I’ve exhausted things I can sleep to on Netflix, and it’s literally impossible to sleep to things on Prime (so I barely watch anything there; it’s not worth falling asleep to something I like, since I might be punished for it), so I’ve started putting on YouTube in the evenings since it won’t wake me with silence at 4am.
I’ve a few voices I love listening to, but I’d like even more.
Which YouTubers do you recommend who:
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Have smooth, hypnotic voices,
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have content that won’t give me uncomfortable dreams (I’m a very visual, realistic, and impressionable dreamer), and
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have channels I’ll want to listen to when awake? (eta I like sciences and news mostly, a bit of fiction (scifi, horror, nf), gaming, other nerdy things, but never romance, pop culture , or reality tv).
I kinda need all 3.
The narrator from the game the Stanley parable
The History channels:
- History of the Universe
- Found them on this channel
- History of the Earth
- History of Humankind
- This is their new channel that they started just a short while ago.
It’s really good long form fomat. You don’t have to watch anything and just listen. It’s long enough for me to fall asleep and not hear the whole video so next night I just go close enough to the end of what I heard/remember I heard and just continue listening. I don’t mind relistening at all - I always miss something so I always learn something new.
Edit: the awesome thing is that these videos are told basically like a story. The narrator’s voice is calming, there are no loud noises or anything. He really tells it like a good night story.
I find the Universe one the best one for me. The one for Humankind or Earth can be unsettling sometimes (mostly the intros in my experience) but I don’t have problems with uncomfortable dreams really so I don’t mind. But from my experience if there’s something that could give you a bad dream it’s only in the into.
- History of the Universe
I’m surprised no one has mentioned VaatiVidya yet. His voice is so calm and relaxing, he’s a fantastic narrator. His content is mainly lore about FromSoftware games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
This! I had to search for Vaatividya in order to find this comment.
His prepare to cry series as well as all of his lore videos could keep me going for ages!
Noah Caldwell-Gervais is my go-to for just relaxing audio. He does very in depth coverage of game franchises talking about how they evolved and the ways the mechanics support the narrative or run counter to it. Very chill and hypnotizing voice
My wife puts on RyconRoleplays or ChristopherOdd in the background sometimes when she’s having trouble sleeping. Rycon might have the voice you’re looking for; Odd’s narration depends on the game he’s playing, he likes to set the mood in more atmospheric games, and he reads out every bit of lore.
Clarkesworld is a sci-fi magazine with free audio versions on their site, plus on Spotify as a podcast. I’d recommend “The very Pulse of the Machine” personally as an intro. It was adapted into a great episode of “Love, Death + Robots”.
Ooh my time to shine with my long list
- T90 Official plays age of empires games very soothing voice
- Agadmator plays chess videos very rhythmic voice
- 3blue1brown maths videos, even if you hate math he has a voice that is so calm
- Real Civil Engineer plays indie or building games is a bit weird, 90% he is nice but sometimes he gets excited and I’ve been woken from my sleep, but still good as I fall back right after
- Kurtzgezat science videos with great narration (may hurt your dreams tho)
- Nicole Coenen woodcutting videos great voice great pace only downside very few videos in total so you burn through her videos quite fast.
- Technology Connections, great videos about obscure day to day tech mazing voice
- Primitive technology, no words a lot of nature sounds of him building stuff without technology
I’ll add more if I remember.
3blue1brown is a great call.
I would add Applied Science and NileRed (who does chemistry experiments) as possibilities if OP likes their voices. Their content is very methodical and uniform. My cat likes their videos, which seems like a pretty good metric for this use case.
I also love vihart, who does math videos, but her stuff is a little more varied, including some music, so OP might want to evaluate her during the day before trusting her channel for sleep.
Jeremy Fielding has a great voice if you want videos about engineering and how to salvage motors out of washing machines and treadmills.
I’ll consult my subscription list and add more if I find any.
Edited to add:
Carl Bugeja (electronics)
CGP Grey (mostly history)
DIY Perks (various projects)
Henry Segerman (math art)
OskarPuzzle (designs for 3d printed puzzles)
Razbuten (video games)
Sabine Hossenfelder (physics)
Stand-up Maths (math)
Steve Mould (explanations of unusual everyday things, I guess? kinda hard to summarize)
Technology Connections (as others have mentioned)
Tim Hunkin (makes weird mechanical art and explains machines)
Tom Scott (videos about unusual places and bits of history)
Two Minute Papers (advances in AI and computer graphics)Edited again to add: Breaking Taps. This one is mostly microscopic fabrication stuff, so, various kinds of microscopes, vapor deposition, etching, etc.
Yes almost all great options.
Vi Hart is calm and mathy. Here’s the story of Wind & Mr ug.
Let’s talk religion. Barely sociable. Lemmino
Northernlion, specifically his non-twitch content. I also enjoy his twitch content but he goes reaction mode for it and it’s not the same rhythm
Pete Complete, in particular his RimWorld series. His voice, relaxed tone and slow pacing with a lot of pause in his speech puts me to sleep even when I’m not trying to.
Absolutely my choice as well. In addition to being all the things that OP has asked for, he’s also a phenomenal player and his dedication to highly precise play is insane.
My wife and I have been through all of his Rimworld series, and watch it as we would a TV show when a new episode drops. We just got done watching biotech episode 5!
Purge (https://youtube.com/@PurgeGamers) is pretty good. He typically posts full, un-cut dota games, and is lower energy throughout. There’s not big volume or tone changes, and they’re long enough that you should always be able to fall asleep during them.
has one of the most smooth voices I’ve fond. Very chill process even to watch.
I also find very soothing.
Gopher, I found his channel learning how to mod various Bethesda games over 10 years ago but he has let’s plays for various games that are great and put me to sleep when I’m tired
Youre looking for Bismuth, the technical speedrun communicator. Hes perfect in everyway.
Also theres Tomatoanus, also speedrun comminicator, excellent work.
Isaac Arthur is a futurist I like for this, hell give you wonderful dreams.
3blueonebrowns visual communicatio style is excellent but ive fallen asleep to his videos tons of times.
Chyrosan22 has the voice of God and he reviews mechanical keyboards, absolutely love it
Donoteat01, justin rosczknyaiacs channel, has perfect shit in his Power Planning and Politics series, hypnotic, funny, and entrancing
Drachinifel is a naval historiographer whos excellent, highly reccomend his video on the second pacific sauadron
Emplemon also has some excellent content
Food Wishes is chef johns youtube channel and he has a very unique way if talking that i love
Hypohystericalhistory has excellent longform documentaries about warstuff
Hope thats enough thats off the top of my head and is through H of my subscriptions lol
Don’t know if they’re on the tube, but I never made it through an episode of Brian Cox’s Cosmos without nodding off.
