I am occasionally afflicted with insomnia. Not that often but from time to time I just can't fall asleep. It's not the light, after years of shift work I had my circadian rhythm beat out of me. I can sleep when it's light, dark, morning noon or night. For some reason I think our brains just don't turn off from time to time. When thoughts circle around and around sleep has no room to act and we are unable to sleep (and I should point out to certain members of my family that this doesn't involve worry or anything about that, it can be as mundane thoughts as what I'm going to write next on my blog). To make matters worse I've got some strange cough that is lingering, and that only appears between the hours of 3 am, and 9 am.
My basic strategy for dealing with insomnia is not to fight it, to get up and read or watch TV and wait for the mind to settle down and for sleep to take me, but this time I've gone back to an old strategy for dealing with it. There is something about sleeping in a tent by a stream that produces (for me anyway) the best sleep, deep and renewing. Back when I was single, when insomnia would overtake me, I'd go out to the couch and put on one of Dan Gibson's Solitude CDs, specifically the 1/2 track Dawn by a Gentle Stream, put it on repeat and fall asleep. I no longer have that couch, which was the most comfortable couch for sleeping on ever, but I still have the CD. However no longer being single it wouldn't really be fair to Leah to be playing birdsong and running water all night.
Enter the iPod. With the Solitudes CD on my iPod I can put that track on an endless loop, stick and earphone in one ear (I tried both but it was very uncomfortable on the side I sleep on) and fall to sleep with the song of Blue Jays, Red-eyed Vireos, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and others while the sound of a gently gurgling stream bubbles along. Instant deep sleep. Or at least until the coughing starts.
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Ditto on everything you said about being able to sleep…and NOT being able to sleep. My CD cure is a series of rainfall/thunderstorms set around a pond. Very effective (for me).
I think that Solitudes/Dan Gibson had a CD similar to that one also Kimberlee