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Music and Sleep. A Scientific Perspective

  • Book

  • May 2026
  • Elsevier Science and Technology
  • ID: 6250801

Music and Sleep: A Scientific Perspective presents a comprehensive discussion on the topic of music and sleep. The book brings these disciplines together, providing a solid background, recent developments, and a deeper understanding of their synthesis. Of special interest are technical advances that have made sleep recordings, music manipulation, and sleep stimulation more accessible in recent years. Notably, sleep disturbances are an increasing problem in society, highlighting the importance of developing low-risk and cost-effective treatments. Healthcare professionals looking to integrate novel information on music and sleep to increase their patients' wellbeing need look no further than this book.

Music is widely used as sleep aid, but the exact neural mechanisms of the sleep-enhancing function of music are not fully clear. New research output includes exciting breakthroughs, hypotheses, and discoveries in both of these areas. However, since research fields on the neuroscientific mechanisms of music and those of sleep have not traditionally overlapped, this book fills in the gaps.

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Table of Contents

Section I: A general introduction to music and sleep
1. Talking about music
2. Music and the brain
3. Music and health
4. What is sleep?
5. What is healthy sleep, and why do we need it?
6. Music and sleep in history
7. Machine learning at the intersection of music and sleep research

Section II: Music for sleep
8. Sleep, baby, sleep: Lullabies in infancy and childhood
9. The use of music as a sleep strategy in the general population
?10. Music as a non-pharmacological sleep aid in older adults
11. Clinical uses of music for sleep improvement
12. Sleep music-Which music do people use for sleep?
13. Interactive sonic interventions for sleep

Section III: Music during sleep
14. Auditory perception during sleep
15. The effects of sound stimulation on slow waves
16. Perception of harmony in sleep and the role of individual preferences
17. Perception of musical rhythm during sleep
18. Music in dreams: Methodology, findings, and future directions
19. Sleep disturbances induced by noise, sounds, and music

Section IV: Sleep as music
20. Sound asleep: The hidden music of sleep patterns
21. Improving sleep by listening to your own brainwaves
22. Music and sleep research project: Sleep data as techno music

Authors

Kira Vibe Jespersen Associate Professor, Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Denmark. Kira Vibe Jespersen is Associate Professor at Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University, Denmark. With a unique interdisciplinary background in psychology, neuroscience and music therapy, her research focuses on clinical applications of music with a particular interest in the effect of music on sleep and the use of music for insomnia. In her research, she evaluates both the effects of music interventions and the potential neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these effects. In addition, she is a trained musician. Bj�rn Rasch Professor of Cognitive Biopsychology and Methods, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Bj�rn Rasch is Professor of Cognitive Biopsychology and Methods at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He has been actively involved in basic sleep research for over 25 years, and has published in leading scientific journals such as Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS and Physiological Reviews. He has edited and written several books on memory consolidation, hypnosis research and sleep.

His research focus is on sleep, cognition and health, and he has completed many studies involving the presentation of auditory stimuli during sleep. Recently, he has started conducting several studies on music processing during sleep. In addition, he is trained in music theory and is an active musician.