Somna has two million downloads, a 4.8-star rating, and a terms of service that sleep researchers describe as ‘unusually binding.’ Users describe it as the best rest they’ve ever had. Users cannot say what they agreed to.

I’ve received quite a few letters this week about Somna — the new sleep and mindfulness application developed by Lilin Ventures LLC, whose founder, listed in the company registry as V. Morreth, describes herself in the app’s About section as ‘a wellness practitioner with several centuries of experience in human rest cycles.’ The letters are, by and large, enthusiastic. Several readers have included screenshots of their sleep tracking data, which is genuinely impressive. One reader, a retired schoolteacher from Montpelier, told me she hasn’t slept this well since 1987. I found that detail particularly interesting, though I won’t say why just yet.

Now, I want to start by saying that I understand the appeal entirely. We live in a tired world, and the promise of deep, uninterrupted rest is not something most people are inclined to examine too closely when it’s working. That is, I will gently note, rather the point. In my experience with entities whose operational domain involves the sleep state, the product on offer is almost always genuine — it is the consideration they receive in return that tends to catch people off guard. Not because anything unpleasant happens. Simply because the agreement was made in a state of consciousness that the entity in question had, by that point, already substantially shaped.

Community Notice

The Somna interface features what the app describes as ‘adaptive resonance soundscapes.’ Researchers describe them as something else.

What the Research Actually Says (And What It Doesn’t)

The scrutiny, when it came, came quietly — as these things tend to. Dr. Renata Osei of the Vermont Sleep Research Collective noted in a pre-print circulated last Thursday that of the forty-seven verified Somna users her team interviewed, every single one reported the same recurring dream: a well-appointed sitting room, a figure seated across from them in a high-backed chair, and the distinct sensation of having signed something on a low table between them. None of the participants could recall the document’s contents. All described the figure as ‘extremely reassuring.’ Twelve used the phrase ‘like talking to someone who already knew everything about you,’ which Dr. Osei has highlighted in the abstract and which I, personally, recognise as a description worth sitting with over a quiet cup of tea.

The sleep data is exceptional. Genuinely. We have no criticisms of the sleep data. Our criticisms are of everything adjacent to the sleep data.

— Dr. Renata Osei, Vermont Sleep Research Collective

I have, as it happens, downloaded the application. I did not proceed past the permissions screen, which requested access to my microphone, my location, my contacts, and — and I am reading this exactly as written — ‘ambient threshold data as defined in Schedule 9.’ I do not know what Schedule 9 contains because Schedule 9 is not included in the publicly available terms of service, though I have submitted a request. Ptolemy sat on the filing cabinet and watched my phone for eleven minutes after I set it down. Mrs Ashworth, who as regular readers know has very decided opinions, moved her bed to the other side of the room. I am noting this for the record and I am not drawing conclusions. I am simply noting it.

I slept for nine hours. Nine. I haven’t done that since my twenties. I don’t remember the dream exactly but I woke up feeling like something had been sorted out, which honestly is more than I can say for therapy.

— Verified Somna user, three-star review (left after being asked to reconsider their initial two-star rating)

Practical Guidance for Readers Currently Using the App

Before I get to my recommendations, a brief aside: the grey elder in my garden — the one that does not appear in the RHS index and which I have been cultivating since what I will describe only as a formative period — has been growing toward the house at a pace I find brisk for this time of year. I have been watching it. I mention this because it is, in a small way, contextually relevant to what I am about to say about attention. Entities whose domain is the sleep state are, as a category, highly attuned to the quality of your attention. They notice when you are paying it and when you are not. The gardening metaphor is not accidental.

I want to close by saying that I do not think Somna is malicious. This is an important distinction that the letters I have received this week have somewhat collapsed. V. Morreth is, by all accounts, delivering exactly what she has promised — deep, restful, uninterrupted sleep — and she is doing so under a valid DCA license. What she is also doing is conducting what amounts to a very large, very successful, consensual compact operation at a scale the DCA’s Class 3 framework was arguably not designed to accommodate. Two million is quite a lot of agreements. I have been in correspondence with entities whose entire operational history involved fewer than forty. The collective weight of that is something I would encourage the DCA to think carefully about, and something I will be raising with Patricia when I see her on Tuesday. She won’t ask why I’m pulling the Lilin file. She never does. I appreciate that about her. My neighbour Gerald, incidentally, has still not been seen since Tuesday of last week. I am monitoring that situation separately and do not wish to conflate the two. Probably.