaking as my real "inner drone." I tried it out for the first time yesterday, initially attempting to record myself reading the "straight" version of the Bedtime script with "Down by the Sea" playing through the speakers behind the mic (because "Down by the Sea" simply will not allow itself to be opened and played with in Audacity; it seems to be some kind of copyright thing). That didn't come out very well, but I continued on and recorded myself reciting the babble-ized version of the script while still in trance.

But let me take a moment here to tell you how incredibly fucking awesome it is to sit there, staring blankly at your screen and reciting things you don't really understand, not caring that you don't understand, because you're just so deliciously deep in trance and because you know you're recording something that will put you back in trance, even deeper, later on. Mmmmm. :-)

Anyway, the straight script/"Down by the Sea" recording didn't come out very well because, in an attempt to record my voice nice and loud, with the music playing softly but audibly in the background, I had the speakers turned up fairly high and held the mic close to my face. So when I played it back afterwards, I could hear every little breath and lip smack all too clearly. Yuck. Not pleasant listening at all.

But the babble-ized recording turned out quite nicely, and I used it as the background audio track in my Bedtime session last night with "Mary in the stadium" on lead vocals. It only took a minute to realize I had the babble track up too loud, but I ran with it, and by the end of the session my brain was nicely scrambled. It took me a bit longer to get to sleep than it has with my more successful experiments, but I see a lot of potential here. A lot.

Plus, I was really doing two experiments last night, since I had also switched out Medications A and B for an older, cheaper drug that I still had on hand. Medication C is prescribed primarily for restless legs, which is another thing that keeps me awake at night; but the doctor had hoped it would help me with my insomnia, too. Unfortunately, it didn't allow me to "turn my brain off" the way I needed to, the way my current (outrageously expensive) Medication B does. So, since I have the "brain off" problem mostly solved now, but I still need something to calm my restless legs, I figured I'd give Medication C another try. And it worked, even with the "bedtime" session itself not being at its best.

Obviously, this all makes me very happy and very hopeful of chucking A and B completely.

This morning I re-recorded myself reading the "straight" Bedtime script, incorporating several enhancements that occurred to me after last night's experience - but not incorporating "Down by the Sea." This time the recording came out every bit as well as I'd I hoped it would. My Reader Drone program enables me to speak loudly, clearly, and with appropriate inflections while still in trance; but it also lets me sound drone-like enough to tickle my subconscious fetish buttons and (I hope) take myself deeper than Mary in the stadium can.

The next step, then, is to try recording "Down by the Sea" all by itself, from the speakers to the mic. I know the sound quality won't be great, but it's only going to be a background track; and I have a tin ear, anyway. I don't think I'll mind. ;-)

Then I'll see if I understand Audacity well enough to combine all three tracks with the straight Bedtime recording on top and the babble-ized Bedtime and "Down by the Sea" as background tracks running in separate speakers.

Results tomorrow...maybe.