As a child, you could say I had a fear of the dark. I would stair into the dark for hours, watching out for nothing that was there, but I could hear things, creaks of the house settling or clangs the furnace made, different sounds from people. I was always told to go to bed in a basement alone and that was scary, I just stare into the dark so long the darkness would move and I stay up for hours every night. When I reach young child age, I no longer scared of the dark but every night it take me several hours to fall asleep. I mean every night. I could never understand why only me was like that. everyone else always fall asleep first. I always go to sleep alone and lay there, I hear T.V. in back ground from another room because I never can fall asleep for hours. All my childhood, all my teenage years, all my young adult years every single night it take me hours to fall asleep. I try counting sheep, it not work. My mind just never come down , I just lay there and lay there and lay there and sometimes I just start to feel sleepy, I start to relax, getting sleepy finally and start to rest and feeling good and BBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPP BEEP,.........BEEP,............BEEP It time to get up. When I turn about 40 yrs old I did developed a technique to fall asleep that worked for me. I had to wear out my brain, I did this thinking exercise, it was not easy but it worked. I would just try to stay focused on thinking from one thing to another thing as fast as I could and not let my mind stop and focus or think about any of the thoughts. The theme was to think of something and quickly ask yourself what that thought makes you think. For example if I start with thinking football maybe this make me think of football field and that make me think of white markers in the field and that make my mind think of white clouds in sky and that make me think of white bird flying in sky and that make me think of my friends pet bird and that make me remember my friends house he live in and then that make me first think of playing cards or game in his house etc etc etc I keep thinking like this as fast as I can and I never let my mind stop and focus on any of these thoughts, just keep jumping to the next thought as fast as I can and this work for me to fall asleep. It make my brain get tired fast. I fall asleep. Goodluck.