As winter fades into memory in the northern hemisphere, many breathe sighs of relief, looking forward to longer days and the warmth of the sun inviting time spent outside. But some are not so excited, hanging on to the wisps of winter with its long cold nights.

This episode is about the only mammal that can fly, one that's reviled, but actually pretty darned gentle, unlike in the vampire stories that sprung up around it. But it's also about the dogged man who's been working on saving them for the the last 65 years.

There's a lot to be sad, stressed and upset about in the world right now. It's important to give those things our focus and attention and action, but we also need to take the time to appreciate the world around us - the precious, beautiful, strange planet we call home.  There are gifts to be discovered in the darkness.

Today is the winter solstice in the North hemisphere - the longest night of the year. What better time to gather with a group of strangers and walk through the glowing streets of the Mission District in San Francisco, carrying boomboxes and speakers, creating something unique and beautiful together.

What leads a 21-year-old to leave the college of her dreams and travel clear across the country to live off grid, in the middle of a vast barren desert, surrounded by art made from trash? The answer is East Jesus.

In 2013, Ben Davis had the crazy idea to light up the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for it's 75th birthday, and turn it into a nightly art installation. Ten years later, the Bay Lights went dark, but Davis' mission is brighter than ever.

The U.S. Forest Service defines wilderness as having "outstanding opportunities for solitude". When Adam Danielson summited Mount Shasta he got more solitude than he would ever want.

Many sighted people envision being blind as inhabiting an endless night, but the realities of blindness are often much richer and more varied. Andrew Leland offers glimpses from the Country of the Blind.

Whether it's to hear live music, to hang out, or to hook up, bars and clubs are a big part of nightlife for a lot of people. But going out to a bar is not without risk, particularly for women, LGBTQ and non-binary people.

Until fairly recently, there was no distinct focus on the archeology of the night. Lacking a specific nighttime lens through which to view relics from the past, archeologists had been missing an opportunity to capture a whole complete portrait of ancient people's lives. It was kind of like painting a picture and filling in only half the canvas.

An unexplained sound at night is like an actor on a stage, or a mystical beast drawing power from the moon. Without all the other noise competing for attention, sound at night stands out, it travels farther, it bends and shimmers in unexpected ways. It can tantalize, mesmerize, terrify or downright destroy you in irritation.  At the very least it can capture the imagination.

Christina Gil began her career as an architect in Columbia. As she worked and traveled, she started thinking about how lighting could be part of the solution to making cities safer and more inviting, specifically for women at night.  An idea began to take form for a project, an initiative really - called The Nightttime Traveller. The mission of the Night-time traveler project would be to explore urban night design from a women's perspective.

In most major urban and suburban areas in the U.S., it's easy to take for granted that the streets are for cars - that's just the way it is almost all the time. That's what we expect to see and experience, day and night.

So, when you come across a road taken over by joyful people on bicycles, with cars stuck on the sidelines, it's kind of a delightful spectacle.  In fact, around where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, that's called a bike party.

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In a world where the nutritional needs of sex workers is not given much consideration, Nikeisah Newton feeds strippers the most scrumptous healthy things she can think of. And she delivers.

From tree surfing to sleeping in trees, Peter Jenkins has done it all. And he's spent more than half his life teaching others how to do it, too.

There are some experiences that, while wonderful at any time, are amplified in their wonderfulness when they happen at night. This is one of them.

Dreams are often thought of as windows into the unconscious mind. Charles Mcphee made a career of interpreting people's dreams on the radio as "The Dream Doctor".  When Rachel discovered the show as a kid, it became a different kind of window - offering strange and surprising insight into the world of adults.

Monte Rio is a tiny peaceful Northern California town, nestled in a hilly forest of redwoods, beside a river. Who’s starting all the fires?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it would feel like to take a long walk through a dark dark night, without fear. So, I decided to take myself on a walk like that, with you. This night feels strange and different. The darkness and the glittering bits of light are not as they usually appear, how they usually feel.

You won't find the word "Tenebrisology" in the dictionary - yet. It means, "the study of natural darkness", and it was created by Jane Slade. Her work in the lighting industry woke her up to the darkness we're all missing, and her mission to bring it back.

I rarely talk about the fact that I pretty much always feel hyperaware, if not nervous, when I'm out alone at night. I'm embarrassed to admit that. But I'm not alone. Hannah Drake asked the question, "What would you do out at night if you weren't afraid?", and the answers were illuminating.

Amanda and her husband went out on a guided nighttime kayaking tour for their anniversary. What they'd hoped would be a relaxing, romantic excursion into nature turned into something else entirely.

Some things can only really be experienced in a dark theater full of people. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with its midnight shows spanning more than 45 years, is the longest running theatrically released film in history, but it's more than just a movie.

When you're at the Oakland Zoo at night you can see the glow of the city in the sky overhead. But down on the ground, in amongst the animals, it's an entirely different world.

Pedram's dog, KitKat is the most important thing in his life - their close emotional bond is a source of comfort and delight. But this bond also comes with constant fear, because they live in Iran where dogs are considered "untouchable", and the only truly safe place is in the dark shadows of the night.

Hey there - it's Vanessa. I'm hard at work on a brand new episode of Nocturne to be released in a couple of weeks. But in the mean time, I wanted to let you know about another show that I think you'll really like. So, I decided to feature an episode here in the Nocturne feed.

This story comes from Twenty Thousand Hertz, a lovingly crafted podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. The episode is called Sonic Bubbles, and it's about how humans have shaped our sonic environment.

Twenty Thousand Hertz has also done episodes about the music in human speech, spy messages on the radio, and the sounds of other planets. Subscribe to Twenty Thousand Hertz, right here in your podcast player, and enjoy Sonic Bubbles now.

A new episode of Nocturne is coming your way soon.

Astronomer James Lowenthal gave a TEDx talk in 2016 warning that with the availability of cheap LED lights, light pollution around the world was about to get much worse very quickly. Little did he know that there was a much bigger threat to the night sky right around the corner.

 

Dvora has interacted with elemental, or natural, spirits since she was a child.  She's learned to set boundaries, so as not to be attacked or taken advantage of. Sometimes the elementals just want to talk, sometimes they need help,  and sometimes they're the ones offering help.

Nocturne is having a 30 day special offer on Patreon! Sign up to become a supporter at the $5 level or above and get all the existing benefits (including Night Light bonus episodes), AND I will send you a treat bag with Nocturne stickers and some other cool stuff.

Danny's first skydiving experience set him on course to do something that most people would never dream of doing, something that for most people would actually be seriously terrifying, and for good reason.

This story is about something that is dangerous, illegal, and I don't recommend it, AT ALL.

Nocturne is having a 30 day special offer on Patreon! Sign up to become a supporter at the $5 level or above and get all the existing benefits (including Night Light bonus episodes), AND I will send you a treat bag with Nocturne stickers and some other cool stuff.

Clustering around the warmth and power of a campfire, it feels like the edges of people get softened - we speak and listen to each other differently - there's a deepening that doesn't happen in many other settings. What use to be the norm, is now a special treat -  gazing into the embers, listening to the mesmerizing crackle, and telling our own secrets and stories in the night.

There are only 6000 tule elk left in the world, all of them found in California. Some of them roam along the coastal hills of Point Reyes National Seashore, an area that is also occupied by cattle and dairy ranches. To protect grazing land for cows, some of the elk are confined by high fences. But as drought worsens, and the elk are cut off from food and water, large numbers of them are dying. A band of activists have been trekking through the fog, in darkness, to try to help them.

Kim felt an irresistible pull toward life on the road - the traveler's lifestyle, without schedules or responsibilities. Hopping freight trains and searching for places to sleep are now a thing of the past, but she still tries to hold on to the spirit of adventure and surprise she loved from that time.

Grace felt everything deeply from an early age. She was having panic attacks at 9 years old, and separation anxiety in middle school. The anxiety came to a head when she was 12, and nothing she tried helped in any meaningful way. Until one night she looked out her window.

Tonight, as you're lying in bed, take a moment to think about the fact that in the night sky right above you, a massive river of birds is on an epic, death-defying journey of survival.

Most parents would never consider leaving their kids in the dark woods at night, and letting them find their way back. The Dutch do just that, and they call it Dropping, and the kids mostly have fun.

When Lia Ditton set out from San Francisco to row alone across the Pacific Ocean she was  confident that she would make it to Hawaii. But when you leave land, all you really know is that you're going on an adventure.

The night represents a slowing, quiet contemplation, autonomy, dreams ... the dominion of rest. But Grind Culture tells us that our worth is in our productivity. The Nap Bishop is here to tell us, "No".  Rest is not a privilege, it's a human right. Sleep deprivation is a social and racial justice issue. And, "Resting is actually going to allow you to wake up."

Alec had spent countless summer days near Mammoth Pool Reservoir, in the Sierra National Forest. His memories were filled with fun and relaxation. As Alec and a friend arrived at the lake the first night of the Labor Day Weekend, there was little to indicate that this weekend would be any different than the trove of happy memories he had of this place.

The challenges of being unhoused are almost too many to count. They take on a distinct flavor at night.

This crazy thing happens in NYC as night approaches – as rush hour picks up and the streets get evermore hectic than normal, delivery men on bikes start racing through the streets to get people their restaurant food while it’s still hot.

What makes a place home? Is it a place that feels like a refuge? Is it somewhere you sleep really, really well? What if the place that feels like home is a secret apartment in the bowels of a giant mall?

Poetry and the night are some of the last remaining domains of “unknowing”; places where it’s acceptable to digest the world slowly and without conclusion, and where one can linger in, and traverse, experiences like solitude, impermanence, and...

For two months a year, in a small Norwegian city, the sun never goes above the horizon. One researcher visits to find out why its citizens are happy despite the lack of light.

There’s really nothing else like late night call in shows on the radio – other humans, in real time, just chatting. It can bring comfort and normalcy to the hours that can feel like anything but comforting or normal.

What is it about the night, about what happens in the darkness, when most people are asleep? Vanessa and radio host, Rod Quinn muse about this and much more, and hear from callers across Australia sharing their feelings and observations about the...

Ever since he was a child, Clark Strand has awoken in the middle of the night and gone out walking. One night a voice spoke directly in his ear, saying, “Don’t go out tonight. Remain calm and be very very still.” His life has never been the same.

There are over 3500 species of crickets and each has a different song. One man fills his apartment in Brooklyn with their music, and then takes them out in public to perform alongside them. And then he eats them.

There is a cave in southern France that contains some of the world’s most deeply hidden secrets. To get there you must crawl on your belly through a long tomb-like passage, with your only light held between your teeth.

Kristin’s daughter was just 16 years old when she began to struggle with drug addiction - methamphetamine, heroin, and more. It brought Kristin to her knees. Of all the painful challenges, the worst was not knowing where her daughter was in the...

Getting into character and scaring people silly is one of Campbell Harmon's favorite things in life. But his relationship to being a monster goes deeper than playing one in a haunted attraction.

The night is a perfect canvas for the ancient magic of Peruvian shamanism. In the darkness, your mind opens, allowing spirits to find a place to land.

If you look closely enough at this seemingly idyllic stretch of road, nestled between a lake and a steep hillside in Northern California, you'll notice it's not so idyllic — at least not for the newts and salamanders determined to cross to the...

In this high tech world, you're never without a camera, and can take a picture anywhere you go. But do these images convey the feelings of awe, excitement, wonder and fear you had while you were in those places? Adam Katseff discovered a way to do...

To connect with an owl, even in a small way, is a rare gift. Elusive, mysterious and powerful: owls inspire both fear and awe.

When Sally lost her brother to suicide, a friend advised her to be open to the possibility that he would try to visit her from beyond. Despite her initial skepticism, what she experienced in the ensuing months changed her mind completely.

The theme of this year’s KCRW 24-Hour Radio Race was “Where the Sun Don’t Shine”. One entry received the Nocturne Award. It’s called “The Telltale Arse” and it’s by producer Matt Livadary. The piece truly peers into the dusty corners...

Zoe and Sarah were young, free explorers on a spontaneous summer road trip. As darkness began to fall, the map on Zoe’s phone directed them to a short cut that would speed up their drive and get them to a safe place to spend the night. But that's...

The black belt test at Studio Naga is a 48-hour ordeal with no sleep. By the second night, students are running on pure adrenaline when they arrive to an unknown location blindfolded in the dark. Then, it's time to fight.

Most people are in bed at night and then get up during the day. But journalist Katie Nelson felt the need to sleep all the time.

Comfort turns to horror when the night becomes weaponized - used to terrorize and control. This is the most ominous embodiment of the night. Its most salient symbols are those of burning crosses, and the nightriders delivering their messages of terror.

While graffiti is seen by some as blight, and by others as art, the act of hiding in the shadows and stealthily scrawling your name on a wall is ultimately about being seen, rather than doing damage. This was definitely the case for a boy who went...

Comfort turns to horror when the night becomes weaponized - used to terrorize and control. This is the most ominous embodiment of the night. Its most salient symbols are those of burning crosses, and the nightriders delivering their messages of terror.

What if, out of nowhere, you started hearing a low-frequency rumble, like a truck idling right outside your home, in the middle of the night, every night for weeks and months on end -- and no one else could hear it?

A walk through a park, an urban rooftop, a forest trail - all of these are one experience in broad daylight, and entirely another after nightfall. The river, Aare, in Switzerland transforms into another creature in the darkness.

It has come to our attention that some of you may not have been seeing and hearing our new episodes, because a small amount of podcast players do not have our updated feed address. This is because this past November Nocturne began being distributed by KCRW. It’s big news for us - we joined KCRW’s roster of strange and beautiful podcasts, alongside the likes of Here Be Monsters, UnFictional, The Organist, and many more. We’re so excited about this, but very sorry if it has interrupted your listening of Nocturne episodes. As with any technical hocus pocus magic, sometimes there are pixies in the machines.

The simplest way to get the new feed address is to go to nocturnepodcast.org/subscribe.

And if you have questions or problems listening don’t hesitate to let us know at hello@nocturnepodcast.org.

 

 

 

Sometimes it takes losing your way in the dark, to realize that you were already lost.

Something is happening to the animals. Can we all coexist on a crowded planet?

The shift into the darkness of night triggers our bodies to relax. Perhaps this is why so many babies begin their journey into the world at night.

Traveling at night as a passenger is an act of trust. As the sensations of movement lull you to the edge of sleep or beyond, you surrender to dislocation; disconnecting from place and time. The only constant is motion. As your consciousness bobs up into the present moment, in the darkness you could be anywhere, or nowhere at all.

There has never been a world without tragedy and heartache and injustice. But there has also never before been a time when human beings have had constant access to the breadth of human suffering. Our technology bathes us in this information, and it can be a challenge to not dissolve into a mass of emotion, or just go numb. Julia Scott found herself facing this dilemma, and intuitively creating a ritual for herself, the seeds of which were planted decades earlier.

Research in 2013 found a connection between night owls and those with a sinister constellation of personality traits, ominously labeled, "The Dark Triad". The study got a lot of attention in the media, with headlines claiming that night owls are more likely to be psychopaths and narcissists. There was just one problem.

Malcolm Saunders is a fisherman in Cornwall, on the southern tip of the UK. While most of the old fishing ports have transformed into tourist attractions, there are still some working fishing boats, manned by seasoned weathered fisherman. They’re holding onto to an almost forgotten way of life – one that ties their livelihood to nature, with all of the thrill and hardship that goes along with it. Their lives are governed by tides, and weather, and time - A fisherman goes out where and when the fish are, day or night. There’s nothing else to it.

Hospitals are amazing places. They’re emblems of the modern medical technology that saves and improves our lives in countless ways every day. But if you’ve ever roamed the halls of a hospital in the middle of the night, with its shiny echoey surfaces, background hum of anxiety, and distant monitors chiming like beacons of peril, you’re in no rush to return. But if you must, you’ll want someone like Shoshana Ungerleider there keeping an eye on things, especially if there are zebras.

One of the things that changes instantly when you have a baby is your relationship to sleep. It usually becomes scarce and precious, and everyone has advice. Much less talked about is the continuing nighttime struggle between parents and their young kids. Because by the time your child is a year or two old, any competent parent has it under control, right? Kids go to sleep and parents get to have their night. Adam Mansbach drew back the curtain on this ridiculous fallacy.

 

Our relationship to the darkness can shift over time. One of the main ways that this happens is by walking into the dark, both literally and metaphorically. By walking toward the thing that scares us the most, or causes the most pain, we have the potential to almost magically transform it into something completely different.

 

There’s a funny thing about Christmas in New York: In a city where most of the living trees are clumped together in just a few areas, right around Thanksgiving new clumps of trees start popping up all over this mostly concrete and asphalt setting. The tree stands sprinkled throughout the city create a festive air, but there’s another dimension to the world of Christmas trees in New York City at night.

Beverly D’Urso is a lucid dreaming celebrity. She was a subject of Stephen LaBerge’s research at the Stanford Sleep Lab in the 1980’s, has written numerous articles and given classes on lucid dreaming, and has been featured in multiple television programs and magazine articles. She’s done pretty much everything you can do in your dreams. But she’s decided to focus on being awake, instead.

The built environment consists of structures that humans make - including spaces where people live, work and play. For the most part, these places are inhabited during the day. But at night, new aspects of the built environment are revealed. Some people are drawn to explore these spaces, not to vandalize or create mischief - just to see and to appreciate. But society has a name for that – it’s called trespassing.

The Sleepless project is two things: It's a voicemail that people can call when they can't sleep, so they can talk about what's on their mind and hopefully get back to sleep. It’s also an art project where the creator of the project makes short videos to accompany the voice messages. She came to the project through her own sleepless nights.

 

On a beautiful day in April, Matthew Bryce went out to surf by himself off a remote beach in Scotland.  Usually he goes out for 3 or 4 hours, and then goes about his life. This time was different.

In January I left my home for 6 months of wandering, and of course one of the main things I explored were the infinite shades of night in each new place. What I noticed more than ever is that every night is a finger print - each is unique, with no one the same as another. The sounds tell the stories.

 

Have you every woken up in the wee hours of the night to find that you’re gripped by fears and anxieties that just didn’t exist in the light of day?You can lie there awake in bed, in your comfortable home, maybe even next to a loved one, and find your thoughts circling like persistent vultures. And then the morning rolls around, and it’s almost impossible to recreate the sense of foreboding that existed just a few hours earlier.

Lots of museums have regular evening hours or events, often lasting until 8 or 9pm. But I wonder - what do these worlds become in the wee hours, when the last visitor has heeded the call to leave, and the doors are locked? What transformations take place when no one is watching? 

In that place where darkness and isolation meet, fear can take hold in a particularly visceral way.  When you’re alone in the dark,  every sense works overtime. It can feel like the darkness and the fear are interchangeable. One comes to represent the other. The darkness can paralyze you. Or you can walk straight into it.

 

In September 2015 the full moon crossed into the Earth’s shadow and turned redish gold. It was the first blood moon, or total lunar eclipse of a super moon, in over 30 years, and it wouldn’t happen again for almost twenty more. The moon was old and strange, and we were seeing it in a form that occurs only very rarely. It was something we had to show up for, because it wasn’t available on demand. We had to come out of our homes and out of our routines.Also, the moon that night made us look up, away from ourselves and our immediate concerns. It reminded us of the real scale of things, at least for a little while.  

 

The night can be a desperate and lonely place. Fortunately, there’s a group of people who make it their mission to bring comfort and hope to people in the night. 

 

The ethos of randonneuring emphasizes personal challenge and comraderie. Randonneurs share the goal of having everyone make it to the finish line. They take care of each other, because what they’re doing is kinda crazy and a little dangerous.

Picture it. You’re biking along a winding country road, 30 miles from the nearest town. The air is cool, there’s a slight wind, maybe a gentle mist. It’s three o’clock in the morning. You’ve been awake for 23 hours.

 

The police play an important role in civil society. Their first mandate is to serve and protect - the ultimate goal being the maintenance of social order. Often this is accomplished with out undue assaults on individual liberty. But many factors come into play in the tension between freedom and order. It can be a fine balancing act, without clear edges.  And it only takes one dark night to color lasting impressions.

 

Some surveys suggest that up to a quarter of couples sleep in separate beds. Dave and Sue have both experienced the need to sleep alone, and while they miss things about sharing a bed all night, the arrangement seems tolerable to both of them. This is not the case for another couple I spoke to. Brooke and Bob have been struggling for years to find a solution to what seems like an insurmountable sleep impasse.

The night bus rolls through the city like a small enclosed world. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll see. One night, Helen Zaltzman’s bus ride home from the movies took a dark turn.

Jade Walker hates the daylight so much that most of her neighbors have rarely seen her. The sun is a personal affront to her. But she’s not disconnected from life. In fact, she sees it all. And because of her, so do we.

The stars are always there in the sky, even when we can’t see them. Why should we look? Why should we care? Paul Salazar cares, and he has compelling reasons why you should, too.

Our dreams can allow us to experience things that are – impossible. Yeah, some dreams take us where we’d rather not go. But others invite us into a world filled with joy, and ease, and wonder. They connect us to a forgotten part of ourselves. It feels realer than real, this realm we can only inhabit when we’re sleeping.

Sometimes the world of our dreams can be unsettling; even terrifying. The fear can be like an echo or a shadow of true emotion; or it can be utterly real, even justified. At times the fearful experiences we have at night can introduce questions into the nature of reality, itself. Many explanations have been offered for some of the most terrifying intrusions into sleep, but questions are not always answered, phenomena are left unexplained, there is no resolution.

Lynne Cox has spent her life swimming vast distances and pushing herself to the edges of possibility. Since the beginning, she has thrived on exploring uncharted territories, including the ocean at night.

The night can be like the great frontier to a kid; a forbidden zone; the perfect place to explore autonomy and independence. At first it might be tempting for parents to just lay down the law. But they're up against a lot. They're up against the best feeling in the world.