Why Do We Fall Asleep to the Sounds of Terror?

When I was younger, I used to fall asleep to Seinfeld every night.

I vividly remember lying there listening to the intro music, the dialogue, and eventually the outro music while trying to finally catch some Z’s.

At first, it was comforting.

Then life got a little more hectic.

And somehow, those same sounds started working against me.

I would hear the outro music once.

Then again.

Then a third time.

And suddenly my brain would do the math for me.

Three episodes. Roughly an hour and a half. And I’m still awake.

The show itself wasn’t making me anxious. The structure was.

Every opening theme and every closing theme became a tiny clock reminding me how much time had passed while I was failing to sleep.

So I made the conscious decision to switch things up.

I tried shows with less recognizable intros and outros. Things that wouldn’t constantly announce where I was in the night.

Nothing really worked.

Even with the television turned extremely low and the rest of the room completely dark, I would periodically glance at the screen and realize I had somehow burned through half a season in one night’s failed attempt to sleep.

Eventually, I knew I needed another change.

And then, like lightning striking the pinnacle of a skyscraper, it came to me.

Horror movies are my favorite thing to watch. Why not try those?

So I did.

It started with Halloween.

And somehow, the melancholy atmosphere, Carpenter’s score, the darkness of Haddonfield and the deliberate pacing worked wonders.

I mean that in the best possible way.

I would usually make it a little past Michael escaping Smith’s Grove and then—

Gone.

Dreamland.

Eventually Halloween turned into Halloween II.

Then Sinister.

Then The Blair Witch Project.

And the strangest thing happened.

The creep factor started to lull me to sleep.

Granted, as a horror connoisseur, none of these movies are particularly likely to keep me awake anymore. But I still find it fascinating that films designed to create dread somehow became a kind of safety blanket.

They give off cozy vibes.

Yes.

Cozy horror.

The screen is dark enough.

The atmosphere is gritty enough.

The music is ominous without necessarily being intrusive.

And when you’ve seen the movie enough times, there is no uncertainty left.

You know what’s coming.

You know when Michael appears.

You know when something moves in the background.

You know what happens in that attic, that basement, those woods.

It becomes almost like listening to a horrific bedtime story.

Why Are Horror Fans Like This?

Why can simulated terror become relaxing?

Why can an atmosphere designed to make somebody uncomfortable become the exact atmosphere another person needs to finally shut their brain off?

There are probably several explanations.

Familiarity may be part of it.

When you have watched a horror movie dozens of times, the threat is no longer truly unpredictable. The movie may still look and sound frightening, but your brain already knows the path.

There is no mystery left to solve.

No surprise waiting around the corner.

That can make something objectively dark feel strangely safe.

There may also be something appealing about controlled fear.

Real anxiety is messy.

Your mind can jump from work, to money, to relationships, to tomorrow, to something stupid you said twelve years ago in about six seconds.

A horror movie gives that anxious energy somewhere specific to go.

There is a killer.

There is a haunted house.

There is something in the woods.

The dread has boundaries.

And unlike the worries bouncing around inside your head, the movie ends.

Maybe horror gives the nervous system something artificial and predictable to focus on while everything else finally quiets down.

Or maybe we horror fans are simply broken in a very specific and entertaining way.

I’m willing to consider both possibilities.

What I do know is this:

I don’t have nightmares from it.

I don’t wake up terrified.

Quite the opposite.

There is something serene about that simulated dread.

The shadows.

The low music.

The rain.

The empty streets.

The feeling that something terrible is nearby—but safely trapped inside the television.

For me, that sensation can crank relaxation all the way up to ten.

So maybe it’s brain chemistry.

Maybe it’s familiarity.

Maybe it’s dopamine.

Maybe it’s simply the comfort of returning to something you love.

Whatever the answer is, horror has become one of the strangest sleep aids imaginable.

So the next time you’re lying in bed, tossing around while your mind runs a marathon without your permission...

Maybe skip the sitcom.

Turn the lights off.

Put on something dark.

And let yourself drift away to the sounds of terror.

Just make sure you don’t wake up wandering The Dark Hall alone.
— The Monitor