Sleep (pseudo) science

I admit to often relying on a couple couple of beers to lubricate the rails of the Sleepytown Express at night. If I could afford health insurance, I'm sure I would be prescribed Ambien or Zanax. Neither form of prescription seems very healthy so I've been trying various things to go to sleep more naturally.

Number one is just staying up until sheer exhaustion takes hold. This works but is often detrimental the next day.

Two is reading. Prone. Only works if I'm reading something boring, however, which seems a waste of time. Also, being married, I have to share my sleep-space with a light sensitive person which necessitates reading in a different room. After a while, sleeping on the living room couch gets old.

Three is the (soft?) science way. I found this program, Gnaural that creates binaural beats which can supposedly alter your brain wave frequency. Normally the brain will attempt to match the dominant frequency in its environment. Higher frequencies tend to make us agitated or alert while lower frequencies lead us to relaxed, meditative states. I have noticed that there are rooms in buildings where the hum will make me drowsy, so I accept this. So far, on the three occasions I've used the program, I've quickly entered sleep, and woke up without feeling groggy. Each time was a nap, and not a full night's sleep, so I still have some investigating to do. Perhaps it's a placebo. Regardless, the program can be used for other purposes. Say, noise production. Laptop terror electronics. You can manipulate the beats, white noise, etc. Plus it's open source. The program works for PC or Linux. There is a Mac patch which requires some terminal witchcraft akin to getting early Soulseek to work, but there is also a Java app you can run in your browser here. Just lay near your laptop, or rip a 70 minute session to your favorite mp3 player. It's what I always expected Sony's Dream Machine to do, but it didn't. Speaking of which, you can turn your computer monitor into a dream machine here. Not as cool as staring through your eyelids at a paper cylinder, taped to a record player , with a light bulb dangling down inside of it - that's junk science. Get the blueprint for that madman's device here. While you're at it, make an aluminum foil beanie for yourself, why don't you? Beware though, the gov'mint might just want you to wear one.