There are certain chapters in great works of literature that must be skimmed, or better yet, skipped altogether. In Moby-Dick, that would be Chapter 32, “Cetology.” Cetology—the branch of biology that studies whales, dolphins, and porpoises—is not of much interest to the general reader. In fact, it causes many of them to put down the novel and never again pick it up, thus Moby-Dick is one of those classics, like Infinite Jest or Gravity’s Rainbow, that no one reads. Let’s put the chapter to a better use—to induce sleep. Surely Melville used to read this chapter himself, when he needed to fall asleep. Just like him, you will become quickly unconscious… drifting down to the ocean’s midnight zone, where sperm whales echolocate in this deep, dreamy place where you’ll spend eight or so hours of rest, safe from Ahab’s barbs.

We’re going back in time tonight, searching for the dullest of dull writing to put you into a deep sleep. Soon after I begin to read from Principles of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell, M.A., F.R.S.—that is, Fellow of the Royal Society—you will experience something akin to that sensation immediately before your colonoscopy begins. If you count backwards to 10, you won’t make it to nine. Lights out. Sweet dreams. You’ll wake up without any memory of tonight’s procedure. It’s not the fault of Sir Charles. It’s the subject of geology itself. It can only be grasped in geologic timeframes, that is, over millions of years of dedicated study. We have but one night and you won’t be conscious for much of it. Let us go then, shall we, to Naples, Italy, not for its pizza, like any sane person, but to hear about its volcanic vents.

Welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid. Tonight, your cares will dissolve as I read from The Ethics of Aristotle. You will never find out exactly what those ethics were, you will be sound asleep, probably within minutes. In Athens, Aristotle was known for putting entire audiences to sleep with his lectures. It was all the same to him, he got his money upfront. When I read from these pages, you should know that I am giving myself periodic electric shocks to stay awake—I am no less susceptible to his soporific writing than you are—so if you hear any electronic buzzing in the background, or my voice suddenly becoming shrill, you’ll know the reason. Let’s go back to ancient Greece, then. There’s no easier place to fall asleep.

Before I start to read this ancient Greek historian, who has dependably caused heads to nod for thousands of years, I’d like to remind you not to operate heavy machinery—or even light machinery—while listening to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid podcast. It has come to my attention that some young people, as a dare, are listening to the podcast not from the safety of their bed, but while doing ordinary household chores or daily tasks. This has resulted in unfortunate incidents including mixed white and red laundry loads, and badly positioned cutlery in the dishwasher, including spoons that nest. Textbook Sleep cannot be held responsible—passages from Herodotus are too powerfully sleep-inducing to take such chances. Now that you’ve been warned, draw up the covers, and let us begin.

He’s back and more boring than ever: Sleep therapist Immanuel Kant. Tonight on Textbook Sleep we’ll be continuing our nightly sleep-a-thon with another chapter of his Critique of Pure Reason, philosophical Sominex for generations of unfortunate students. It is reasonable to expect you won’t hear much of it, because you’ll be snoring so loudly. Fortunately, you won’t be expected to write a paper on it, or underline any of the many mystifying passages in yellow highlighter. There will be no quiz, no exam, no unintelligible questions in class. Just deep and restful sleep. Let’s go there together, shall we?

Hello and welcome to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid, please do not listen while operating heavy machinery.

Tonight I’ll be presenting another reading from one of the world’s dullest books.

It’s a doozy—The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. It’s philosophy, but we are not brought together tonight for insight, for an epiphany, we just want to zonk out. Perhaps when you wake, wisdom will somehow be imparted to you, but I doubt it. Your sleeping brain, your “unconscious,” will take you to a place without Kant’s unintelligible philosophical musings; maybe it will take you to where I like to go, to Italy, where people debate the primacy of one gelato flavor over another, or what scarf or cravat to wear on the evening’s passeggiata, the evening promenade through town. These should be the only issues of real importance in life, and the only ones you may grapple with tonight as you sleep deeply and restfully.

Imagine then, that you are a naïve student, talked into taking a philosophy course by a classmate whose advice you have not yet learned to ignore. You have gone to the library to catch up on 150 pages of reading, your first assignment, and last, because you will sensibly drop the course. All is still, the library is almost empty. Light filters in through the window, a beam of it enveloping and warming your body. Your head feels heavy; your neck, weak. For just a little while, why not rest it upon the desk, no one will see. It’s time for the passeggiata, for a stroll, with a stop for a cioccolato all’arancia, that is, an orange-chocolate gelato—yes, that is where you are heading, I’m sure of it. Let’s get you on your way…

Welcome to this special edition of Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid—special because it will be incomprehensible to most of us, and certainly to me. Few of us have the stomach or brains to study electrical and computer engineering. Even for the mathematically gifted, it is a death march through one impossibly difficult course after another. Tonight I will read about electronic components, from the only textbook in this subject with words I could remotely hope to pronounce. It is Open Circuits by Eric Schlaepfer and Wendell H. Oskay. You will almost immediately zonk out. Your last conscious thought will be how grateful you are not to be an engineering student, even if they eventually amass more riches than Scrooge McDuck.

Ready... set… sleep.

Imagine that, for some misguided reason you’ll later regret, you decide to take a course in Gothic art. Perhaps you had heard it was a “gut,” an easy A—look, it’s not Biochem. And then you are assigned a book about the subject by noted art historian Andrew Martindale. It’s not him that’s the problem, it’s you. You can’t get through a single paragraph without starting over. It ain’t TikTok. It’s learned and dense and long. It uses words like “transepts.” And “pulpitum.” And “portals,” which we’ll turn into portals to a good night’s sleep. Because this is Textbook Sleep, and no one can withstand an onslaught of insights about the Dark Ages at night in your own comfortable bed. Cursed insomnia curses to hear us begin, and retreats, knowing that for tonight, it is banished.

Thanks—if that’s the right word—to writer Polly Walker Blakemore for sending me this sleep-inducing tome.

Welcome back to Textbook Sleep, the Maximum-Strength Sleep Aid.

In our first episode, I read from Chapter 1 of Samuelson and Nordhaus’s legendary and tedious Economics.

Now we jump ahead to Chapter 24, into something called “The Multiplier Model.”

Prepare for a deep, restorative sleep...

Hear me say the word “econometrics” for the first time in my life and mispronounce chez lounge. Let me know what other textbooks you’d like to fall asleep to.