sheeps
An iPhone app for people who lie awake
Sleep stories with no plot.
Sheeps writes you a new story each time, with nothing to follow. Harmless, unconnected scenes give a busy mind somewhere quiet to go, and the story ends in silence.
On a computer? Scan this with your iPhone camera to open Sheeps in the App Store.
Free to download for iPhone, in English and German. Using it needs Sheeps Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year in the US, €4.99 or €39.99 in euro stores.
And then nothing. The story ends in silence.
The sample, line by line:
- A harbour lies still under a low grey sky, and the boats rock gently on their ropes. (2 seconds of silence)
- A bowl of pears sits on the table beside a folded cloth. (3 seconds of silence)
- Footprints fill slowly in the soft, blue light. (5 seconds of silence)
- Salt air. A gull, far off. (6 seconds of silence)
- Steam. Soft light. (7 seconds of silence)
Places that calm you
Written for this page, to show the shape. In the app, Sheeps writes a story like this for you, and a calm voice reads it aloud.
Made for you, each time
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Start with what calms you
Pick forests, night trains, cosy kitchens or places of your own. Whatever you put on your avoid list stays out of the stories written for you.
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Choose how strange it gets
Four levels, from gently odd to full dream logic, with a narrator and a length from five minutes to an hour.
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Or press play on the library
Ready-made stories, made once for everyone, for the nights you would rather not choose. Or switch to Radio: single concrete words, each followed by a pause you set.
Every story winds down the same way
The sentences shorten, from 14–18 words to 4–8. The silence after each scene grows, from 2 seconds to about 7. Over its last ten seconds the voice fades out, and then nothing plays: no chime, no next episode.
Why a story with no plot?
A plot is a reason to keep listening, and a reason to keep listening is a reason to stay awake.
Sheeps is built on cognitive shuffling, a technique from the cognitive scientist Luc Beaudoin: one harmless, unrelated image after another, enough to occupy a busy mind and nothing for it to solve.
The research is young. The one trial of the technique found people less wound up at bedtime, and Sheeps itself has not been tested in a trial. What the research shows says what is known and what is not.
Questions before you download
How much does Sheeps cost?
Sheeps is free to download. Using it needs Sheeps Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year in the US, €4.99 or €39.99 in euro stores. Plus includes 30 credits a month; a credit is 5 minutes of story, so a fifteen-minute story uses 3. The terms set out exactly what you get.
Is there a free trial?
No. If you subscribe, you can cancel at any time in your iPhone’s Settings, and Plus keeps working until the end of the period you paid for.
Does it work on Android or iPad?
Sheeps is made for iPhone, on iOS 17 or later. There is no Android version.
Which languages?
English and German, for the app and for the stories.
Who writes the stories?
A language model writes each one from your settings, within fixed rules: harmless scenes, nothing to follow, sentences that shorten towards the end. A synthetic voice reads it, and a check keeps anything on your avoid list out of the stories written for you. How a story is made goes through it step by step.
Is it a medical treatment?
No. Sheeps is a wellness app, not a medical product. If you have struggled to sleep for months, talk to a doctor: the treatment recommended first is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
Do I need an account?
There is no sign-up form and no password: the app creates an account tied to your phone the first time you open it. The privacy policy says what it processes and why.
Browse by topic
Every guide, post and short explainer on the site, sorted by what keeps you up.
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Falling asleep
Which techniques have evidence behind them, how long falling asleep should take, and what to do when it doesn’t happen.
All 8 pages -
A racing mind
Why thoughts get louder at bedtime, and what gives them somewhere harmless to go.
All 4 pages -
Cognitive shuffling
The technique behind Sheeps: how to do it, the word lists, and what the research shows.
- Cognitive shuffling, explained
- What the cognitive shuffling research actually shows
- Cognitive shuffling word list
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Sleep stories
Stories with nothing to follow, the apps that tell them, and falling asleep to the TV.
All 6 pages -
Bedtime routine
The evening habits worth keeping — light, caffeine, alcohol, a warm shower — and the rules that matter less.
All 7 pages -
Supplements
Melatonin, magnesium and the sleepy girl mocktail, held up against the trials.
All 4 pages -
The body at night
What your heart, your temperature and your brain do on the way into sleep.
All 6 pages -
Sleep tech and trends
Trackers, sleepmaxxing, mouth tape and weighted blankets: what holds up.
- Are sleep trackers accurate?
- Orthosomnia: when sleep tracking keeps you awake
- Sleepmaxxing: does it work?
New on the blog
All posts- Falling asleep 4-7-8 breathing for sleep Breathe in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8: how to do Andrew Weil’s exercise gently, what has been measured, and what has not.
- The body at night Does a cooling mattress help you sleep? What the studies of cooling mattresses and pads actually found, who paid for them, what Eight Sleep says about its Pod, and the cheaper ways to a cooler bed.
- Sleep stories Falling asleep with the TV on What the light, the changing sound and the next episode do once you have dropped off — and a gentler way to keep the habit.
Give a busy mind somewhere quiet to go.
On a computer? Scan this with your iPhone camera to open Sheeps in the App Store.
Free to download for iPhone, in English and German. Using it needs Sheeps Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year in the US, €4.99 or €39.99 in euro stores.