It has been years since I’ve been able to listen to the daytime loudmouths — they offend my sense of nostalgia too much. But I find a thread of hope at night, in the old Ray Briem time slot. Late night, with its expanding quiet, feels inscribed with possibility, maybe even a bit of magic. And so I turn on my old bedside clock radio and settle in for “Coast to Coast AM.”

It is the last show of the day, and is four hours long — more chances for magic to happen. But not right away. The show’s opening segments tend to be condemnations of climate-change science or warnings about the deep state, and they make me wince. But then come discussions of topics that fascinate and entertain me — ancient aliens, remote viewing, ghosts, monsters, life after death, shadow people, assassination conspiracies, the lost island of Atlantis.

Crazy, sure, but it’s an imaginative crazy that I much prefer to the current political craziness that is bitter and mean and can imagine nothing outside of itself.

“Coast to Coast” first caught my ear in the ’90s when its original host, Art Bell, was broadcasting out of a remote Nevada town called Pahrump that he liked to call the Kingdom of Nye. The epicness appealed to me, and though Mr. Bell certainly leaned conservative, he was mainly interested in big stories and mysteries that could keep you up all night listening. One of his obsessions was the harrowing effect of global warming, something that eventually got scrubbed from “Coast to Coast” as the show became more nakedly partisan. But the spirit of inquiry survives, enough for me to keep tuning in.

I always half expect that one night Trumpism will join the lineup of strange, negative-energy phenomena, to be debated right alongside curses and devil worship. On the other hand, any discussion of Donald Trump would break the magic. By the middle of the night the earthbound politics have fallen away. By 2 a.m., if I’m still awake, it feels as if George Noory, the main host of “Coast to Coast,” and I are two circumspect but rapt listeners who are willing to consider each philosophy or theory being offered up every hour, even those that contradict each other, like Christianity and witchcraft. And I am buoyed to feel once again part of a community that, instead of prescribing a certain version of the world, is trying to figure out the world together.

Of course morning comes, drive time starts and divisions loudly reassert themselves. But I’m already looking — and listening — beyond the noise to the night and to the possibilities that loom, again.

Erin Aubry Kaplan, a contributing opinion writer, teaches writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and is the author of “Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line” and “I Heart Obama.”

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