“I have a really weird relationship with sleep, honestly, to this day. I don't like sleeping. I would rather do anything else.”
She named her first album after the question: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The Billie Eilish sleep story behind it is five years of night terrors, sleep paralysis and bedtimes at four in the morning, told in her own words from 2019 to 2024, and by her own account it is better now than it was, not gone.
This page collects what she has actually said, where she said it, and what she says helps. It is editorial commentary built on her public interviews. Billie Eilish has no connection with Adapt X.1 and has not endorsed it.
What she said, in her own words
The 2024 interview is the latest chapter of the Billie Eilish sleep story and the most candid. Asked about the album title, she said she had “a lot of nightmares and I had some sleep paralysis stuff, and I still do,” that it “was really hard for me to sleep,” and that she has “always had a lot of trouble falling asleep,” adding that “the older I've gotten, the more tired I've gotten, so it's easier.” (CREATIVO, August 2024, from the recording's transcript.)
“I was having a lot of really, really unbelievably terrible nightmares… I was having weird sleep paralysis… I couldn't sleep. I would go to bed at like four in the morning and wake up at one in the afternoon.”
The earliest version is from 2019, when she was seventeen. “I have never had a good relationship with sleeping or anything involving sleeping,” she told V Magazine, and: “It takes me hours to fall asleep.” (V Magazine, August 2019, as reported by Capital FM) Walking Zane Lowe through the album that year: “I've always had really, really bad night terrors, and I've had sleep paralysis like five times.” (The FADER, 25 February 2019)
Asked by OK! in 2020 whether she was a good sleeper: “Not at all. I have these terrifying dreams… Sleep paralysis, night terrors. It's like the whole night is terrifying and then I wake up.” And the cost: “They really mess me up so the whole day is off sometimes.” (NME, 8 February 2020)
Hear her say it
The Billie Eilish sleep routine, as she describes it
What she has described doing about it is small, and most of it is about the fear, not the clock.
- A meditation app, unnamed, during the worst stretch: “I would listen to that meditation app every single time I needed to take a breath.” (V Magazine, 2022)
- Sleeping near her parents. She slept in their bed until she was at least ten (NBC News, 1 August 2019), and at eighteen, in the trailer for her documentary, she is still in their room: “I sleep in here because I'm scared of the monsters in my room.” (HollywoodLife, 15 December 2020, archived copy)
- Steering the dreams instead of escaping them: “All my dreams are lucid so I can kind of control them.” (The FADER, 2019)
- Turning the nights into songs. “I probably wouldn't have made that song the way it is if I hadn't had sleep paralysis and nightmares,” she said of “bury a friend”. (NME, 2020)
- Pacing the work. For the 2025 tour she “advocated for not being gone for longer than four weeks at a time without a break.” (Elle, May 2026, as reported by Tom and Lorenzo)
In seven years of interviews she has never mentioned melatonin, a sleeping pill, a supplement, a weighted blanket or a spray. The only aid she has ever named is that meditation app.
What she wished for
She has never said “I wish I could sleep.” What she has said is sharper than that.
- “I have never had a good relationship with sleeping or anything involving sleeping.” (V Magazine, 2019)
- “The whole day is off sometimes.” (OK!, 2020)
- “I don't like sleeping. I would rather do anything else.” (CREATIVO, 2024)
- Breaks of no more than four weeks away at a time, which is the closest she has come to asking for rest out loud. (Elle, 2026)
About the product we make
Adapt X.1 is a melatonin-free oral sleep spray with three ingredients, studied in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial and taken as six sprays before bed. It is sold on this site. Nobody quoted on this page uses it, was asked about it, or has any connection with it; their words are here because they described a problem many readers share. If falling asleep is the hard part for you too, the product page explains what is in it and how it is taken.
Has her wish already come true?
Partly, by her own account. In 2024 she said the paralysis is still there but that getting older and more tired has made falling asleep “easier”. In 2025 she answered a question about her dreams with a joke about a burrito (British Vogue, May 2025, as reported by That Grape Juice), which is a long way from 2019. Nothing newer exists; her 2026 interviews are about the film, the album and the breaks. The honest reading of the Billie Eilish sleep story is a problem that has shrunk with age and has not been solved by anything she has named.
Read the originals
- CREATIVO with Roberto Mtz, 5 August 2024: the full interview on video
- La Razón, 6 August 2024: the sleep remarks reported (in Spanish)
- V Magazine, 2 March 2022: “Back to Billie”
- NME, 8 February 2020: the OK! interview reported
- Capital FM, 21 August 2019: the V Magazine interview with Pharrell reported
- NBC News, 1 August 2019: the Rolling Stone cover story reported
- The FADER, 25 February 2019: the Zane Lowe track-by-track
- HollywoodLife, 15 December 2020: the documentary trailer line (archived copy)
This is an editorial series about public conversations on sleep. Nobody featured was paid, asked for anything or involved in any way. If you are the person featured and want this page changed, contact us using the details at the bottom of this site.
Quotes are reproduced briefly for commentary and attributed to their publishers. Billie Eilish has not endorsed Adapt X.1 and is not affiliated with it; we found no sleep or wellness deal of any kind. This page is not medical advice; night terrors and sleep paralysis deserve a doctor's attention.