I started doing this when I went away to college. I think it was some mix of not having parents to tell me to go to sleep, feeling like I needed to reclaim some time for myself when the rest of my day was so busy, and maybe being a bit lonely far away from home.

I almost exclusively watch HS BG. It’s the right level of enough stuff happening that it occupies my mind while I’m conscious but it’s not something I care about missing any of it and they’re generally chill enough to not overexcite me or shock me awake. Plus they usually have on some generic chill music in the background.

I set a timer to shut off my tablet after an hour and with only a few exceptions I don’t ever stay awake long enough to see it shut off.

If you want completely different genre, these I find helpful if I can’t sleep.

Darknet Diaries - stories of ex hackers and penetration testors telling their experiences on a job. Sneaking into various facilities etc.

Stuff You Should Know - two hosts laying out various topics with a bit of silliness and banter mixed in.

Lost SciFi Podcast -dude reads various short stories from ages ago. He’s a good reader but just enough monotony to fall asleep to if you aren’t into the story

I use Joov VODs. Just some random Skyrim sounds, the Fallout ones don’t work as well, what with the gunshots and all.

I’ve started listening to SecretBase from pateron

I took a nap while falling asleep to a short video and in my dream I kept trying to turn off the video wondering why I the audio kept looping. Took me a while to realize I’m in dream land

I used to fall asleep a couple of audio books. The Winds of War, The Stand or The Wheel of time. I found the narrators of those books voices very soothing.

I made my self stop though, I wanted to reduce the amount of stuff I needed to fall asleep.

I’ve found myself using the YouTube channel Scott’s Thoughts to fall asleep. I won’t explain what he does, just watch a single one of his videos and understand that the entire channel is just that.

Mostly I fall asleep to Alan Watts, Charles Bukowski (read by someone with a better voice haha), sometimes a reading of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. When I get bored with those, I try radio stations, just whatever one interests me at the moment. Sometimes I’ll listen to the “learn [language] while you sleep” videos, just as a goof.

I listen to short science videos. I usually put them into a playlist of about five videos and fall asleep by the second. New videos or topics I know less about go first.

My favourites are Dr Becky, PBS Space Time, PBS Eons, Omega Centauri and Urknall, Weltall & das Leben. Angela Collier would be up there as well, but her videos are too interesting to fall asleep to. And I also like Looking Glass Universe, but she tends to show too much stuff you have to see.

No, I prefer to read to sleep. But I also just… go to sleep, sometimes.

I love listening to college lectures for topics I’m interested in but don’t fully grok. I fell asleep in them back when I was paying for it and getting tested on the material. Now I can listen to the same lecture 50 times if I want. And no test.

An all time favorite: Lenny Susskind’s Stanford open lecture series on Quantum Mechanics

Down side: sometimes I dream that I am trying to ask a question and the lecturer never notices. I have literally in the dream started running around terrorizing the room going insane screaming why does this professor not acknowledge my existence?!

Doubly hurtful when it’s Lenny; he’s such a comforting father-figure

The French Whisperer. “Whisperer” is a bit of a misnomer since he speaks softly instead of actually whispering but he is very French. He covers a pretty wide range of history, mythology, science, and literature/arts. There’s a YouTube channel for videos but he uploads audio-only versions on podcast platforms.

I’ve been rewatching DS9 at night and falling asleep to that.

Listening to podcasts also helps me immensely to fall asleep. But it’s difficult to find content that is not too boring and not too interesting.

My favorites are (and I doubt it would work for you looking at your preferred content)

• behind the bastard
• imaginary worlds
• darknet diaries
• build for tomorrow

Can only judge for the first 10 minutes of each episode because success.

I’m more low-tech, i set my mobile to minimum volume and use some equalizer app to reduce volume even more. Then i put the speaker right next to my ear… need to upgrade on this :-)

I tend to go for story-telling podcasts, and within those I gravitate towards Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Black Mirror style weird anthologies.

Right now I’m finding a lot of great stuff in:

• The Other Stories (all kinds of stuff, they have a different theme every month or so)
• The Wrong Station (similar, but less likely to stick to a theme for a while)
• Gray Matter (lots of modern adaptations of older horror/sci-fi, like Lovecraft)
• The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings (higher ratio of dumb stuff, but still some gems)
• The Program (Black Mirror-esque)
• The Truth (various radio plays. Many aren’t sci-fi, but still weird in some way. Kind of reminds me of the bits of Inside No. 9 I’ve seen.)