I've been looking up ways to fix my insomnia for 5+years. I've tried such techniques and made up my own. Which is what led to forcing dreams. It stopped me from thinking about anything else that might keep me awake and often times I could reach a point where I could make the character I was pretending to be fall asleep or lose consciousness and then I'd stay asleep for awhile. It doesn't matter how relaxed I am, how tired I am, or how empty my mind is I do not fall asleep without meds. For up to a week. To the point I start having severe physical problems. I also seem to sometimes get stuck in REM, or something close to it. When that happens I wake up 2-4hours later than I normally would and dreams seem to drag on and on and on without ending or letting me wake up. The sleep part of my brain is seriously broken and noone knows why. My insurance ran out and I'm temporarily on free state insurance so I can't have any more sleep studies or blood tests done for now.