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Onyros
April 3rd, 2007, 07:27 PM
This must be one of the strangest requests I've seen here, but... does anyone know where to find free white noise mp3 downloads, i.e. vacuum cleaner "noise"?

Let me clear it up a little: :popcorn: I'm an insomniac. I've tried everything, and when I do manage to fall asleep it takes a lot of effort. I bought an mp3 player just to listen to music with in-ear headphones, which is one of the few things that work.

The thing is it's getting harder each day to fall asleep, and I find myself actually concentrating on the music to the point I won't fall asleep anymore.

I've tried meditation, but my mind wanders too much and it just won't work. I've tried breathing exercises, I've tried having exercise... nothing works.

My last resort is the good old vacuum cleaner sound. The reason it works is because it's one of the most similar sounds to what we listened to while in the womb (the blood flowing through the umbilical cord and its general hum), therefore it's a soothing and relaxing sound, just like the sound of a beating heart.

So, can anyone point me the right way? Thanks in advance!

mips
April 3rd, 2007, 07:35 PM
I've tried meditation, but my mind wanders too much and it just won't work. I've tried breathing exercises, I've tried having exercise... nothing works.


Tried any of the Hemi-Sync audio products ?

mykalreborn
April 3rd, 2007, 07:46 PM
you should try meditation even more. i practice yoga and i can tell you from experience that a meditation is much more resting than sleep. but to enjoy meditation you must really want it and stay in meditation for at least 30,60 or even 90 minutes if you can. you'll see that in only a matter of weeks your insomnia will go away. you just have to have the ambition of staying in the meditation even if your mind gets clouded up with all sorts of thoughts.
well... that or drink a lot of warm milk before going to bed. :p

christhemonkey
April 3rd, 2007, 07:51 PM
You could install audacious and some ladspa plugins, and generate your own white noise.

(im fairly sure there is a white noise generating plugin that you could just loop over and over)

Brunellus
April 3rd, 2007, 08:00 PM
You could install audacious and some ladspa plugins, and generate your own white noise.

(im fairly sure there is a white noise generating plugin that you could just loop over and over)
tune a medium-wave radio to a frequency not in use. you are listening to the background radiation of the universe...plus a bunch of fuzz from the sun and the ionosphere.

junior aspirin
April 3rd, 2007, 08:23 PM
install audacity, it has a plug-in to make white noise. can then save as an mp3 etc...

koenn
April 3rd, 2007, 09:10 PM
http://www.luketan.com/songs/audio/WhiteNoise.mp3

you may want to check pink and brown noise as well, they're smoother.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise

Onyros
April 3rd, 2007, 10:34 PM
First of all, thank you all for the suggestions!

I've tried creating a few white noise files before, but I found the thing that most faithfully recreates "my" kind of soothing sound is... the Hoover vacuum cleaner. It's just perfect. Unfortunately, I don't own one and I just don't have the nerve to borrow one from my neighbours.

I will also take some time to investigate Brunellus' suggestion a little further; anything that'll make me sleep well is worth it.

As for meditation... I was once able to meditate properly, I was even into Reiki and everything, and the meditation helped me tune in and get myself rid of each and every environmental influence. That's one ability I must've lost with time, though... and it probably has something to do with lack of sleep.

Regarding Hemi-Sync products, I'm open to experimentation, but was intending to try a few free alternatives before that.

Ever seen the movie "Insomnia" with Al Pacino? That's one crazy and faithful depiction of someone's insomnia. I'm at the slow-motion phase which usually comes at the 4th or 5th day without sleeping.

Strangely enough, we had the maid in to do the usual house-cleaning and the whole time she was using the vacuum cleaner I just rolled into a foetus position and instanly fell asleep. Hence the search for the vacuum cleaner noise ;)

mykalreborn
April 3rd, 2007, 10:39 PM
Ever seen the movie "Insomnia" with Al Pacino? That's one crazy and faithful depiction of someone's insomnia. I'm at the slow-motion phase which usually comes at the 4th or 5th day without sleeping.
that's got to be nasty man. not being able to sleep.

Zuuswa
April 3rd, 2007, 10:46 PM
back when I ran windows, there was a freeware program I ran that jus played something akin to 38 hz frequency in one ear and 40 hz frequency in the other, supposedly creating a modulation similar to that found in the brain during deep sleep. It would shut off after 15 minutes but I always passed out before 5 minutes had elapsed, compared to the 1-2 hours it takes me to fall asleep now. Maybe (with a little research, im no expert on brain-waves) you could emulate something like that with audacity.

Also, if your region permits, you should try Alcohol or Cannabis . . . usually does the trick for me.

mykalreborn
April 3rd, 2007, 10:52 PM
you've probably tried it before, but if not:
maybe get a song with the sounds of waves hitting on a beach and maybe even a rocking chair or something.

nonewmsgs
April 4th, 2007, 02:55 AM
thats interesting about the sound from being in the womb being similar to a vacuum cleaner. i always sleep with a box fan on high blowing on my face. i love the wind and the noise. the reduced noise fans are horrible. damn near silent i want the loud constant whirring. if there were one with extra high...

SishGupta
April 4th, 2007, 04:32 AM
Have you tried exercise? I have found that for me if I get a week where I can't sleep I just have to get to the gym and work out till I can't anymore.
I spend a lot of time at the computer and drinking caffeine so I usually have a lot of saved up energy which prevents me from falling asleep.

Also the marijuana for sleep tip is a good one (IMHO), but i hear in some people it can have the opposite effect and it will prevent sleep.

My room is a white noise factory though, I have my computer in it and a fish tank with an air pump that makes tons of white noise. The great thing about white noise is that you don't notice it after you get used to it.

lotusleaf
April 4th, 2007, 04:33 AM
Onyros,

The article: "Bring in the (pink) noise" (http://applications.linux.com/applications/06/06/14/1429251.shtml?tid=39&tid=47&tid=96) mentions both the Whitenoise (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~pelzlpj/whitenoise) and Boodler (http://www.eblong.com/zarf/boodler/) applications in detail, along with additional helpful links and information. Here is a little info about them quoted from each respective site:



whitenoise (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~pelzlpj/whitenoise) is a small utility which turns your computer into an ambient random noise generator. You may find this useful for relaxing, helping you get to sleep, or drowning out your noisy neighbors. This software is released under the GNU General Public License.

whitenoise is a console-based program, but version 1.0 can be controlled in realtime by (possibly graphical) frontends.



Boodler (http://www.eblong.com/zarf/boodler/) is a tool for creating soundscapes -- continuous, infinitely varying streams of sound. Boodler is designed to run in the background on a computer, maintaining whatever sound environment you desire.

Boodler is extensible, customizable, and modular. Each soundscape is a small piece of Python code -- typically less than a page. A soundscape can incorporate other soundscapes; it can combine other soundscapes, switch between them, fade them in and out. This package comes with many example soundscapes. You can use these, modify them, combine them to arbitrary levels of complexity, or write your own.

slimdog360
April 4th, 2007, 07:22 AM
Just find a signal thats power spectral density is constant. Whack it in a vacuum cleaner and bingo bango... you have white noise form a vacuum cleaner.

mips
June 1st, 2007, 08:27 PM
I just found a 60min White Noise .mp3 on my hd, it's 54MB in size. Let me know if you are interested.

I'm listening to it now and it's making me sleepy...

PartisanEntity
June 1st, 2007, 10:19 PM
I just found a 60min White Noise .mp3 on my hd, it's 54MB in size. Let me know if you are interested.

I'm listening to it now and it's making me sleepy...

Actually I would be interested mips, I am not an insomniac but it does take me ages to fall asleep, reading this thread made me interested in this idea.

mips
June 1st, 2007, 11:51 PM
Actually I would be interested mips, I am not an insomniac but it does take me ages to fall asleep, reading this thread made me interested in this idea.

I would be willing to dump it in a secure non-public place. Any ideas ?

blackened
June 2nd, 2007, 12:14 AM
This'll probably sound ridiculous, but I suffered from insomnia when I was younger (from birth to roughly 25 years old), and the key to me sleeping was learning to relax my neck. I know it sounds stupid, but if I lay down and focus on getting rid of the tension in my neck through body position I'll be asleep within 2 or 3 minutes. Have you thought about a different sort of pillow? I have to sleep with a big foam block in a pillow case to keep my back and neck aligned properly.

These days I don't suffer from insomnia, I suffer from "can't force myself to stop what I'm doing and lay down" syndrome. It's all about inadvertent self-inflicted sleep deprivation.

PartisanEntity
June 2nd, 2007, 12:36 AM
I would be willing to dump it in a secure non-public place. Any ideas ?

YGPM

regomodo
June 2nd, 2007, 02:44 AM
I was going to suggest wikipedia but someone beat me too it.

What you need it for? You have tinnitus too?

I was suggested to have some noise around all the time to get rid of the annoyance of my ear making noises. Instead, i just leave my PC on. It has quite hum that drowns out the noise of my ear. Without it i find it hard to sleep.

ArtInvent
June 15th, 2007, 01:40 AM
Here I am desperately searching for a way to fix the problem of the nothing-but-noise recorded by Audacity with my mic . . .

And here is someone desperately searching for a way to produce nothing but noise.

Maybe we should trade computers.

hanzomon4
June 15th, 2007, 02:59 AM
Well this is what I do when I want noise. Grab my guitar and play feedback, truly it's amazing what you can with a guitar and an amplifier.

As far as sleep, I can't get there without medicine so, yeah.....

I remember when my brother set up a practice studio I would take a radio and turn it to a static station, take a mic and place it next to the speakers. I would then put a delay effect and a slight chorus effect on the mic, the sound generated was something like a startrek space ship hum and deep low soothing white noise. Amazing, to me anyway.

It's strange that you would post this now because I just got finished doing the most amazing noise guitar piece, I wish I recorded it...

Omnios
June 15th, 2007, 03:12 AM
I had trouble sleeping this month and it was getting bad. Anyways figured out it was the heat and could not fall asleep till it cooled down. Anyways a nice fan solved that problem.