Calm is a meditation app whose Sleep Stories are billed as “bedtime tales for grown-ups.” They launched in 2018 and since then have brought in a host of famous voices — LeBron James, Laura Dern, Matthew McConaughey, and more — to soothe you to sleep. Jerome Flynn (of Game of Thrones game) gives an audio tour of New Zealand that I’ve heard works wonders, and Audible recently released its own version of a Sleep Story hosted by Diddy, which my colleague Amanda Arnold said led her into “one of the most serene, euphoric states I have ever experienced.”
Now Calm has truly outdone itself with the introduction of a new sleepy-time tale, this time hosted by the baby-smooth vocals of Harry Styles. “Dream With Me” is a 30-minute story narrated by the singer, who said in a press release that he is “so happy to be collaborating with Calm at a time when the world needs all the healing it can get.”
I have never tried a sleep story. I like the Headspace visualization where the Headspace guy, whose voice has coaxed me to the very cusp of a coma, invites you to “shut down” different parts of your body. I do wonder if these stories work, and if they are effective, if Harry Styles’ voice is the proper fit for one. I simply wouldn’t describe it as being “sedative,” probably “electrifying” or “titillating” is more accurate. And what could “Dream With Me” possibly refer to? Certainly, Styles inviting me to do anything at all with him would not put me in the right state of mind for sleeping, however soothing the activity.
But to be honest with you, a billion meditation apps and weighted blankets and chamomile teas could not, in our present reality, get me anywhere close to feeling calm. So thank you, Harry, for trying.