This is precisely what I do. Pretty much anything that sends my mind off into a cool direction works well. Some narrators are better than others (Stefan Rudnicki has a great voice, and William Dufris does a wonderful job of voicing characters).

I searched high and low for headphones that I can sleep in. I can't sleep on my back, so big cans are right out. I hate earbuds and things that poke into my ear canal, and headband-like arrangements slide around, are hot and compress my ears painfully. I finally found a set of small, disk-like phones that fit flat and in the center of my ear, just outside the ear canal; with a little extra padding these are very, very comfortable.

[The product I liked are Bedphones, from dubslabs.com; they are expensive, but I found them totally worth it. I use the wired version, and they tend to tangle badly unless you take a little care wrapping them up, but I hate having yet another device to charge]

----

"Really? Doctor, I think your stories are simply divine--"

"Thank you."

"Oh, I really do. I put one of your tapes on my player and let it lull me to sleep almost every night."

"Higher praise a writer cannot expect," Jubal said with a straight face.

- Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

My bedphone experience was not good. Spouse complained about noise leakage, and they stopped working within a month. Otherwise, they _could_ be more comfortable than ear buds depending how well they fit. Most wired earbuds survive <6 months in bed. Generally they short out from being slept on, crushed, rolled over etc.

Wearing silicon tipped in-earbuds all night is likely courting ear infection. I have settled on JBL T205 Earbud Headphones. They are in-ear but without silicon tips (i.e. ear canal is not sealed shut all night), are comfortable enough, last 6-12 months and are cheap.

Wish someone would make a pair that would last at least a couple years. Hate the waste.

Stefan Rudnicki is fantastic! Dufris less so, but still very good.

There's a series by Ken Scholes that uses both of them (along with others, it's a full cast!) and it's amazing: https://www.audible.com/pd/Lamentation-Audiobook/B002V0RHPI

Please do mention the actual product! I like to listen to music in bed sometimes but having to lie on my back stops me from really enjoying it.

There is no issue with recommending products on HN AFAIK. I have come across some great products after recommendations on here in the past.

I use these [0] and they're pretty high quality, very reasonable price, very long battery life, and low-profile enough that you can even lay on your side and it doesn't feel uncomfortable (for me at least) though I still only use it in one ear at a time, the one not on my pillow.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q7SVYBQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

I find that Airpods Non-Pro will stay in when I'm on my side and when I roll over. I'm a terrible sleeper and change position a fair bit, but there's no problem falling asleep with them in. I often wake up with them both still in.

I loved listening to Isaac Arthur's youtube videos, and it helps a lot in falling asleep(then I discovered low dosage melatonin).

His voice is so calming and re-assuring and the background music also helps.

The O'Neill cylinders series never failed to make me sleep -- I could imagine myself living in such a neat space, floating in the middle of such a cylinder, producing large amounts of food, the world's problems far away, and boom, I'm asleep.

I think I used to fall asleep like this when I was kid imagining I was travelling in captain Nemo's submarine.

I love that guy's voice. But usually I'm too interested to fall asleep, maybe not when I listen for the second time :)

Audiobooks work for me too but my insomnia is mostly waking up in the middle of the night or waking up too early in the morning and can’t go back to sleep. So I end up sleep deprived. And with my partner sleeping next to me it is not an option to listen to audiobooks and fall asleep.

My partner never hears it: I use a pair of bluetooth earbuds, but I leave one out of my ear on the side I lay on. I fall asleep that way, with a sleep timer on the audiobook player. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I just start it up again.

Good for you but I can’t fall asleep with earbuds in my ears.

I use a cheap pillow speaker connected into my iPhone dock

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

When my buds run out of battery I put my phone on very low volume half under my pillow. I can hear it pretty easily, but my partner can't.

I do that as well, I tend to listen more to non-fiction since many fiction audio books have "acting" in them instead of just reading :(

I like there to be a little acting. I've had books where the delivery was fairly monotone, with no difference in delivery between scene description and a character speaking in anger or surprise etc. It sounds weird, wooden & stiff. I can see how that has the potential to be more distracting when trying to get to sleep though.

Regarding audiobooks: John le Carré reading his own work is sublime — he does all the voices and accents and they are wonderful.