LDR Stuff: Skype Sleeping

It's a luxury for couples to be able to comfortable take a night's rest with their SO's on a soft bed. But for people (like me) who's SO is otherwise-located, being able to sleep and also hear them while sleeping is already quite a luxury. This is a little indulgent, others would say, but for not having that special person in snuggling distance I personally think this is worth it.

May also be used to spy on Costa

Now, I know many couples have their own routines to do this so I'm just going to highlight what we do. Here's a short background before I start enumerating things. He's in Germany, I'm from the Philippines. That's almost a 7000 mile distance between that that also comes with a six-hour time difference. Normally, when he gets home from university, I'm already sleeping. Depending on our schedules, I am able to wake him up and he's able to join me in my sleep if he'd like to take a nap. 

How is this possible? Here's our recipe for Skype Sleeping!

Ingredients (umm...applications/hardware to use)

• A decent internet connection
• Skype (of course)
• Headphones - must be comfortable enough to wear in bed if preferred.
• decent-quality webcam - while some of us are comfortable with sleeping in a room with a random light source on, and we'd want decent lighting so our SO's could actually see us and not just stare in total darkness. this all depends on what you'd like.
• F.lux - I use this to control the amount of blue light my laptop gives off when it's the only lit-up thing at night that usually gives me headaches. 

Procedure

1. Set up your laptop/PC. It should be in a place that doesn't get too hot too quick. If on a PC, perhaps an external webcam would be easily manoeuvred so that it shows you when your SO calls. I use a laptop so it's always pointed to me.
2. If you're comfortable with wearing headphones/earphones at night, you can. I personally wear mine to bed, and it's not that uncomfortable since i normally sleep on my back.
3. I've configured my Skype to accept calls automatically from people in my contacts, and for the camera to automatically run. My boyfriend has the same set-up. I know many of you aren't comfortable with this set-up. It's just that we really don't have any people on our contacts who would randomly start a call.
4. I've installed F.lux to regulate the brightness/blue light my laptop emits at night. It really helps a lot, especially to those who are uncomfortable sleeping with bright lights.
5. For those who wants to try a more secured method, there is a program that lets you select a specific contact to allow certain actions to. You can download it [here]. There are some issues with it though but it should run with no problems. Another method is using TeamViewer so your SO can accept the call themselves with no bother to you.
6. SLEEP! Of course. It can't be skype sleeping if you aren't asleep! And just wait for your SO to come snuggling up to you once they are able to :
7. Don't forget to tell them to set up the same thing so you both can do it whenever the other wants. 

Enjoy!