Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, where we read aloud boring public-domain textbooks to help you fall asleep.

But you know who can’t fall asleep? Lighthouse keepers. Too many lives at stake.

Still, they were forced to read Instructions to Light-Keepers, published by Authority of the Light-House Board in July, 1881. It’s so exquisitely boring, it’s amazing that shipwrecks weren’t a more common occurrence, as lighthouse keepers, dutiful in the study of their responsibilities, were almost instantly rendered unconscious by reading it.

Bad news for them. Bad news for ships and sailors at sea. Good news for followers of Textbook Sleep.

I came across this passage, which reminded me of our own three strokes of the bell, in order to clear our minds of worldly cares and allow restful sleep to enter the space created.

“Keepers of light-stations and light-vessels provided with bells will salute, with three strokes of the bell, light-house tenders upon their approach to and departure from such stations and vessels.”

Let dark night be only illuminated by our dreams.

This recording will end quietly.

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