Larry - Just a note on using antihistamines as hypnotics. While drugs like diphenhydramine (Benadryl) will put you to sleep, they do not give a restful sleep. Sedating antihistamines, especially at higher doses, tend to affect sleep architecture by preventing the onset of REM-stage sleep.

Taken occationally (no more than once or twice a week), sedating antihistamines are relatively safe and effective sleep aids. Taken on a regular (ie. nightly) basis, long-term potentiation of short term memory becomes steadily more impaired by diphenhydramine.

Aside from REM-stage sleep having a restful and restorative
effects on the body, it is the stage of sleep where the brain consolidates and integrates newly learned information that is "saved" in the short-term memory and "hardwires" this information into long-term memory. At least that is more or less what happens.

Those bizarre dreams that one remembers is the brain strengthening certain brain circuitry. This is done by the brain adding &/or thickening the dendridic connections among and between neurons in specific memory circuits. At the same time, other neuronal connections are weakened, or otherwise "rewired".

Just thinking out loud, Lar - Cam