I used to be petrified something was going to happen to either my family or myself during the nighttime, when I was a child. I remember having horrible nightmares of murderers or monsters coming in and killing everyone, and I was nothing shy of helpless. ._. Pretty scary dreams for someone so young.
Needless to say, this developed into a fairly large case of insomnia when I grew up a little. I was on medication for it for a few years, but I slowly lost the need to use it. Now, I can sleep just fine with no issues - and no nightmares, to boot! o/
Though, I usually like to have some kind of white-noise in the background. Television, fan, radio, etc. Just something to block out the other, more sporadic noises of the night.