To The Lighthouse (Part Two) | Bedtime Story with Sleep Hypnosis

Summary

Sleep Magic: Sleep Hypnosis & Meditation for Sleep Podcast

Episode: To The Lighthouse (Part Two) | Bedtime Story with Sleep Hypnosis
Host: Jessica Porter
Date: April 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode invites listeners to relax and drift into sleep through literary hypnosis, meditation, and the gentle rhythms of Virginia Woolf’s prose. Jessica Porter weaves together a hypnotic induction and a bedtime reading from To the Lighthouse, focusing on the quiet complexities of human consciousness, connection, and the search for meaning and rest. The episode is both a tribute to Woolf’s beautiful writing and a practical guide for easing into restful sleep.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Virginia Woolf & the Sleep Magic Approach

• [01:21] Jessica Porter introduces To the Lighthouse as more than just a story about a family’s summer life—it's a deep exploration of inner realities.
• The story’s hypnotic, dream-like quality is highlighted as particularly “sleep-friendly”:

  “Her stories are waking dreams, written by a genius... who speaks for all of us. She captured human consciousness.” (Jessica Porter, [03:07])

• Insight: Certain stories soothe not because they are dull, but because their language and rhythm induce a state similar to waking dreams.

2. Guided Sleep Induction

• [06:15] Transition into sleep hypnosis begins with gentle prompts:
  • Listeners are encouraged to close their eyes, relax, and give themselves permission to let go.

    “Just give yourself permission. Maybe even saying to yourself in your mind, yes to letting go.” ([06:44])

  • Jessica addresses the relationship between mind and body, and the conscious act of surrendering at the end of the day.
• [07:50–13:10] Progressive muscle relaxation:
  • Listeners visualize a heavy, sleepy sensation starting at the eyelids and spreading through the body—face, jaw, neck, arms, chest, and “the three brains” (brain, heart, gut).
  • Notable technique: Pretending can be powerful; participants imagine their eyelids are so heavy that they cannot open them.

    “Pretending is powerful.” ([08:24])

• [14:06] Expansion into the “rich, deep, powerful inner world,” softening the organs and tuning into bodily sensations.
• The induction is gentle and rhythmic, using repetition and suggestive language to lead listeners into deeper relaxation.

3. Bedtime Story — To the Lighthouse

Focused Reading: Lily Briscoe’s Reflections

• [18:50–29:08]
  • The narrative delves into the complexities of seeing and loving others, especially through Lily’s thoughts about Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Banks.
  • Jessica/Reader emphasizes Woolf’s poetic insights on perception and emotional connection:

    “What she called being in love flooded them. They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the

Transcript

[Jessica Porter]

Hi, I'm Jessica Porter and welcome back to Sleep Magic, a podcast where I help you find the magic of your own mind, helping you to sleep better and live better. Thank you all for being here. Before we begin tonight, I want to give out two shout outs. The first one is to Joan, who lets us know that she's been in Mexico about a month longer than she planned for a family challenge, and it's been really stressful. So Sleep Magic has been helping her sleep, and I'm so grateful for that. Thank you for letting us know and we're sending good vibes to your family and to Eric Mussome on Spotify, who is a listener and a commenter, and I want to give him a special shout out tonight. Thank you, Eric, and I hope you're doing well. All right tonight. To the Lighthouse by Virginia woolf

[Narrator/Guide]

written

[Jessica Porter]

in 1927 by Virginia Woolf, to the Lighthouse is about the inner lives of a family and their guests over time, centered around their stays at a summer

[Narrator/Guide]

house by the sea.

[Jessica Porter]

I mean, that's technically the quote plot

[Narrator/Guide]

unquote, but really it's about so much more than that.

[Jessica Porter]

Through the perspectives of the three main characters, Mrs. Ramsay, her husband, Mr. Ramsay, and the painter Lily Briscoe, Virginia Woolf explores how people perceive one another, how

[Narrator/Guide]

moments of connection and meaning arise and pass,

[Jessica Porter]

and how time reshapes everything.

[Narrator/Guide]

It's a quiet, beautiful exploration of life itself.

[Jessica Porter]

When I started reading from books for Sleep Magic about three years ago, the first thing I read from was to the Lighthouse, just as I will be tonight. And having read from so many books in the interim, I've really become sensitive to their rhythms and voices and whether a story has a lulling quality or is more high drama. Now, obviously, some writers are more sleep friendly than others, but not because they're boring, but because there's a certain hypnotic quality to the writing. And I think of everything I've read so far. Virginia Woolf's works contain that essence more than any others. Her stories are waking dreams, written by a genius who happened to be a woman with the rare courage at the time to speak her mind about both the world at large and the inner narrative running through her. And by doing so, she speaks for all of us. She captured human consciousness. So as I read tonight, just tune in with her rhythms and images and the dreamy quality she captures as she crawls into our minds. Before we begin our only ad break which makes this magic possible. To listen ad free, follow the link in the show notes.

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[Narrator/Guide]

So glad the Saja boys could take

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breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.

[Narrator/Guide]

It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor.

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No, really stop.

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[Jessica Porter]

and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. Now get yourself into a safe and comfortable position and let's begin.

[Narrator/Guide]

Allow your eyes to close easily and gently.

Welcome to your body. To the night.

To this time

of letting go. Just give yourself permission.

[Jessica Porter]

Maybe even saying to yourself in your

[Narrator/Guide]

mind, yes

to letting go. Yes.

You are constantly in relationship with your body.

You are constantly in relationship with your mind. And at the end of the day,

literally and figuratively,

you decide to let go. Just say yes.

As you bring your awareness now to your eyelids.

I'd like you to imagine that your

eyelids are feeling sleepy, heavy. Maybe they are actually sleepy and heavy.

But even if they're not, just pretend that they are.

And as you allow this heaviness, this sleepiness, to take over your eyelids, I'm

making the suggestion that your eyelids are

so heavy and sleepy that they simply won't open. So, accepting the suggestion that your eyelids will not open, I want you to test them by wiggling your eyebrows while your eyes remain closed. And this is trickery. This is fakery. You're pretending. But pretending is powerful. So wiggle your eyebrows. Good. Now, this lovely, heavy, sleepy feeling around your eyes. Oh, you will soon have this feeling throughout your entire body as it seeps back into your head. Now, that warm, heavy feeling flowing back into your brain. Just say yes to your brain being taken over by this lovely, warm, soothing, relaxing feeling.

Good.

As your head feels very, very heavy on the pillow,

let it be heavy,

like a rock.

Good. And now your face is letting go.

Your face is softening, relaxing, resting. Maybe your jaw relaxes and drops. Your forehead softening, smoothing. That feels nice. And now this warm, relaxed feeling

is

moving down, down through your neck. The muscles of your neck are letting go. Their work is over for now. The bed is holding your head. The bed is holding your body. So you can let go as you

take yourself deeper

and deeper. And if you've been practicing with me for a while, your body is already flooding itself with relaxation, moving down through your shoulders, down your arms. Allow your arms to feel this lovely heaviness, this lovely, sleepy relaxation as you imagine the heaviness moving all the way down into your hands, into your fingers. Your arms are relaxing now because

their day is done.

They're on vacation. As that wonderful, warm feeling is moving down now inside your chest,

Just imagine

it pouring in like a beautiful, soft mist entering your chest cavity, softening and expanding and opening your inner world. We have bodies, and we use our hands, our arms, our feet, our legs.

We look at the outside of our

bodies,

But we have a rich, deep,

powerful

inner world

inside our torsos. We've talked about it as the three brains. Between our brain in our head, the brain in our heart and the brain in our gut. This has also been called the viscera, this internal, sensitive,

vital tuning fork, Our inner world.

So as this relaxation moves down into your chest and softens you from the inside. And as it moves down now to the middle of your torso, softening from the inside, allow it to move down now deep into your belly.

Just imagining this lovely mist,

softening, relaxing and opening you on the inside

as

the muscles you may hold during the

day in your belly are letting go and your breath drops deeper into your body. And you're being present to yourself in a new way,

In a soft and gentle way. As you go deeper and deeper. And that warm relaxed feeling is moving down your legs, that lovely heavy warm feeling moving down your thighs and your calves into your feet and your toes, And as you go deeper and deeper, everything letting go, any sounds that you may hear going on around you

will take you deeper and deeper

into relaxation. As the sound of my voice

is

also taking you deeper and deeper. As you drift.

And float. And dream.

On your own personal voyage tonight. Part One the Window

Lily Briscoe went

on, putting away her brushes, looking up, looking down, looking up. There he was, Mr. Ramsay advancing towards them, swinging, careless, oblivious, remote,

A bit of a hypocrite, she repeated.

Oh no, the most sincere of men, the truest. Here he was the best. But looking down, she thought,

he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical, he is unjust,

and kept looking down purposely

for only so could she keep steady

staying with the Ramses.

Directly one looked up and saw them. What she called being in love flooded them. They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the

world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them, the birds

sang through them,

and what was even more exciting she felt too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and

the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up and threw one down with it there with a dash on the beach.

Mr. Banks expected her to answer, and she was about to say something criticizing Mrs. Ramsay, how she was alarming too, in her way, high handed, or words to that effect, when Mr. Banks made

it entirely unnecessary for her to speak by his rapture,

[Jessica Porter]

for such it was,

[Narrator/Guide]

considering his age turned 60, and his cleanliness and his impersonality and the white scientific coat which seemed to clothe him, for him to gaze as Lily saw him.

Gazing at Mrs. Ramsay, was a rapture equivalent, Lily felt, to the loves of

dozens of young men, and perhaps Mrs.

Ramsay had never excited the loves of dozens of young men.

It was love, she thought, pretending to move her canvas, distilled and filtered

love

that never attempted to clutch its object. But like the love which mathematicians bear, their symbols or poets, their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain. So it was indeed the World, by all means, should have shared it.

Could Mr. Banks have said why that woman pleased him so?

Why the sight of her reading a

fairy tale to her boy had upon

him precisely the same effect as the solution of a scientific problem. So that he rested in contemplation of

it and felt as he felt when he had proved something absolutely about the digestive system of plants.

That barbarity was tamed, the reign of chaos subdued.

Such a rapture, for by what other name could one call it,

made Lily

Briscoe forget entirely what she had been about to say. It was nothing of importance. Something about Mrs. Ramsay.

It paled beside this rapture, this silent stare for which she felt intense gratitude. For nothing so solaced her, eased her

of the perplexity of life, and miraculously raised its burdens

as this sublime power, this heavenly gift. And one would no more disturb it while it lasted than break up the shaft of sunlight lying level across the floor. That people should love like this, that Mr. Banks should feel this for Mrs. Ramsay.

She glanced at him. Musing

was helpful, was exalting. She wiped one brush after another upon

a piece of old rag. Menially, on purpose,

she took shelter from

the reverence which covered all women.

She felt herself praised, let him gaze. She would steal a look at her picture. She could have wept.

It was bad. It was bad. It was infinitely bad. She could have done it differently, of course. The colors could have been thinned and

faded, the shapes etherealized.

[Jessica Porter]

That was how Paunceford would have seen it.

[Narrator/Guide]

But then she did not see it like that. She saw the color burning on a

framework of steel,

the light of a butterfly's wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral. Of all that, only a few random marks scrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen, never be hung, even.

And there was Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear.

Women can't paint, women can't write. She now remembered what she'd been going

to say about Mrs. Ramsay.

She did not know how she would have put it, but it would have been something critical.

She had been annoyed the other night by some high handedness.

Looking along the level of Mr. Banks glance at her, she thought that no woman could worship another woman in the way he worshiped. They could only seek shelter under the

shade which Mr. Banks extended over them both.

Looking along his beam, she added to it her different ray, thinking that she

was unquestionably the loveliest of people, Bowed over her book.

The best, perhaps, but also different too, from the perfect shape which one saw There. But why different? And how different? She asked herself, scraping her palette of

all those mounds of blue and green

which seemed to her like clods with no life in them now. Yet she vowed she would inspire them, force them to move, flow, do her bidding tomorrow. How did she differ? What was the spirit in her, the essential thing by which? Had you found a crumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it from its twisted finger, hers indisputably. She was like a bird for speed, an arrow for directness.

She was willful, she was commanding. Of course, Lily reminded herself, I am thinking of her relations with women, and I am much younger, an insignificant person living off the Brompton Road.

She opened bedroom windows, she shut doors. So she tried to start the tune of Mrs. Ramsay in her head,

arriving

late at night with a little tap

on one's bedroom door, wrapped in an

old fur coat, for the setting of her beauty was always that hasty but apt. She would enact again, whatever it might be. Charles Tansley losing his umbrella, Mr. Carmichael

snuffling and sniffing, Mr. Banks saying the vegetable salts are lost.

All this she would adroitly shape, even maliciously twist, and moving over to the

window in pretense that she must go.

It was dawn, she could see the sun rising, half turned back more intimately,

but still all was laughing.

Insist that she must, minta must, they all must marry, since in the whole world whatever love florals might be tossed to her.

But Mrs. Ramsay cared not a fig

for her painting or triumphs won by her.

Probably Mrs. Ramsay had her share of those.

And here she saddened, darkened, and came

back to her chair. There could be no disputing this,

an unmarried woman.

She lightly took her hand for a moment.

An unmarried woman has missed the best of life.

The house seemed full of children sleeping and Mrs. Ramsay listening,

shaded lights

and regular breathing.

Oh, but Lily would say, there was her father, her home, even had she dared to say it, her painting. But all this seems so little, so virginal against the other. Yet as the night wore on and the white lights parted the curtains, and even now and then some bird chirped in the garden. Gathering a desperate courage, she would urge

her own exemption from the universal law, plead for it.

She liked to be alone, she liked to be herself. She was not made for that. And so have to meet a serious stare from eyes of unparalleled depth and confront Mrs. Ramsay's simple certainty.

And she was childlike now that her

dear Lily, her little brisk, was a fool. Then she remembered she had laid her

head on Mrs. Ramsey's lips lap and

laughed and laughed and laughed, laughed almost

hysterically at the thought of Mrs. Ramsay presiding with immutable calm over destinies which she completely failed to understand.

There she sat, simple, serious. She had recovered her sense of her now. This was the glove's twisted finger. But into what sanctuary had one penetrated? Lily Briscoe had looked up last.

And there was Mrs. Ramsay, unwitting entirely

what had caused her laughter, still presiding, but now with every trace of willfulness abolished. And in its stead something clear as the space which the clouds at last uncover, the little space of sky which sleeps beside the moon. Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it once more the deceptiveness of beauty, so that all one's perceptions halfway to truth were tangled in a golden mesh? Or did she lock up within her some secret which certainly Lily Briscoe believed

people must have for the world to

go on at all?

Everyone could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as she was.

But if they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsey's knees, close as she could get,

smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure.

She imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who. Who was physically touching her were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions which, if one could spell them out, would teach one everything. But they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there known to love or cunning by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same one with the object one adored,

could the

body achieve, or the mind subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and. And Mrs. Ramsay won? For it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning

her head on Mrs. Ramsey's knee.

Nothing happened, nothing, nothing. As she leant her head against Mrs. Ramsay's knee. And yet she knew knowledge and wisdom

were stored up in Mrs. Ramsay's heart.

How then, she'd asked herself, did one know one thing or another about people, sealed as they were, Only like a bee, Drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air, intangible to touch or taste? One haunted the dome shaped hive, Ranged the wastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, And then haunted the hives

with their murmurs and their stirrings.

The hives. Which were people.

Misses ramsay rose. Lily rose. Misses ramsay went.

For days they're hung about her

as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the person one has dreamt of.

More vividly than anything she said, The sound of murmuring.

And.

As she sat in the wicker armchair in the drawing room window now, She wore to Lily's eyes an august shape, The shape

of a dome. It. It.