Nighty-night!

The Washington POST reports on a man who once had trouble getting to sleep, so he stayed up all night figuring out how to beat the problem.

The man's name is Luc Beaudoin, and his field is cognitive science and psychology, so he used his own mind to try some experiments, and the result was a system that does consciously what the brain is doing when we start sawing logs.

“If you wake people up as they’re falling asleep, they often report that they’re having these little micro-dreams,” he says, adding that you can treat yourself to your own mini-dreams, and wouldn't you love to?

Beaudoin's manner of thinking puts him in a dreamlike state, and that tricks the brain into thinking it's asleep, so let's fall asleep for real!

This is what he calls a "serial diverse imagining task," or cognitive shuffling, because you take your random thoughts and shuffle them like you were going to play Crazy 8s.

So, next time you find yourself staring at a clock that says 0341, shuffle the deck! Here's how to do the cognitive shuffle:

Take a word, any word, nothing weird, just neutral. Let's say you choose "phone."

Now, think of as many words as you can that start with "p": penny, philosopher, pen, prattle, and so forth.

As you come up with each word, come up with a scenario involving that word as you picture the word for 5 to 15 seconds.

...you found a penny and you remember the things you used to be able to buy with a cent...

...you picture Kant or Hegel or one of the philosophers of the modern era, such as Snoopy. You remember the fun you always had watching Snoopy win the tree decorating contest...

...you marvel at how many types of pens there are, and how you have come to prefer the ones with gel ink and how many colors of them there are...

...you conjure an image of a politician prattling on and on while everyone in the crowd is excited to get to the pie-eating contest. 

Beaudoin says, don't try to find a connection among the words. Just let your mind be awash in images, and that should be enough to put the old noodle to rest.

The trick is, this sort of thinking requires a certain bit of brain power, and that stops the brain from worrying about that noise you heard in the car, or figuring how you're going to pay for your vacation to Packwood, Idaho.

I might add, as a last resort, you could always picture yourself at work. That puts a lot of people into the arms of Morpheus for good every night.