I either read it in a Buddhist book or in an Ekhard Tolle book.

At night before you go to sleep, try and see how long you can go without thinking a thought. The longer you can get the better.

Sometimes I just sits.

is going to come from you will stop thinking. It is such a relief.

If when I lay down, close my eyes and see patterns with a lot of black stripes. Then I start having faint audio hallucinations. As the patterns shift, I listen to the audio. And I sleep.

Not sure if it's the same as not thinking, but it gets me where I want to be!

Learned recently you can have audio hallucinations, as well as visual. I have a fan on when I sleep, and I remember hearing similar noise before I ever took sleeping pills.
What I hear now sounds like sports commentary on a radio. Go figure.

I have audio hallucinations whenever a fan is running.

I've just recently heard about this phenomenon, and there is a reason for it.

Sometimes when a fan is running, I hear the most BEAUTIFUL music...it is not something I have heard before...it's like I'm composing it. Sometimes I hear people talking to me.

It's normal. Here's an interesting article:

https://thedebrief.org/auditory-pareidolia-the-voices-in-your-head-may-have-a-rational-explanation/

I sometimes wish that I was a musician, so I could replicate these songs via musical notation...but alas...once I no longer hear the fan, they are gone for good.

Called it Fan Music. What i heard those 40 years ago was beautiful and I wished it was real. I'm so glad you mentioned your experience.
I'm heading for bed, but I'll check the link you posted tomorrow.
Sweet dreams!

This happens to me almost every night.
I run a fan to keep me cool,
plus a white noise machine to try to drown out the idiot neighbors who live next door to me.

I don't know how many times I have gotten up in the middle of the night, and turned off the fan or the white noise machine, to see if I could hear the noise that I absolutely knew I was hearing. It was either music, people talking, or the sound of someone pounding on something, like hammering a piece of wood. Of course there's nothing there when I turn off the fan and the noise machine.

Now I know I can roll over and go back to sleep!

Now, I look forward to it!

The music that I hear is amazing! And the voices are interesting because they are so random...sounds like a conversation of many people.

Pretty cool stuff!

It worked for me at a stressful job for many years. I played it softly from my computer and when I retired, a co-worker came over to me to ask if he could have the URL so he could continue it when I was gone.

It calmed my soul and still does. Soooooooooooo soothing. Like velvet for the soul.

That track has been a soothing background for MANY MANY hours in my life. At six hours- and so unobtrusive, it's like a light feathered sound massage.

Amen, Donkees.