Relaxing Soundscapes, Bedtime Stories & Calming Readings
Welcome to The Sleep Retreat, a sleep podcast designed to help you unwind, relax, and fall asleep naturally. Each episode blends calming bedtime stories, soothing sleep soundscapes, and gentle narration to support a peaceful bedtime routine. From quiet nighttime drives and cozy campers to calm coastal harbors, these relaxing sounds and calming stories create a tranquil space to let go of the day. Choose a soundscape, ease into an original bedtime story with soft breathing cues, continue with a gentle reading, or simply drift off to sleep sounds alone. Stories and narration by James Wolner.
Unwind, relax, and fall asleep.
Listen to The Sleep Retreat podcast here or wherever you get podcasts. Including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, & YouTube.
Latest Episodes
How This Sleep Podcast Helps You Fall Asleep
Start with a gentle bedtime story to calm your thoughts. Let relaxing soundscapes slow your breathing. Continue with a soft reading or drift off to sleep sounds alone. The Sleep Retreat is designed to help you unwind, relax, and fall asleep naturally.
About the Creator
The Sleep Retreat is created and hosted by Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and podcaster James Wolner, known for Dakota Spotlight. Drawing on years of storytelling and sound design, he created this podcast to help listeners unwind and fall asleep.
Listen to The Sleep Retreat podcast here or wherever you get podcasts. Including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, & YouTube.
Three Dreamy Soundscapes to Guide You Into Sleep
Nostalgic. Warm. Peaceful.
The hum of the engine, on a quiet highway at night. Let the soft sounds of The Ride Home lull you into restful sleep.
Listen to The Ride Home
Breeze. Sun. Stillness.
Distant gulls, soft ship horns, and the hush of a quiet porch. Let the sounds of Gull Harbor ease you into sleep.
Listen to Gull Harbor
Mountains. Rain. Rest.
Rain patters on the roof, thunder rumbles beyond the mountain lake, and comfort surrounds you. Drift off with Cozy Camper.
Listen to Cozy Camper
Listen to The Sleep Retreat podcast here or wherever you get podcasts. Including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, & YouTube.
Ease into Sleep with Classic and Historical Readings on AM Radio
British Report on the Loss of the Titanic
The formal language of the 1912 British inquiry into the Titanic unfolds in a calm, measured reading that preserves its quiet detail and dignity.
Listen to the Titanic Inquiry
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Timeless Stories
Reflections of home, nature, and timeless allegories unfold gently in these classic tales, read softly to guide you into peaceful sleep.
Listen to Hawthorne’s calming stories
Christopher Columbus – First Voyage
Columbus’s journal drifts across the sea in quiet detail, sharing awe, hardship, and discovery to ease you gently toward sleep.
Listen to Columbus’s journal entries
Oscar Wilde – Classic Tales
Oscar Wilde’s gentle fables of kindness, sacrifice, and quiet transformation unfold slowly, offering a calming path into rest and sleep.
Listen to Wilde’s classic tales
Mark Twain – Short Stories
Three short stories by Mark Twain—one humorous, one heartfelt, one delightfully satirical—blending wit, empathy, and quiet insight.
Listen to Twain’s short stories
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Nature
A two-part reading of Emerson’s Nature. Reflect on how the natural world restores, inspires, and connects us to something deeper.
Listen to Emerson’s essay
The Warren Commission Report
A four-part reading from the Warren Commission Report. Explore the events of November 22, 1963—and the hours that followed.