Ryan McNeil
Alright folks…just how nuts am I?
Some nights to help me fall asleep, I’ll turn on my iPod and put my earbuds in. (Fletch – Take a note, I don’t always have to use big “doufy” headphones). That’s not the nutty part, since I’d wager at least a handful of you listen to something to help you nod off. The slightly loopy bit is what I listen to: movies.
Yes indeed, to help me drift off to never-never-land, I close my eyes and listen to the audio of some of my favorite movies. I don’t watch a frame of them, in fact the iPod gets put face-down to avoid the LED lighting up the whole darned boudoir. Every movie I’m listening to I’ve seen before, a few dozen times usually, so in my head I can fill in the visual. Essentially, I’m just listening to someone tell me a bedtime story.
Now that alone might seem a little strange, if it isn’t consider that I’m usually out within fifteen minutes of turning this little trick. However the oddity of the situation might well be enhanced when you consider what movies are loaded on to my iPod: THE DARK KNIGHT, THE HURT LOCKER, STAR TREK, IRON MAN, OUT OF SIGHT, FIGHT CLUB, and THE DEPARTED. Yeah I know – who needs “Goodnight Moon” when you can listen to jack Foley break out of prison.
So – how nuts am I? Please folks, tell me I’m not the only one who practices such nerdiness.
If I did that I'd never be able to break myself from hoping up, watching, and staying up 3 hours just because. I have a bad habit of getting in the mood to watch a movie in a hurry.
I use my imagination to fall asleep. I just sit there thinking of whatever weird things I can, immerse myself in that story, fall asleep, forget all about it the next day. Probably why I've never written a book….. can't remember my stories!
As for your nuttiness. I'll go for a 6 on a 10 scale. It's odd, sure, but hardly insane. Now if you did it while wearing a batman costume, and forced your wife to punch you in the face before sleep… well, then you might have a problem.
Univarn's right. It's weird, but not insane. You are the only one who practices that particular brand of nerdiness, but I've got enough weird practices of my own. I used to sleep to the Broadway Album Assassins which was essentially a play about the various assassins of American presidents.
"Hey pal feeling blue, don't know what to do? Come on and kill a president." Nothing says sweet dreams like murder.
I can dig that. I remember in middle school my friend recorded the entire audio of the first Austin Powers onto a cassette and I thought it was cool as hell. I think I'll stick to regular old music on my iPod, but I can dig it.
I listen to music (radio, cd or ipod) but not with headphones, I hate the things. Speakers are the way to go. As for putting movies onto my ipod I only have 30GB and that’s virtually full with about 6,000 songs!
Hmmm…I don't think its that nuts to fall asleep to the sound of your favorite movies…but the choice of movies you have listed does sound a bit wacky since they are all action movies. How can you fall asleep to all that shooting and things blowing up noise?
Personally, I enjoyed listening to movie soundtracks a lot so this doesn't seem all that odd to me. I should try that if I have a hard time falling asleep 🙂
I've never done it via headphones/iPod, but I can fall asleep to anything while watching the dvd if it's late at night and/or I'm too exhausted. I just listen to music at bed time, but only if my husband's alseep on the couch (not because he's in trouble, but because he just fell asleep there) or not home.
Of course my sleeping to these movies isn't intentional as I fully planned on watching them in their entirety, so the practice of purposefully doing so is a bit odd, but certainly not insane. I think you're more insane for taking so many heavy/depressing films to a desert island;)
@ Univar… 6/10 eh? I can live with that. I do have other methods of nodding off if I'm feeling restless, one of my favorites is naming Best Picture winners in reverse-chronological order (stop judging me).
@ Andrew… Assassins you say? What happened, did you find "Sweeney Todd" too chipper?
@ Aiden… Interesting, you're the second person I've heard mention an audio recording of a movie lately. One of the guests on the /Filmcast talked about nodding off to the first 45 minutes of STAR WARS Ep. IV as a kid.
Never thought to try that when I was younger…now I feel like I missed out.
@ Number Six… I prefer to listen to things out loud (those earbuds hurt after a while), but Lady Hatter's a slight insomniac and doesn't approve of such racket.
@ Vanessa… Depends on how sleepy I am, sometimes I just start 'em up and nod off no problem. Other times I am awoken by sudden bursts of gunfire (THE DEPARTED and OUT OF SIGHT seem to be the worst for this). Then again, I've slept through a hurricane.
@ Castor… Give it a go and blog how well it work out for ya!
@ Rachel… I still stand by my desert island choices. I hate falling asleep while I'm trying to concentrate on something I haven't seen before – foreign films especially do this too me.
Interestingly, the only film I own that I can't fall asleep watching? THE RING – too many screwed up sounds in the audio of that movie. My brain starts filling in blanks in disturbing ways and it wakes me back up in a hurry.
It's not something I've ever heard of, but I think it's pretty friggin' fantastic!
mad hatter I don't know. i know it's weird, but Assassins always puts me in a good mood. I don't know what that suggests about my mental state.
I do the same thing most nights, but I switch between movies and tv shows that I've seen a thousand times. I can't fall asleep without them.
Excellent madness.
That's not weird at all, unless it's a foreign film…or animated…or silent…or The Triplets of Belleville…
@ Daniel… If you think the sound of it is pretty friggin' fantastic, you should try it!
@ Andrew… It doesn't say anything worse about your mental state than my desert island movies said about my own mental state. It's all good. Besides, I'm pretty sure Lady Hatter nods off to a showtune or two (SPRING AWAKENING perhaps?)
@ Blake… Oh there's TV shows on my iPod too (her name is Lois Lane btw). Two or three of my own favorite episodes of shows like The Office, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, and all three acts of Dr. Horrible
@ Simon… Interesting icon you have there. I don't have Triplets on there, but I do have WALL-E. Is that as bad, better, or worse?
Ha! Yes it's kinda odd, but in an endearing kind of way. I too sometimes like listening to the dialog of my favorite movies, as when I'm in the office I can't exactly watch 'em as I'm working, but I can just listen to clips of 'em on youtube. Most recently I did that with the ending scenes of The New World and the Bond/Vesper banter in Casino Royale (never grow tired of those). TDK and Iron Man certainly have great conversations to simply listen to. Sometimes those can be just as great as the soundtrack!
I would totally do this. Sometimes when I'm doing busy work, I will listen to movie trailers, so it's kind of a similar thing.
How are you able to get these audios on the iPod?
First I hear about you watching doom and gloom movies to cheer yourself up, and now this!
You are truly mad.
Question: doesn't this drain your iPod?
Oh, and good news on the headphones. Actually, some night I, in fact, fall asleep with giant headphones on, but those are the ones that are plugged into the TV so that I can watch movies/TV without keeping the wife awake.
@ RTM… Yeah, you get the idea! usually when I decide to plug in and listen to one of these movies I'll queue it up to a particular spot I enjoy listening to (In ALMOST FAMOUS for instance, I push it to the introduction of Lester Bangs).
@ Danny… What I listen to isn't just the audio track – the movie itself is loaded on my iPod (either by using the digital copy that comes with many DVD's now, or a program I have that rips DVD's into an MP4). I'm just not watching the video as it plays.
@ Fletch… Yes! Another minion in the large headphone nation!!! Welcome to the dark side amigo. Next thing you know you'll be wearing 'em out in public.
Doesn't drain my battery too badly, certainly not so bad that I can't listen to music or podcasts on the morning commute the next day and charge the iPod when I get to my desk.
Hadn't thought of listening to movies, cool idea. Think will stick to music to help me sleep though…
I listen to podcasts to help myself fall asleep. It usually means I miss the last parts because I've already dozed off, but I always make sure to listen to the last parts on another day.
Okay, I get it now. Thanks for clearing that up.