This Sleep Hack Shouldn’t Work (But Does)

The Curse of Never Sleeping

Sleep and I have never been on speaking terms. While other kids nodded off, I was wide awake, counting the slats under my bunkbed and the spots on my pillowcase like some tiny insomniac goblin. Not thinking. Not dreaming. Just existing. Fully conscious. All night. Every night.

Nothing helped. Meditation, blue light bans, white noise, valerian, chamomile, moon water – my brain didn’t rev up, it just… refused. I’d lie there breathing like some zen monk, white noise humming, completely still… and still completely awake. I even had mates swing by at 3am after work because they knew I’d be up. That’s how bad it was.

Melatonin from the States gave me three hours max before my brain shot back online. Prescription pills like Stillnox? Actually made me more awake. One GP even used the term “reverse physiology” – which, in hindsight, I think she meant “paradoxical reaction”? – and sent me home like that explained anything.. I tried antihistamines. I tried herbal teas. And I even tried wine – doctor’s orders, no less. Nothing worked. I was a chaos goblin on no sleep, and not even the fun kind.

Enter: Maladaptive Daydreaming

And then one day I discovered the perfect sleep hack for my neurospicy mind. I call it maladaptive daydreaming, but weaponised. For sleep. And it works.

Now if you’re unfamiliar, maladaptive daydreaming is generally not great. It’s obsessive, intense, often intrusive. It pulls people away from real life and into fantasy. But if you’re neurospicy like me, it can also be a weird little superpower when you figure out how to wield it correctly. And baby, I wield it like a sleep sword.

The key is in the subject matter. You can’t just fantasise about winning the lottery or having a passionate romance with your celebrity crush. That’s too exciting. Too stimulating. You’ll stay up another five hours designing your imaginary mansion or choosing your fictional wedding playlist. No, the trick is to make your daydream so detailed and boring that your brain simply gives up.

Magical Yet Mind-Numbingly Boring

Let me walk you through a classic bedtime scenario: I lie down, close my eyes, and enter a fictional world where I have infinite magical powers. Sounds cool, right? But instead of soaring through the sky or saving kingdoms, I’m knee-deep in paperwork.

I’m talking about the bureaucratic and ecological nightmare of having endless power. What are the global economic consequences of being able to conjure food instantly? Will agricultural industries collapse? How would governments regulate my magic? Would I cause climate change by creating too much rain in the wrong areas? Who audits my spells? Can I be sued?

It’s like writing a PhD thesis in my head, and I am both the supervisor and the poor exhausted student. I spiral into thought loops about supply chains, the ethics of magic-fuelled capitalism, and how to design an international treaty for responsible wand usage. I plan council meetings, write fictional policy briefs, and manage magical city infrastructure. Exhausting? Yes. Tedious? Oh, definitely. Effective? Incredibly.

Why It Works (I Think)

The science-y part of me thinks this works because it gives my racing brain something to chew on, but in a way that doesn’t emotionally activate me. There’s no romance. No peril. Just deeply dull logistical conundrums that allow my thoughts to wind down instead of up. It’s like handing my brain a crossword puzzle and saying, “Here, do this while I snooze.”

Instead of fighting the urge to daydream (which, let’s be honest, I’ve done since I was old enough to escape into my own head), I use it intentionally. I just have to point it in the most yawn-inducing direction possible. I’m like a toddler on a long car ride who finally passes out because the game of counting cows was so boring.

It doesn’t work if I’m genuinely stressed or anxious. Then my brain is too busy panicking to get boring. But if I’m just restless or overtired, this little maladaptive ritual works wonders. And best of all, there are no side effects. No grogginess. No sleep hangovers. Just a bit of internal sarcasm when I wake up and remember I fell asleep pondering the supply chain ethics of unicorn hair.

How To Build Your Own Bureaucratic Sleep Hellscape

If you want to try this yourself, start by choosing a topic that sounds kind of interesting at first glance, but has no emotional stakes. For example: the zoning laws for castles in rural magical villages. Or the logistics of creating a post-apocalyptic postal system. Or running a haunted hotel with a complicated HR department.

Then, go deep. Don’t just imagine the setting. Think about the tedious background details. The budgets. The health and safety regulations. The insurance policies. Who signs off on the use of haunted beds? Is there a ghost union? What are the overtime rules for banshees?

The more complex and mundane it becomes, the faster you’ll drop off. Your brain, bored out of its skull but content to be busy, will eventually say, “You know what? This is dumb. Let’s sleep.”

Why It Feels Like Cheating (But Isn’t)

Because it is cheating. Just… in the best way. While other people are doing breathwork and counting sheep like it’s the 1800s, I’m out here drafting zoning regulations for ghost-run hotels. And somehow? My brain sighs in relief and powers down like a dusty old laptop.

It shouldn’t work. But neither should half the stuff neurospicy brains do. Our minds were not built for conventional solutions. We are chaos-coded. We need fantasy spreadsheets and imaginary infrastructure. That’s not weird – that’s innovative.

This is next-level brain hacking. Sleep isn’t just a goal – it’s a side quest. And we’re finding the backdoor through elven bureaucracy, and dwarven risk analyses (because apparently, that’s what it takes to get a neurospicy goblin to sleep).

Turns out, if you want to fall asleep, you’ve got to become the mayor of Boringville and micromanage fairyland infrastructure.

Sleeping Like a Well-Rested Goblin Queen

Sleep used to feel like a thing of fantasy, and maladaptive daydreaming? It gave me a doorway into Sleepytown via literal fantasy. Like a strange, sleepy portal made of magical tax audits and fairyland building codes.

So if you’re lying in bed tonight, staring at the ceiling and wishing your brain would just turn off for the love of any god listening, try it. Invent a world. Make it magical. Then make it tedious. Become the imaginary manager of a werewolf tax office. Regulate phoenix flame emissions. Design public transport for mermaids. Go full goblin mode.

You just might bore yourself to sleep. Like I do. And honestly? It’s the best sleep hack I’ve ever found.

We Need to Stop Clapping for Basic Decency – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In today's episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why we need to stop clapping for basic decency. You know the script. A man texts back within twenty-four hours and we're screenshotting it to the group chat. A man plans a date more than three hours in advance and we call him a unicorn. A man manages to listen, pay attention, and behave like a fully formed adult, and our nervous systems short-circuit because we genuinely don't know how to receive it.Here's the truth nobody is saying out loud. The bar has been dragged so low that Satan himself needs a chiropractor after a competitive round of limbo. We've been culturally trained to be grateful for behaviour that should not require gratitude. We've been told these things are bonuses when they're actually the entry requirement. And in the meantime, women have been quietly doing the basic decency thing forever, without applause, while men get standing ovations for outputs we generated for them.Today we're talking about why a great man is genuinely just an average woman, who benefits when the bar stays low, the invisible labour women have been performing for free for centuries, and the friend-test that cuts straight through every excuse we've ever made for mediocre men. Let's get into it.For more visit BryJaimea.com or follow over on IG @BryJaimea

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