think or sleep

Monday or Tuesday night I came back from working and tried to go to sleep. I swear I had to have been in bed for like 2 hours before I eventually drifted off. That night I probably only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep before I had to get back up and get on the train into the city.

The last two nights I've been like "there is no freaking way I let that happen again" so I've set the alarm on my iphone, and then I've used its ipod capabilities to play 1 album (but not continue through a thousand song playlist) so that for most of the night there will be silence and my alarm will still be appropriately startling to wake me up.

What I've noticed is that with the music on I typically only make it through 1 or 2 songs and then I'm out like a light. So right off the bat I would make the argument for music / a lullabye to put me to sleep. I have a feeling this works in general during the day as well.

But when I really deeper into it, I think "is the reason I'm going to sleep because I'm replacing my thoughts with the music? my brain knows it doesn't have to think up its own soundtrack -- there's one already playing?"

This concerns me a little bit. When I think about growing up I think about several formative nights where I stayed awake for hours, in bed, or more usually on the couch, just thinking about shit, creating my opinions, etc. I don't remember lullabyes or using a device to put me to sleep ... pretty much ever. I also notice that it seems like 90% of people in the office work with headphones on -- I think Tai typically does as well when we're at home.

I wonder two things: can I thank the lack of a soundtrack for part of my accelerated development and thinking capacity? Obviously there's the study that says people perform better mentally after listening to Mozart (it's not clear if the effects are permanent or temporary), and I'm sure that listening to music develops your brain to a certain extent, but I really wonder also if it stunts your ability to think for yourself. The second thing I wonder is going the opposite direction -- does thinking instead of going to sleep impact my performance the next day? If we had conclusive results that turned my theory here into scientific fact, what would we actually want to do in raising the baby? Would you want to instill a sense of "going to school tomorrow is important -- you should take it seriously -- you should take going to your job seriously after you've grown up" vs increasing the brain's capacity and potentially limiting the ability to focus on responsibilities....

anyways, I dunno -- I'm always trying to formulate a theory and project it onto my life ... but even if I was right here about my theory I don't know what the answer is