Nature Sounds.ca - Meditation Music

Nature sounds and nature music may be used successfully as a meditational aid. The advantage to using nature sounds is that they contrast substantially to the "normal" urban sounds that the average person now is commonly immersed. Nature sounds are also symbolic and reflective of a simpler state, providing a connection to our primal past before industrialization came along.

Natural sounds can also effectively tap into our personal past experiences of nature and the emotions that those memories evoke, usually feelings of relaxation, vacations, past childhood experiences, etc.

Using Nature Sounds to Mentally "Switch Modes"

As an aid to meditation, nature sounds may be used to signal or train the mind to "switch modes" from attending day to day concerns and worries, to turning the attention inward and finding the calm ever-present center. One of the ways to help achieve this change is to create a soundscape that gradually draws the listener's attention deeper and deeper into the listening experience. This activity creates an auditory allegory to the meditative act of going inward.

The CD "Crickets Calming" is a CD devoted to producing this kind of effect, and an example of this type of nature song is "Freezing Rain". Other natural sound recordings that has this same effect is "Meditation Brook", "Healing Falls", "Medicine Falls Sleep", and "Daybreak on the Kennisis River".

More Information and free samples:

Link to a page in the download section where you can compare different sounds designed for meditation.

The Effects of Nature Sounds

The slow swirls of a flooded creek, or the playful chatter of a babbling brook... the chirping insects, or the singing of birds... listening to the interplay of all the sounds of the natural world has many effects on us. A centering effect, a relaxing effect, and a calming effect.

The sounds also act to create a feeling of space, liberation, and freedom. This feeling evolves into feeling the interplay of the seemingly different elements of creation. At this point, the occurrence of apparently random events suddenly begin to act as a whole, a gestalt, in which we perceive ourselves not as being spectators looking outside from ourselves, but as one participant who is self-observing.

Relaxation or Meditation Music – What is the Difference?

Ideally meditation music will have less "attention grabbing" sounds in it. Also there will be little variation in volume / loudness and tempo. Mediation music is therefore most effective when it is composed of continuous sounds that create an on-going sonic texture. Relaxation music works better if there is "attention holding" sounds of interest that allows the attention to focus on something exterior to the mind.