Valerian baby!

Whatever your trouble is, look to the weeds for the solution.

That crap stinks like you wouldn't believe, but chug down a boiling hot mug and half an hour later you're dreaming of elves or cyborg ninja or whatever you wanna dream about.

I tend to stare at the wall with blankets covering my body. I'm always on my side with another pillow between my legs. I can usually fall asleep this way, though if I can't I tend to listen to music with my eyes closed and I usually get tired and slowly fall asleep.

I usually read. Even if it's a book you enjoy, if you're lying (laying?) in bed and it's pretty late at night, you should get a bit sleepy after a while. If it does take a little while for you to get sleepy, at least you didn't waste your time just sitting there trying to get to bed. Also, try reading textbooks and catching up on material or going over old material. That's sure to be fairly boring and you kill two birds with one stone by helping your studies and helping yourself fall asleep.

At first I thought that if I just laid down and closed my eyes for a while I'd get to dreamland faster, only problem is I have an overactive mind. So while my body maybe still my mind is just whirring with activity, leading to many sleepless nights. So now I just keep telling myself in my head "Goto sleep, goto sleep" repeatedly so that my mind focuses and stops thinking of so many things. I found that for me this technique works quite well.

Usually I stop drinking drinks with caffenine in them 2-3 hours before I go to bed or I lay watch tv, or think.

I think sleeping on my right side helps me fall asleep faster.

Otherwise I take Nyquill or stay up until I'm tired enough to pass out. I've suffered from insomnia since the 9th grade so my sleeping schedule has been wonky since then.

I usually lie down and attempt to play video games. I never fails that I end up getting sleepy at the parts that matter--boss fights. Also, attempting to read a book or watching a movie while lying down helps me fall asleep real fast. It also doesn't help to be running on about 5.5 hours of sleep each day for the past week or so.

Capo wins ;D

I have a position I always sleep in. Fetal position on my right side. Whenever I wanna sleep? Flop to that position and I'm out. Prior to discovering that, I'd wake up in that position but never notice, and it'd take me an hour to fall asleep. It is literally the only position I can sleep in.

Maybe you have that problem as well?

Being very tired during the day helps me fall asleep at night. I rarely ever read books before going to bed though, because they actually keep me awake. I don't even attempt reading textbooks.

You could choke yourself until you pass out....

Or is that how you get high these days? I can't remember.

Yes and No.

They make some people drowsy and can knock some people out (I've heard).

When I take them, I get gradually more and more drowsy and eventually feel like going to sleep....while when my friend takes them she says it knocks her right out.

So, I guess your body weight and stamina have to do with who much it affects you.

In Layman's term, if you're fatter, you'd be better off with an elephant tranquilizer but Tylenol PM is good for at least getting the bigger people drowsy.

The suggestion of listening to music works very well for some people, including myself. I'd reccomend being rather familiar with the song, so you aren't actively listening to it as much as you normally would be if you were just listening to music. There are some very great songs to fall asleep to, and here are some of the albums that I tend to use for falling asleep:

Radiohead - Kid A (first two tracks in particular)
Sigur Ros - ( ) works well, and Agaetis Byrjun and Takk... aren't bad
Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports just like it sounds. Perfect.
Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# oo

Sigur Ros tends to have me out within 10 minutes. Brian Eno often works faster.

Reading or listening to music has always helped me fall asleep faster. Or do both. Drawing is always hypnotizing too.:doh:

I find that when I can't fall asleep & I know IM so tired, I'll just move my foot & count it until I fall asleep, I find that math makes me drowsy! it works for me but its not a guarntee!:biggrin:

Just read the academic book with lot of difficult english. Usually they will give you yawn in the first 5 minutes when you read 'em. And you will feel a very powerful dworsiness after passing 5-6 pages. Then you can stop and grab your pillow.

That usually happens to me whenever I have exam for tomorrow.*_*

It usually took me a very long time as well to fall into sleep but I luckily found a solution for it. First you need the following:

- A silent room with lot's of darkness or light, whatever suits you (Darkness promotes the production of melatonin which induces sleep)
- A comfortable matress & pillow
- A comfortable temperature, not too hot and not too cold.

Then:
- Take your favorite sleeping position
- Close your eyes
- Clear your thoughts by imagining one colour or something infinite like space. You can also imagine bright things but that's up to you, both work good.
- Visualise that your disabling your body parts like your turning off the power and do it with a speed your comfortable with. Generally I start from the bottom working all the way up, so first feet, then legs, torso, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, head. After you finish disabling, repeat the process but this time imagine your dissolving yourself into nothingness. It's weird but always when I finish dissolving my head I get the feeling like i'm "getting-knocked-into-sleep-but-not-entirely" and feels like you entered a new level. It's like tricking your brain or something.
- In this "almost-in-sleep" state start focussing on what you want to dream about and try to keep focussed on it. If you had a pleasant dream in the past and would like to re-experience it or "create a sequel", focus on that. I highly recommend this since it's memorised best deep in your brain. But if you want custom dreams keep repeating what you we're going to dream about so you don't "forget".

Congratulations, you should now be asleep. You gain 5435047xp :p


Note: I recommend reading that Lucid dreaming article, it's fun when you master it. Would you still have trouble falling into sleep then I would recommend to boost your melatonin levels since it encourages sleep. It should be available anywhere as there's no prescription needed. Take it sublingual roughly 10min before your going to bed.

Goodluck!

Pretty much, yeah. You can fall asleep in the middle of the day using that technique, if you want. I use to not be able to get to sleep without it, but then I found out that if I lie in bed thinking about masturbating, I'll fall asleep from that.

I sometimes listen to some music on low volume. I try to listen to some calm music and not very powerful music that hypes you up even more.

The thing is that I'm usually pretty tired and I don't even feel like listening to music and just fall asleep normally. :cow:

Im surprised this wasnt mentioned sooner, and by sooner I mean the first response. This isnt a miracle cure though, it can be somewhat addictive.

That method is also good, especially if youre thinking of something pleasant.

So yeah, I use those two methods, if not Im usually awake to hear my digital wristwatch beep off at 5am cause I forgot to set the time an hour ahead some time ago. When I hear the beeping, well, its a pretty defeating sound, but Im just rambling now.

I'm so lucky. All I need to do is shut my eyes, and (no matter where or when it is) I am out within 5 minutes. I am also able to get up at anytime, and go for long periods of time without sleep.

drinking a glass of red wine normally helps me when I'm not sleepy...

I usually leave the TV on, and set the timer on it. I set the timer for 60 minutes, but I usually fall asleap in about 5 to 10. If I am on a business trip, I put on some heavy metal, blast it real loud, and it puts me to sleep like a light. If I don't have something to distract me, my senses become hightened and more focused, so the lightest of taps in the hallway, or the slightest of light changes catches my attention, and I can't sleep until I investigate what happened. This was once really bad when I had some serious insomnia, and I heard a gunshot upstairs in my apartment building. My senses were so heightend that I nearly pissed myself.

BTW, the gunshot was my neighbor shooting a rat that crawled up his toilet. Any city with a sewer system runs the risk of critters coming up the hard way.

I need a fan running in order to go to sleep. That is, a relatively large box fan turned on "high."
I can't sleep without it, but it usually puts me to sleep quite quickly.
(This is a thing my mother started, I believe.)

When I'm having trouble falling to sleep, though, reading helps to put me back to sleep, but only if I'm actually tired.

I usually play games on my gameboy, particularly RPG's or turn based games like Fire Emblem. A lot of them are also cool in a way that if you just turn off the game, it will save your last position/move/turn, or at least you can generally save at almost any point if you suddenly have to stop playing.

Kind of embarassing, but I've fallen asleep playing a game, only to wake up about an hour later, and find that the game's still on lol. Usually though, I turn it off when I start realizing that I"m falling asleep, and then generally have no trouble dozing off for the night.

How long this takes me depends on how much is on my mind. Sometimes it takes minutes, one time it took 2 hours (got a lot of stuff done on Final Fantasy though lol), avg I'd say takes about 10-30 minutes.

I second that. In fact, I just recently taught myself to sleep with a shirt on as well. THat is somewhat helpful if you need to get out of the house.

I can always clear my mind and start wondering before going to sleep. Most times I don't even realize when I hit unconciousness.