It’s been raining most nights lately at least intermittently if not quite substantially, and sometimes in the day too. And while I do like the sound of falling rain there are limits to my affection.

When my head rests about two feet from the metal roof of my van even a light sprinkling makes a big noise inside. But storms like last night  are downright oppressive in their volume as the sounds of nature take on truly unnatural proportions. I really wish I had a decibel meter to find out exactly how loud it was in there as I’m sure it wasn’t OSHA approved. But for sure, regardless of the actually decibel reading, it was far too loud to readily sleep. The sound of the rain drops was actually drowning out the lightening and thunder as the storm passed overhead.

Thankfully I’m not actually claustrophobic as I think I’d have popped and went insane. Nighttime is a very tight experience in my van. The roof is little over two feet from the bed and when the blackout curtains are up there is absolutely no light back there. So it’s physically a small space and there is no light to make sense of what space is actually there. I reminds me of taking tours of caves when the guides turn the lights off to show what darkness is really like. Yes, it’s that pitch in there. And when you can’t see anything it feels like there’s nothing.

So last night I spent many hours flipping around trying to sleep with my headphones on. I was listening music trying to down out the sound but the only thing that worked was really loud noisy music. I’d much rather have had the jazz playing from the local college’s radio, but instead I was searching out noisy rock guitars. Anything loud and pervasive to mask the sound of incessant rain.

Aside from just the loudness noise of the rain, the shear volume of it, my brain struggled to make sense of the sound. A lot of energy gets spent as my brain focused on the sound and tries to find patterns in it and organize it. Same with seeing static on television or radio, rain drops on puddles and other random events, they also sends my brain into overdrive. But it’s the auditory that really gets me.

Two of my migraine triggers are flickering lights and the white noise from rushing air. This is why I absolutely loath florescent lights and high volume air vents and prefer not to work in office buildings and other commercial buildings. Most places are just fine, but the ones that aren’t cause some serious issues. My last client had lights in the common area of their small office. I couldn’t be in there for even a second without being affected by the flicker. Thankfully the owner actually understood and would turn the overhead florescent lights off when I was there. I’d have given it ten minutes before starting the descent to a migraine. It was that bad.

So once I get a secondary power source for the van, a nice battery bank for living off of, I’ll be installing LED lights or some other constant light source. And with my occasional bouts of insomnia that light will not some too soon–especially as it seems to be monsoon season! With my deeply tinted windows even daytime can be dark in there if it’s overcast.

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