Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast, combs the planet to find the most boring public domain textbooks to read aloud to help you fall asleep.

Tonight we continue with one of our greatest discoveries: A History of Experimental Psychology by Professor Edwin Boring. In 1950, it sold 16,765 copies, an indication to me that 16,765 people were trying to self-medicate their sleeplessness by reading it before bed.

You, on the other, can simply listen to my voice, which has a soporific quality that sometimes renders people unconscious as I speak to them at parties. They drop like a stone. Surely it’s not my conversational chops that’s lacking.

Let us let Professor Boring bore us to sleep, then. We’ll begin with his description of the third decade of experimental psychology, going all the way back to 1880. If you hear any long pauses, it’s possible I myself have nodded off. It’s a risk I take.

This recording will end quietly.

Get full access to Pieces of Jim at jimnolan1.substack.com/subscribe