general Counting Sheep

[Cagey 4,248]

Have you ever tried counting sheep to go to sleep? If so, did it work for you? And how long did it take before you fell asleep?

[cuteycindyhoney 13,307]

I've never counted sheep, but years ago I did something kind of similar. My first computer monitor (Big Boxy CRT!) had a blinking light telling you it was on stand by. If I had trouble sleeping, I would stare at the light and count the blinks. It never took very long. maybe up to one hundred?

[Fritzy 1,691]

I’ve tried it before when I was little. Occasionally it’d work, not always though but still. 

[Splashee 28,564]

It never worked for me. I also cannot fall asleep by thinking about a task, such as keeping track of numbers, or imagining sheep

[SasQ 1,376]

Well, it works for this dude

Seriously though, there's a method that works much better (at least for me): thinking on random stuff. E.g. you think one word, then you add another word to it by random association, then another, etc. The goal is to make longer and longer train of random thoughts, possibly involving imagination, because that makes your brain indulge itself in an ocean of thoughts that sooner or later changes into a dream.

Another thing that works quite well is relaxation. You focus on one particular muscle and you try to relax it as much as possible. Then you go to the next one, etc., starting from your toes and going up, towards your head. It is often the case that people cannot sleep because of muscle tensions they are unaware of, and once they find those muscles and relax them, they fall asleep with ease. (Also, the process of concentrating your attention on particular muscles one after another is kinda like counting sheep – monotone and defocusing enough to let you fall asleep.)

One more technique I once figured out as a child, is to imagine that your bed is floating (e.g. on water, on in the sky). You need to imagine and "feel" that wavy movement. One possible reason why it works is that infants are often rocked to make them fall asleep. So perhaps this brings memories of that or something. (Unless it's the rocking motion itself that does the job somehow.) There might be a side effect of this technique though: you may induce an out-of-body experience (OoBE) / astral projection that way ;J

Edited July 13, 2020 by SasQ

[DixonTheAdversary 1,632]

I've tried it, but it didn't help me. If anything it made it harder for me to fall asleep because of the counting.

[DubWolf 17,263]

6 hours ago, SasQ said:

Well, it works for this dude

Seriously though, there's a method that works much better (at least for me): thinking on random stuff. E.g. you think one word, then you add another word to it by random association, then another, etc. The goal is to make longer and longer train of random thoughts, possibly involving imagination, because that makes your brain indulge itself in an ocean of thoughts that sooner or later changes into a dream.

Another thing that works quite well is relaxation. You focus on one particular muscle and you try to relax it as much as possible. Then you go to the next one, etc., starting from your toes and going up, towards your head. It is often the case that people cannot sleep because of muscle tensions they are unaware of, and once they find those muscles and relax them, they fall asleep with ease. (Also, the process of concentrating your attention on particular muscles one after another is kinda like counting sheep – monotone and defocusing enough to let you fall asleep.)

One more technique I once figured out as a child, is to imagine that your bed is floating (e.g. on water, on in the sky). You need to imagine and "feel" that wavy movement. One possible reason why it works is that infants are often rocked to make them fall asleep. So perhaps this brings memories of that or something. (Unless it's the rocking motion itself that does the job somehow.) There might be a side effect of this technique though: you may induce an out-of-body experience (OoBE) / astral projection that way ;J

You beat me to it  .

J have counted sheep, I don’t see how counting to a really high number of sheep helps  ? I feel like I’d stop counting or get bored.

Or count to a million sheep before falling asleep  

[Coffee 4,323]

I don't think I have, but I still don't know if it would even work for me 

[SharpWit 2,667]

Yes but one of two things would happen. I'd think too much about the sheep and stop counting eventually but not fall asleep, or I'd be too focused on counting and stay awake.

[SasQ 1,376]

Oh, I just remembered that there's one more method for falling asleep that I sometimes use, and I think Bronies might like it
Some time ago I summoned Twilight Sparkle into my mindscape and established a deal with her that I will summon her that way in the future when I'd need her for something, and in return she can peruse my "virtual library" I have in a secret place in my mind where I keep all of my knowledge safe and secure We also established a "safety keyword" to send her back (just in case), and that she can also go back to her world whenever she feels like it if I'll go doing something else and forget to unsummon her myself.

Sometimes I summon her when I can't sleep, and then I ask her to use her magic on me to put me into sleep (or call Princess Luna for help and let her do it instead – she's the Princess of the Night and the Dream World after all :J ). She lights up her horn and touches my forehead with it, starting to fill me up with that magic energy of hers. I can feel it slowly flowing through my body and relaxing my muscles, calm and warm energy, and I'm slowly starting to "melt". I feel my imaginary body floating in space, as if I were lying down on a mattress floating on water or something, or on a cloud Then I slowly fall asleep...

Sometimes I also ask her to wait until I fall asleep and come to visit me on the other side, in the dream world, in order to remind me that we're in a dream, so that we could do some fun stuff together, e.g. magic lessons or duels, travelling, visiting some ancient libraries to read interesting books that don't exist in the real world, doing geek offs   etc. And it works sometimes, leading to interesting lucid dreams :>

Friendship is Magic, so why not use some of that magic for dreaming too?

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

I don't think I have, but I doubt it will work anyways.

[Thuja 3,659]

The more my mind is active, the less sleep I'll be getting so no, counting sheep has never helped me fall asleep.  Doesn't help much that I have a hard time visualizing things like counting sheep.  I might get weird black blobs with a background of my eyelids, can't do much besides that.  The only thing that helps me fall asleep is either rolling around bed trying to find the perfect position after a couple of hours of doing that or falling asleep in an hour thanks to medication, there's no inbetween for that.

[Early Sunsets 2,106]

I've tried all sorts of stuff like that - counting, meditating, muscle relaxation, everything. Nothing works for me, so I just end up lying in bed for ninety minutes or more until I finally fall asleep.

[Cagey 4,248]

It seems it doesn’t work for anyone here. It doesn’t work for me, either, but the reason I brought it up is because I tried it a few nights ago to avoid thinking about something else. I kept forgetting what number I was on and then restarting, but it helped me calm down. A little after sheep #500, I was naturally sleepy enough to let my mind drift and fall asleep. 

So counting sheep didn’t make me tired, but it did keep my emotions in check. 

[Ixrec 86]

Big nope here too. Any specific task with a concrete goal just keeps me awake.

Doing almost anything for the purpose of sleeping tends to be a losing game unless I'm actually tired. But once I am tired, it usually helps if I let myself daydream in bed instead of any constructive thinking (like making plans for tomorrow) or seeking external entertainment. Although it quickly becomes impossible to distinguish these "intentional daydreams" from actual dreams, which I guess isn't a bad thing.