- Hi, I'm Gina Rodriguez.
And this is a sleepcast from the Netflix series,
"Headspace: Unwind Your Mind".
This sleepcast is an audio experience,
specifically designed to help you relax and drift off,
so you can get a good night's rest.
It's set in an extremely cozy place.
So, don't stay awake.
First, get yourself comfortable in bed.
Just taking a moment to pause and be still.
(fire crackling)
And when you're ready, taking a big, deep breath.
Breathing in through the nose
and out through the mouth.
(Gina exhales)
And as you breathe out,
allowing the body to sink down into your bed.
Feeling the weight of the body.
Allowing thoughts to come and go.
(fire crackling)
Now, imagining a steady flow of warm sunlight
flowing down through the body.
Dissolving any tension,
any discomfort as it begins to fill the body.
Starting with the toes,
moving up through the feet,
and the legs,
being filled with sunlight.
The qualities of warmth, space,
and ease as it continues to travel up the body,
up past the waist,
through the back,
and the stomach.
It's as though it washes away any discomfort.
It continues up through the chest
and the upper back,
into the shoulders and down the arms
all the way down to the hands and fingers.
A sense of relief in the body and stillness in the mind,
as it continues to travel up through the neck
and the throat,
until there's nothing
other than that sense of stillness remaining.
And now gently bringing the attention back to the body.
Tonight's sleep scape is a visualization.
We'll be visiting a fireside bookshop.
So when you're ready, let's begin.
(fire crackling)
The Fireside Bookshop stays open late.
Settle into the old hearthside sofa,
surrounded by higgledy-piggledy bookshelves,
and listen to the rain falling softly outside.
(rain pattering)
Lifelong patrons of the fireside bookshop
all agree on one thing.
There is something very special about this place,
especially at night.
Even newcomers can feel it in the first time they walk
through the door.
Drawn in by a warm, palpable sense of peace
that seems to flow throughout the shop.
From your seat at the sofa,
you sit and admire the charm and serenity of the space.
The sofa is a proper sofa.
The kind you find in country houses,
the kind you can really sink into.
Behind your sofa are books, books, books.
Books on the windowsills,
stacked on the floors,
tables piled with novels and poetry books
and books on philosophy.
Bookshelves reaching from floor to ceiling.
A maze of shelves lined, sometimes double-lined with books.
The rain, which started earlier,
is beginning to really pelt down.
Droplets of water form on the window of the bookshop.
Besides the door is a counter
where a customer is talking to a bookseller
in an animated voice,
beneath a five arm chandelier with frosted glass lampshades.
He's trying to describe the book he's looking for,
whose author's name he has forgotten.
He leans his head to one side and removes his glasses,
making a circular gesture with his hand
as if gathering the name from the air.
The bookseller makes a suggestion and the man nods.
"Yes, yes" he says, "That's the one."
You've been sitting for some time
on the sofa in front of the fire,
holding the book without opening it.
Now, you can close your eyes for a moment.
You feel the weight of the book on your lap,
it's heavy.
(fire crackles)
You hear the crackle of the fire,
the sound of people moving around on the wooden floors.
Many murmurs.
It's hard not to love this bookshop,
with its little hallways formed by the bookshelves.
With their colorful rows of spines.
It's deep leather sofa.
The fireplace, which gives the bookshop its name
and lights the small hearth rug with its romantic glow.
The atmosphere in the bookshop is enhanced
rather than disturbed by the voices you hear.
Softly shuffling steps,
pages turning, the snapping and crackling of the fire.
It's dark outside.
You can't see the neighboring shops.
Inside, from the five arm chandelier,
come pools of gold light.
A bookseller appears to collect the stacks of books,
which a previous browser left on the table beside you.
Books on space and the universe and botany.
Through the bookshop window,
whose dark green sill is obscured with books
on antique radios and an actual antique radio,
you see a woman in a yellow mackintosh
passing along the dark, wet pavement.
It's the same woman you saw passing some minutes before,
but with a friend now.
Both huddled under a single umbrella.
As they pass the bookshop,
they stop and press their faces up to the glass.
You open the book, read the first line.
"Although he traveled this road so many times he could have
drawn it from memory."
You didn't come here for this book.
You just happened upon it.
In the second hand book section.
Or it happened upon you, perhaps.
Because it wasn't shelved up right
like the rest of the books.
But it was stacked on top of them, sticking out slightly.
As if someone else had picked it up
and then put it back again.
You tuck the silky red ribbon between the pages
and close the book again,
enjoying its heavy weight in your hands.
Which seems to push your body even deeper into the sofa.
The pages have a consoling historical smell.
The old cover, made of green cloth with gold lettering
down the spine, is muted.
Unlike the covers of the new releases,
with their bright, waxy jackets and bold type faces,
which call-outs you from the shelves,
demanding your attention.
Two women standing in the history section are talking
in low voices.
They embrace, squeeze hands, exchange a meaningful look and
embrace again.
The bookshop is warm, not just from the fireplace.
Its atmosphere is warmly thoughtful.
The walls are covered with objects.
Old musical instruments,
a mirror, a light fitting in the shape of a fish.
Old book and album covers.
A poster of the history of the bicycle
and a large printers tray filled with toy cars
and gemstones.
You start to doze off.
Perhaps it's the heat of the fire that makes you sleepy.
Perhaps it's the weight of the book on your lap.
Or the low murmur of the apocalyptic thriller
coming from an old TV suspended on the wall above you.
In the corner of the bookshop, between two shelves,
the local book club is holding its weekly evening meeting.
Some members are on stools.
Others are sitting on the floor with their backs
against the shelves, sitting on their jackets.
They're discussing a detective story.
A man in a paisley shirt and thick-framed glasses
is reminding the others of the clues.
"Remember this?" He says.
"Remember that?"
There's a poster at the front of the shop.
It looks like an old movie poster.
"Awake".
"The Netflix film is now streaming" says the poster.
Beside it, on a low table,
a cat is stretched over a pile of bargain books.
Poetry anthologies, the memoir of a cycle courier,
a pile of outdated encyclopedias.
As the evening deepens, the rain deepens too.
The bookshop door creaks open and a woman enters.
She shakes out her hat and says
"It's raining cats and,"
To no one in particular, and rolls up her umbrella,
making a little puddle of rainwater on the floor.
Upstairs, from the dimly lit cafe,
comes faint laughter and a gurgle of milk being frothed.
A woman makes her way down the narrow staircase,
talking on her phone.
"That's wonderful" she says.
"What a story."
"What a st,"