Last year, I discovered that Max Richter's Sleep had been performed, live, in concert, with the audience members offered beds to sleep on during the performance, which began at 10pm and finished at 8am the following morning. Immediately, this struck me as inspired, and I was rather saddened that I had missed it. When I told my wife about the concert, she came back with an inspired suggestion: we would recreate it at home and have the album playing (the album lasts 8 hours) from 10pm until 8am the following morning. That sounds great, I thought. Let's do it this weekend. The timing was increasingly perfect for us, as the weekend we decided to do it (December, last year), fell on a New Moon, which from a Daoist perspective is the best time to do something of this nature.
With the date we were going to do this confirmed, we arranged our diary so we had nothing we had to do the next day, and made sure everything was done, including all my time-consuming medical treatments, so we were ready and prepared for bed, with lights out, to start the Max Richter album, Sleep. At 10pm, I pressed play on Spotify.
Now, dear reader, just to bring you up to speed, I had read some wonderful reviews by people who had listened to Max Richter's Sleep, whether that be on album or the fortunate people who had experienced it live. They waxed lyrical about how incredibly relaxing it had been, many saying they had experienced the best, most refreshing night's sleep they had had in decades. A few compared it to Brian Eno's ambient albums. Well, let me prepare you in advance: my experience was anything but relaxing.
During the first ten minutes there was something profound about the feelings that the music created, and I recall my wife and I clutching hands during this time. Gradually, though, my mood altered, and we both disengaged our fingers from each other and changed positions. Suddenly, in the pitch darkness, memories invaded my consciousness from many different episodes of my life. And these weren't just fleeting memories. These were intense, and it was like being back in those situations. I saw my life as a boy in the little terraced house in North Wales where I lived until I was seven. Crystal clear memories (more like a lived vision, in all honesty), of things I loved as a boy: my train set, my pet rabbit, train memorabilia that I had collected but which has long gone, my uncle, and, of course, my Mum and my Nain and Taid. I recall sobbing and asking them for their forgiveness, asking them if they knew how much I loved them, hoping beyond hope that they did. Oceanic feelings of guilt swept in, leaving me shattered. I hope I returned your love, was about all I could say.
I then recall Lydia woke suddenly and needed a drink, which I helped her to do, and after doing this she very quickly fell asleep again. I knew this as I could hear her gentle purring and feel the change in her breathing next to me.
The next stage I experienced was intense feelings and visions of death; my own, the people around me who I love, even the death of the animals and the universe. I could feel myself breaking at this point, and just when I thought I couldn't take much more, a complete change came about in my thoughts and memories. In what seemed like an instant, I was then recalling vividly some of the most ecstatic and euphoric happenings of my life. Some of mine and Lydia's favourite places, being on stage in Les Miserables, and most intriguingly, memories of mine and Lydia's date nights. But, just then, something changed. It was as if a force, an energy, was trying to deceive me. Deep inside my psyche I knew this was not Lydia making me feel these things, and this knowledge helped me break this particular spell. I managed to force myself to wake and sit up in bed. But, as I lay back down, things became very strange indeed. We have deep green velvet curtains over our windows and it was pitch black in our room, except for a slight chink of light from the speaker that was in the floor in the corner, half hidden by the ottoman. I desperately tried to sleep, changed position a few times, but found it completely impossible. Richter's haunting music enveloped the room and completely invaded my body, mind and soul. In an attempt to sleep - even though by doing this I was letting the side down - I put my headphones on so I could listen to the TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, a tactic which usually works very well. But it was no use. I could hear the bass and haunting singing above the headphones, and the eeriness was utterly overwhelming. I felt like there were spirits in the room with me. In the dark corner by the mirror, the small speaker light was barely shining but I was almost too petrified to look in that direction although my attention was constantly trying to do so. I contemplated sitting up and having the courage to just look brazenly into the darkness and see if anything happened. But I simply could not do it; I could only glance nervously and then quickly away. Once again I swapped positions multiple times. I did some photo art on my phone to try and distract my mind as it was all becoming too much. I was caught completely between desperately wanting to see somebody like my mum, Nain or Taid, yet at the same time being gripped by the fear that it might actually happen. I was terrified that they might be upset with me over the kind of things my mind had been thinking of earlier. I looked at my phone and saw that it was now about 5.30 and I knew that I simply couldn't take any more. I decided I had to turn the Max Richter album off as it was all becoming too distressing and I knew that if I continued there would be no chance of me getting any sleep, and I was already utterly demoralised and exhausted. So I turned what remained to be played of Max Richter's Sleep album off and very hesitantly found the small light on our landing, and turned it on so I could go to the bathroom. I recall thinking how I could never have gone into our bathroom everywhere had all been in pitch darkness, so thank goodness for that small night light. After this, I came back to bed and, eventually, I think, managed a very slight, but restless doze. At 9.40 our doorbell rang (I answered it) and then at 10am (the time Max Richter's Sleep was scheduled to finish) Lydia's alarm went off and she woke up. When I came back into our bedroom, I felt a very real need to open both our windows and let some fresh air in, and Lydia said I must have intuitively known what to do as, through her knowledge of Daoism, that is what she would have suggested. She also asked me to bless the corner of the room that I had found so mysterious and haunting, just to make sure that if there were any supernatural happenings occurring there, especially if it involved loved ones, to let them know that everything was fine and that there was absolutely no bad feeling towards them, and which would also, at the same time, clear the space if unwelcome spirits had been hanging around, which, due to my experience, this was highly likely.
And with that ended my "relaxing and rejuvenating" experience with Max Richter's album, Sleep. I have read many more reviews of this album, and, as far as I can tell, no one who has written has had an experience remotely similar to mine. All of their reviews tell of a similar tale: relaxing, rejuvenating, deeply settling, a spiritual awakening, etc. Lydia, too, remembered very little of the night and had slept very well. But no, this wasn't what occurred with me. My experience had been the complete opposite. It was incredibly difficult at times but I don't regret doing it. Perhaps I conversed with spirits in the otherworld, or maybe I connected in a very profound way with memories that are usually hidden so deep that I can't reach them (or they me). I guess I will never know for certain exactly what happened. But, either way, my experience, when compared with everyone else's, confirmed only too well what I am already painfully aware of:
I'm a weirdo.
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