Sleep evades me

I can relate. I hate all my dreams too. Mine are always unpleasant in some way or another. And I sleep very poorly and anxiously. I recommend a stretching routine before bed by candlelight and to beautiful evocative music. I’ve read that good smells at night give you good dreams. I would look at beautiful evocative images before bed of details in nature or nostalgic symbols from your past. My husband does what we call ‘channel surfing’ to me before bed to help me sleep. It works so incredibly well. He will whisper: ‘remember a lake or other landscape you visited as a child’ then he’ll wait a minute and whisper: ‘think of an adventure you went on as a child with a friend’. A minute later ‘think of a school cafeteria’. Etc. He’ll say things like ‘remember what it feels like to have half your body in water.’ Or remember a time you looked at trees or tree buds in springtime’. The idea is to get your mind to go from one stimulating thought to the next. I always fall asleep in the most pleasant way after that. My husband looks for ASMR on YouTube to help him sleep, but ASMR doesn’t help me. Have you ever YouTubed it for sleep? Anyway good luck! Do any of the things you try work? Magnesium supplements or anything like that?

I have chronic pain too and bad joints. What I do is sleep on my side with a large pillow between my legs. Then I have a big bolster pillow that I hug and another less stuffed bolster pillow under my neck. I still toss and turn and have hip pain sometimes, but it's much better since I sleep this way. I also take a capsule that has chamomile and passionflower in it to help further relax. ❤️