I cant sleep without "coherent" noise

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Ive been like this since i was a kid, i cannot fall asleep in complete silence, i cannot use a white noise machine or a fan. there has to be "coherent" noise in the room, either a radio or tv. if i am asleep and the tv or radio shuts off for some reason, i immediately wake up.

it was hell when i was a teenager, when i was grounded and my mother took away all my electronics, made it difficult to sleep.

i love infomercials, they give me noise and boring subject material that puts me right out, some guy ranting about proper stool color, density, and quality, and im out within 3 minutes.

i have never had more than occaisional insomnia, i can fall asleep pretty much on demand, but not without human noise.

anyone else like this?

same here. i at least need a fan or something running. I use the noisemate now.

I'm a great sleeper, as I'm up & active all day from dawn. However, I have an easier time falling asleep if there's something going on in the room, like my wife watching a TV show, or even if I'm on the couch and there is company over talking. I've even fallen soundly asleep in a crowded, raucous rodeo stadium.

And as the OP said, I will wake up instantly if there has been a TV on, and someone turns it off. I always wake up when the power goes out too. All it takes is a sudden break to silence. Also, as soon as my wife and whomever is visiting, come to realize I'm asleep, they stop talking in a normal voice and begin to whisper. The sudden quiet whispering wakes me up like a military bugleboy.

Charles

I find that I have to have some kind of noise in the background, in order to be able to sleep. In the summer, it's my AC. In the winter, it's soft Christmas music playing from my computer.

I tend to live in big cities, so traffic noise or ear plugs usually do the tricks. I grew up by the sea, best white noise ever.

I have a cat that crawls underneath the bed covers with me and purrs, soothes me right to sleep

I also can't sleep without a fan constantly running. If someone else is in the room (a roommate) I can go to sleep w/o a fan.

My biggest fear that always gets me is when the power goes out in the dead of night. Deafening silence interrupted by the random bleeps from the smoke detector, with every outburst much slower than the next, like something out of a horror movie. In that situation it's go to sleep with my ears uncovered or keep my fists in firm grip of my ears in absolute fear.

Dead silence has always been my sensory issue.

I'm the exact opposite, at least for my adult life. It's gotta be silence or white noise, otherwise I can't fall asleep. If it's coherent speech or music, I'll just listen and interpret the speech or focus on the music, I literally can't tune it out or make my brain stop thinking about it. It's awful when I'm exhausted! It's as if some misplaced survival instinct is going "OMG human activity detected! Must monitor what they're up to, it could be important!"

Falling asleep takes a long time for me as it is. So does waking up. On the other hand, as a small child I could fall asleep with all kinds of noise, talking, etc. no different than most other children.

Same here. I've fallen asleep with either a radio, music, or TV on every night for the past forty years. I can't sleep in total silence, except for rare occasions, when I'm ready to pass out from incredible exhaustion.

I can't sleep in silence, but I can't sleep with coherent noise either because I tend to listen to it instead of sleeping. I have to use the white noise, ocean, or rain recordings.

Coherent noise WILL work sometimes if it's live people and not too loud, i.e. a small get-together next door.

I prefer to play a song when falling asleep.
I don't like complete silence any time of the day, I prefer a bit of noise.

I need a fan or white noise to sleep, complete silence just keeps me awake. Always been this way, probably always will.

Same here except I only need it when I'm trying to fall asleep. I don't need the noise to be on after I fall asleep. My TV broke recently so I usually just watch a live stream on my computer when I go to bed.

used to reply on music/tv sending me to sleep but would always wake up after a channel finished boadcasting for the night and went to silence. Strangely though I can generally return to sleep if i go staight back as I was! I tried to get away from it as it didn't seem normal but now I rely on achohol or weed. Maybe I should switch back.

yes, i've always, always needed to listen to story-books on tape as a child and as i became older i changed to using music.. or sedatives.

i can now go to sleep without that but i've noted it takes a lot of time and "concentration" on keeping my eyes shut and trying to observe my hypnagogic happenings. i had a raging special interest in lucid dreaming in which i learned to focus and relax myself to make my mind go to sleep while observing it happen.