how are some people able to fall asleep anywheres?

When you’re incredibly tired, anywhere is a good place to catch up on some sleep.

At some point you're just so tired that comfort and time is much less of a factor, I mean I feel like I can fall asleep anyti

If you have the proper biological facilities and you've been up long enough, you can hardly stop it. Your mind slows to a crawl You're a perception of things around you narrows to where you barely notice anything that's not mission critical, and your consciousness just fades like someone slowly turning the dimmer down on a light bulb in a dark room.

I'm always tired. I don't go to bed at a decent hour, my joints ache all the time, so I rarely sleep more than 90 minutes without waking up. I could go to sleep right now if my 8 year old wasn't making a ruckus.

I've had a hunch for a long time that people who grew up in a busy household with lots of family around are better equipped to ignore noise / light and be able to fall asleep easily. You should go wake them up and ask them.

I used to struggle to get to sleep and hated those who could do it anywhere. They'd say, "just clear your mind", which wasn't helpful. It could be other things, but I figured out that my mind was always busy, sometimes from stress, sometimes from excitement. For me, it's extreme focus. Often, I'll put my mind to work on a complicated problem I'm having at work or home. If I have nothing, my go to is to see how far I can get calculating the binary digits (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64...) or the Fibonacci sequence in my head. I don't get very far and I'm out.

Be sufficiently tired.

Someone else told an anecdote about being in the Army, and they have it 100% on the nose. Be forced to wake up at 4am every day; start out with an hour of cardio, then spend the rest of the day being physically active; don't be allowed to crawl into bed until some time between 8 and 10, depending on events you don't control. Do this every day - excluding Sundays - for two months. I guarantee that, by the end, you will be able to fall asleep almost instantly the moment you are allowed to sit or lay down and know you've got at least 10 minutes until you have to move again.

Being old does the trick for me.

I think a lot of people who have that skill learned it while serving in one military or another. Infantry(wo)men either learn to grab what rest they can when they can… or they don’t work out as infantry(wo)men.

I have 0 merit in this. I just… can. I always could, apparently. My parents organized dance competitions when I was a baby; they used to make me sleep in the DJ’s booth as it was the quietest-ish place in the venue. I slept through all of those like a (literal) baby. I don’t know why or how.

Beats me, people saying "if you're tired enough you can sleep anywhere", making me laugh my exhausted ass off (and feel jealous af, but can't really hold it against them).

I've spent more nights than I can count laid in bed for hours, absolutely shattered, wanting nothing but sleep, and none has come. Then when I do finally fall asleep, it isn't for long or of any decent quality (as in EtraordinaryJoe's case - chronic pain will do that to you), so I'm still always tired, and yet still unable to just fall asleep.

My trick to getting to sleep at night is weed and a meal, to help induce food coma, which again, isn't quality sleep, but it's better than nothing..

I also didn't know how people did it. Then I had a baby and almost fell asleep in the shower once while standing. I've never been more tired in my life but man, these few months of just being able to fall asleep at meteoric speed anywhere anytime were incredible. It felt like a superpower from one of those pill memes. Now I am just tired all the time but I can't fall asleep like that anymore.

My wife does it with her superpower, Hypersomnia.

Best I can do is sleep sitting upright. In my office chair, road trips, on the couch. You name it.

The secret, just be tired AF and sleep deprived. I don't sleep well at night. I'm exhausted after work. I usually need a nap midday, but can't take one if I'm working. By the time I get home, I'll pass out in my chair for a bit.

Relax, close your eyes, fall asleep. Not much to it other than making sure you're not in a position where your arm will fall asleep or neck gets cramped. There's no secret to it, you just go to sleep.

There's a saying: fake it until you make it.

So just pretend to sleep until you actually fall asleep.

Go through your body from the head down, tensing each muscle for a few seconds and then letting it relax, one at a time. Then, work really hard at really envisioning somewhere, seeing all the detail in your mind's eye. Focus on it. Imagine feeling the physical sensations of being there. The gentle sway of a hammock, the warmth of the sun radiating down on your face. Giving your mind something to focus on lets it stop being so active, and lets it relax. It's like having the tv on late at night putting you to sleep.

With the physical relaxation from the tensing and loosening and the mental relaxation, sleep should come much easier. It does take practice though.

Eepy 😴

Stay up for 48 hours. You too will be able to sleep anywhere once you allow yourself to. Unless you have clinical insomnia, it works.

There is also narcolepsy; the opposite of insomnia.

Once I'm asleep I won't care how comfortable I am. If you can fall asleep quickly enough, it doesn't matter.

Git good

They're usually not getting enough sleep during the night

When I was in the army I was able to do that, but in civilian life, nope.

Not even when I'm tired to that point. I won't fall asleep, I'll have a seizure.

But in the army with a break of more than 5 minutes meant a nap.

A follow-up question: can I gain this ability by identifying one of those people and eating their brain?

Practice.

Witchcraft

It's something that you just get used to. When I had to travel long distance in a cramped bus daily I used to sleep on the way. The effect was so strong I from doing this every day that I really had to fight falling asleep in every bus I rode on after that. Now the habit is gone again.

I think the disease is called narcolepsy

An uncle of mine used to be in the TA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Reserve_(United_Kingdom)) and he said he'd learnt there how to just fall asleep as and when.