Some of the best sound baths in L.A. are happening in mattress stores

I disturbance successful the dark. So bash the others. There are astir 30 of us, possibly much — each experiencing the soundscape of the quartz bowls; a tech-free hr designed for america to commune with memory, creativity and emotion. A chime brings the dependable bath to its ceremonial end, signaling america to reacquaint ourselves with the carnal present, to officially “wake up.” Slipping retired of blankets and disconnected of tall, puffy mattresses, we springiness thanks, instrumentality a crystal, a mantra paper … and permission the elephantine mattress warehouse for the agleam lights of Glendale Boulevard.

While not affiliated with immoderate circumstantial modality, the dependable bath wrong the Atwater Village subdivision of Mattress Central has a cult-like following. The brainchild of practitioner Alice Moon, the lawsuit (which often sells out) is 1 of galore nontraditional wellness offerings from her institution Moon Soul Sound Baths. At the monthly event, her patrons stitchery astatine the store, prime a mattress (alone oregon with a friend), get cozy and swap the static of the satellite for the soothing harmonics of Moon’s quartz bowls.

As you mightiness imagine, Moon is reasonably nontraditional herself. She grew up successful New Orleans and aft Hurricane Katrina she felt compelled to marque a change. She came to L.A. for a agelong abrogation and ended up staying.

“I conscionable wanted to instrumentality a month-long trip,” Moon said. “But erstwhile I got present I was like, this is the missing puzzle portion that my beingness needed.”

In Los Angeles, Moon embraced cannabis culture. She became a self-taught cannabis manufacture PR nonrecreational and adjacent created a tech start-up for locating edibles based connected dietary needs (a benignant of Yelp for cannabis, she explained). But aft being diagnosed with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a information successful which semipermanent cannabis users tin endure from symptoms similar terrible nausea, she again felt a request for change.

Alice Moon plays an water drum portion walking astir participants; her sessions are 50 minutes long.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“That benignant of flipped my satellite upside down,” Moon said. “I went connected this travel of trying to find things that brought maine joy, the aforesaid mode that cannabis did.”

Sound baths were the answer, helping Moon consciousness calm, affirmative and connected to herself. After years of practicing, Moon felt inspired to stock her emotion of dependable baths with others. “One time I woke up and I said, you cognize what? I consciousness similar it is my clip to bring that benignant of bid to different people.”

With her societal media savvy and PR sensibilities astatine play, Moon wanted to make an acquisition that would beryllium other comfy … and, of course, memorable. Inspired by different wellness practitioners, Moon reached retired to Mattress Central to make her ain mentation of the trend. A mates cardinal views connected Threads and hundreds of fans later, her baths publication good successful beforehand and to rave reviews. While Moon’s often sold-out mattress store offering has intelligibly made a splash connected the L.A. wellness country — it’s not the lone one.

Heather Fink, left, and Nubia Jimenez, right, recline and deterioration slumber masks during a relaxing dependable bath.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

In West Hollywood, Barry Raccio is besides big to a highly coveted mattress store dependable bath. With a inheritance successful Kundalini yoga, enactment work, meditation and dependable healing, Raccio is simply a 20-year seasoned of the wellness space. In Hästens mattress showroom connected Beverly Boulevard, helium hosts a tiny but sought-after dependable bath happening called the “Deep Reset Luxury Sound Bath Experience.”

At the event, Raccio — who’s facilitated baths for companies including Chanel, BMW and the Parker Hotel — pours tea, plays instruments (including the accepted quartz bowls) and holds tribunal among ultra-premium Hästens beds, including the $720,000 Grand Vividus mattress, called “the astir costly mattress successful the world.”

On these ultra-luxury mattresses, a tiny radical of 10, possibly 12 radical acquisition the crystal bowls and “heal their tense systems” overmuch deeper than a mean bath — 1 profound, restful hr distant from the chaos of the modern world. It’s a much intimate, much opulent mentation of Moon’s baths, but with a akin healing effect (and yes — you tin publication the Grand Vividus for the occasion).

Alice Moon performs with crystal singing bowls.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“Rest is simply a luxury,” Raccio says. “Because [the mattresses] are truthful comfortable, they conform to bodies without needing thing nether your knees oregon adjacent a pillow. You’re conscionable truthful supported that the tense strategy drops successful overmuch quicker and the relaxation process is adjacent much profound. The effects of the dependable healing adjacent spell deeper.”

In their ain ways, Raccio and Moon’s mattress store dependable baths are tapping into a corporate request for rest, but beyond that — a gentle intermission from exertion for one’s ain well-being. The chakra-balancing enactment of a dependable bath coupled with the uniquely relaxing discourse of a mattress store gets guests determination and beyond (deep slumber and snoring are commonplace astatine these events).

“At the mattress store, it’s like, you tin really, truly relax. And I conscionable privation radical to consciousness comfy and harmless and, you know, conscionable a infinitesimal for them,” Moon said. “That’s what it truly is. It’s a infinitesimal for everyone to just, like, beryllium determination for themselves.”