healthMar 8, 20262:01:32

The Puddle People | Sleepy Story with Rain Sounds

About this episode

In this rainy sleep story, you discover a world of tiny people living amongst the puddles. #sleep #bedtimestory #sleepstory #rain Listen to hundreds of my bedtime stories ad-free and support my work by joining my Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/u89771957⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Welcome to Stephen Dalton Sleep Stories Hello, I'm Stephen Dalton, an Irish storyteller with a knack for helping you relax and fall asleep. Here on my channel, you'll find a wide variety of calming stories for sleep. So get comfortable, close your eyes, and follow the sound of my voice, as I guide you through tranquil adventures into peaceful dreams. All rights are reserved to the Stephen Dalton Meditation & Sleep Channel. If you have any questions, feel free to write under ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://stephendaltonvo.com⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Stephen Dalton Sleep Story Podcast — The Puddle People | Sleepy Story with Rain Sounds. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

Hi there, this is Stephen, thanks for listening. Before tonight's sleep story, there's going to be a couple of ads, and the good thing is that this means there will be no more ads after this point. If you'd like to listen to my content, add free, you can join my Patreon. The link is in the description. Thank you. It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. The amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number, 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. Topia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go! Get ready for a new case. We're the greatest partners of all time. New friends. Joey Desnake.

And your last name? Desnake. Dream team. Big new habitats. Utopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. Zotopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus rated PG. Right now you can get Disney Plus in Hulu for just $4.99 a month for three months with a special limit to time off at ends March 24th. Your three months plan auto renews at $12.99 a month terms apply. Hello my friend. Welcome to your sleep story. My name is Stephen Dalton. I'm an Irish storyteller. And it's my great privilege to be the voice that you listen to. As you go to sleep tonight. Lately, where I am, it's been raining in awful lot. And last night, as I walked my dogs to me in Frankie, I looked down at a puddle.

And I thought, what if lots of little people lived there? What if there was an entire city filled with glowing lanterns? What perspective could those people offer me or you? Well tonight, you will find out. But first, let's do the relaxation session before tonight's sleep story. I'm going to count down from 10 to 1. And as I do, allow yourself to let go more and more. 10. Feel the support of the bed beneath you or the floor or whatever you lie upon tonight.

And beneath what you lie upon, feel a deeper support. The support of the earth, our home, our constant support. And as you become aware of that support. See if you can sink into this moment a little more now. Just let go a little more now. 9. You are safe.

Allow my voice to be an anchor of safety tonight. To be a friend. To be a gentle guide. A guide that only ever brings you to safe places. To warm and cozy places. To enable and support your sleep. Trust that my voice is a friend tonight. Feel into your body now.

Notice where you might still be holding tonight. Notice where you may have pain or tingling or attention. Notice anything. Maybe you feel something in your feet or in your lower legs or your size or your belly. Your chest, shoulders, arms, hands.

Or maybe you like me and you hold attention in your face. Just see if you can soften a little now. This is a time for kindness to yourself and to your body. 7. The day is done. Whatever has been has been. Whatever will be will be.

But right now all you have is this moment. Your thoughts can't change what has gone before. Your thoughts can't change what will come tomorrow. Your brain needs rest now. So as thoughts come and go now. Don't fight them. Don't chase them away. See them for what they are.

Thoughts. Then just watch them go. Like leaves floating away on a moonlit river. Or clouds passing through a starlit sky. 6. This is your moment. This is your time. You have earned this moment of kindness to yourself.

You deserve to have peace in your life we all do. So as you become aware of that fact. As you come to the understanding that we all deserve peace. See if you can settle into this moment a little more now. Letting your body know that it's really time for rest. 5. Peace lives within you.

It is a constant friend waiting to be found waiting to be felt. Where does it live within you? Maybe it's in your heart. Maybe it's in your head. It's up to you to find it. But I promise you it's there. 4. Perhaps allow a little gratitude now. Gratitude for the simple things for your body.

For the shelter you have tonight. For the ones you love and who love you. For the beauty and wonder of this world of this planet. That you can find when you look for it. 3. Begin to engage with your imagination now. Begin to see a very rainy day. And you are walking in it.

You don't feel rushed by the rain. You feel curious about it, about the world around you. You feel like taking your time and noticing things. You wouldn't always notice like a puddle perhaps. 2. Checking in with your body one more time now. Finding the places you are holding still. And allowing yourself to give in to allow the tension to ease away.

Your body has worked hard for you today. It's time to give it rest. And one completely letting go now. As I tell you tonight's sleep story. What I'm about to tell you is something very few people have ever known about. Or will indeed ever know about. There are a group of people, tiny people I might add, who are in a way, travelers. Every time it rains they arrive.

And it is raining now. A steady patient rain is falling. And it has nowhere urgent to be. It gathers along the road. It collects in the shallow depths of the pavement. It settles into footprints and old bicycle tracks. And the small hollow near the gate you pass every day without noticing. Tonight you do notice. You are walking beneath the rain. Coat collar turned up.

The sound of droplets tapping on fabric and leaves. And distant rooftops. Street lights glow softly through the falling water. And there, by your shoe, a puddle begins to form properly. Filling in the rough edges of the ground until it becomes a smooth oval of silver. You slow down. That is your first qualification. You stand at the edge of the puddle. While the rain continues to stitch its surface with tiny rings.

At first you see only sky broken by ripples. Then in the brief stillness between two drops. You notice a small steady glow near the center, a lantern. It flickers, trembles, then holds its shape despite the rain striking all around it. The lantern stands on a curled leaf, tied carefully to a twig. Anchored in the muddy bed below.

The flame inside is a bead of rain that shines as though it has decided to remain lit. Beside it stands a person no taller than your smallest fingernail. He wears a coat the color of wet bark and boots made from acorn cups. Rain falls all around him. Yet he moves through it with the ease of someone accustomed to such weather. He appears to be directing others because the puddle is no longer empty.

Along the widening shoreline houses arising, petals unfold into roofs. Thin stems are set upright as door frames. The woman shakes out a rug scarcely larger than a postage stump. We're balancing expertly on a pebble. Two children push a bottle cap boat into the shallows, shrieking silently from your height. Each time a rain drop lands nearby and sends a tremor through their world. To them, each rain drop is an event.

A large one is a festival. A heavy cluster is enough to know of excitement. They know how to brace themselves when the rain strikes hard and the puddle shivers. They hold fast to one another or two anchored stems. When it softens again, they carry on precisely where they left off. You take a careful step forward, rain tapping steadily on your shoulders, and kneel by the next puddle forming along the path.

This one stretches then along a crack in the pavement. Water trickles down into it continuously, feeding it from above. The puddle people here have built upward. Tiny balconies cling to the edges of raised stones. Ladders no longer than matchsticks connect one level to the next. Lanterns hang from the threads of spider silk and glow bravely through the falling rain.

A baker stands beneath a leaf awning, shaping crumbs into loaves while droplets drum gently overhead. He belongs to the Mosswell family, known among the puddle people for their steady hands, and extraordinary calm during downpours. His great grandmother once lived through a thunderstorm so vigorous that three houses floated briefly away before being retrieved with hooked grass stems. He hums as he works.

You move again, rain pattering around you, to a broader puddle collecting beneath a tree. Its surface reflects branches that sway above, though here below. They seem solid and dark like roads suspended in the sky. The puddle people in this puddle have built bridges along those reflected branches. Tiny figures cross them, carrying baskets made from sea tusks.

At the centre, floats around platform, where four lanterns glow warmly. A family gathers there for supper, a mother with her hair pinned by a rose thorn. A father in a waistcoat, sewn from fragments of butterfly wing, found long after their owners had flown on. Two children, who attempt to sit properly, while watching the rain land around them, in whitening circles. They are rain words. Their ancestors travelled through puddles in city squares,

farm lanes, monastery courtyards, train platforms. They remember each sky they have ever reflected. They keep careful record of which rains were gentle, and which arrived with thunder. One of the children pauses mid-sip and looks upward, not toward the sky, toward you. Rain lands between you, softening the view, but you are certain of it.

He studies your outline, as calmly as you study his, then he turns back to his bowl. You continue along the path, puddle after puddle, gather his under the steady fall of rain. And in each one, the world rises to meet it. Market stalls, selling polished pebbles, and neatly folded spider silk scarves. Scholars charting the pattern of raindrops, and debating their size and rhythm.

A pair of musicians tapping hollow reeds to create sounds far too small for your ears to hear. The rain does not disturb them. It is the reason they are here, and further ahead, where the road dips deeply, and water collects into something almost like. You see dozens upon dozens of lanterns glowing through the rainfall, an entire city forming bright and patient beneath the endless gentle rain.

Lanterns glow across the surface, dozens of them, each one trembling slightly, as droplets land, and send soft rings outward, from where you stand. It already feels like a city. You step closer, the rain taps on your shoulders, your reflection wavres in the water, tall, slightly blurred, bending at the edges, and then, without quite knowing why, you kneel,

the surface of the puddle, steadies between raindrops, and in that brief sternness, you see something unusual, beyond the little city in front of you. Your reflection is not alone. Beside it stands a small figure, holding a lantern head high. He looks up, not at your face above, but at the reflection of it below, and lifts his free hand in what is unmistakably an invitation.

The next raindrop lands, the surface ripples outward, and in that ripple, your reflection begins to change. New shoulders draw inward, your coat shrinks, the ground rises gently toward you. And now, you are standing, ankle deep, in cool water. Only now it is not ankle deep, it is sure.

The city rises around you, lanterns glowing, bridges stretching from leaf to leaf. Towers built from carefully stacked pebbles, raindfalls like slow-moving pillars of glass, striking the surface with magnificent thuds that send rolling waves through the streets. The locals move with ease, adjusting their footing, laughing softly as the tremorous pass.

The lantern bearer who invited you forward stands at your side, is smaller than you now, though not by much. You are perhaps three puddle people tall, your coat still yours as altered slightly. It's him trimmed neatly as if tailored for this scale. Welcome, he says. You are led along a curved shoreline that is in truth, only the edge of the puddle. Though here it feels vast, houses lean comfortably against smooth stones, windows glow amber.

A group of children pours mid-game to stare openly at you. She's a tall down, one whispers, no corrects another, a shrunk up, an elderly woman seated on a pebble, nods approvingly as you pass. It's been some time, she says, we haven't hosted in three rains. You are brought to the central platform, the heart of the city, where lanterns hang in a ring from bent grass stems. Rain lands heavily around the perimeter, but here in the centre, it feels almost sheltered,

if the falling drops choose to arc gently away. The lantern bearer introduces himself as older driftwood, third of his name in this particular puddle. His ancestors, he explains as he woke, once inhabited, a magnificent cathedral puddle, formed inside a great stone courtyard, where bells rang overhead. They learned to time their building between the tolls. Before that, they lived in a forest hollow, where rain drops fell through pine needles and arrived softer, more fragrant.

Our history, older tells you, guiding you past a row of carefully arranged pebble archives, not measured in years, it is measured in rains. He shows you small discs of pressed leaf stored in neat stacks. Each disc holds the memory of a puddle. When touched, it shimmers faintly and displays a miniature echo of that former world, a market day in a village square, a railway platform at dusk,

a monastery garden, where monks once walked in silence above them. We travel, he says simply, the rain gathers us, the sun releases us, between the two we build. We pass a baker, round and steady, who presses a warm crumb into your hand. It tastes faintly of oats and something bright, like the smell of rain on warm stone. A scholar in a coat stitched from leaf veins causes his writing to examine you with interest.

Two musicians attempt to compose a welcome tune, timed to the rhythm of falling drops. You reach the far edge of the puddle, where the shoreline curves into shadow. There is one more thing you should see, older says. He leads you to a quiet alcove formed by a crescent of stone. There, arranged in a careful semicircle, stand portraits, tiny silhouettes cut from dark seed husks.

Each one represents an ancestor who wants invited a human in. There are not many, they walk among us briefly, older explains. They learn, they remember, and when they return to their size, they carry us with them. The lanterns brighten now, the city glows as though lit from within. You realize, standing there beneath the steady fall of rain,

that you are part of this particular puddle's history now. Another disc will be pressed, another memory stored. The children will one day point and say, that was the rain when the toll down came. Older turns do you gently? When the moment comes, he says, you will feel it. And before you go, there is something you should take with you. He gestures toward the edge of the puddle, where the shoreline curves and shifts with every landing drop.

You live in a world that believes it is permanent, he continues. You build as though the edges will never move. You hurry as though the rain is an inconvenience. But look at us, we build knowing the shoreline will change. We light lanterns, even while the surface trembles. We greet each other properly, because we understand that every gathering is brief.

A rain drop lands nearby, the ground hums. Older waits for the report to pass, before speaking again. We do not mourn the shrinking, he says. We simply build again when the rain returns. That is the whole secret, nothing we make is meant to last forever. The value is not in its staying, it is in the building, in the lighting, in the sharing of crumbs and stories, while the water holds.

He looks at you steadily, you measure your lives in years and milestones. We measure hours in moments when the lanterns glow, and someone stands beside us to see them. That is enough. You will go back to your size, older says. Your roads will seem wide, your worries will feel large. When they do, remember the shoreline, remember that it is always moving. Stand steady when it trembles, light your lantern anyway.

You feel it then, not a push, not a pull, just a gentle whitening. The city begins to feel smaller beneath your feet. The rain, once towering columns, becomes finer, lighter, older space shifts, shrinking as though you were stepping slowly backward through a lens. lanterns glow, one last time at your height. The shoreline draws away.

Your shoes are once again beside the puddle, rain tapping softly against your coat. The city lies beneath the surface, small beyond seeing. Only rings spread outward, where drops continue to fall. You stand for a moment longer. The rain continues, the road stretches ahead, and somewhere beneath the silver surface lanterns are still glowing.

The city begins to feel smaller beneath your feet. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer.

You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer.

You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer.

You stand for a moment longer. You stand for a moment longer.

You stand for a moment longer.

More episodes

The Puddle People | Sleepy Story with Rain Sounds

About this episode

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Full transcript

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