Are you having trouble sleeping? Does your mom have to wake you up so you can drink your sleeping pills all the time? Thanks to an intrepid band of researchers (well, they're always using the term "intrepid" in the movie and book blurbs, right?), studying a disease that causes people to suddenly drop off to sleep, insomniacs may finally be getting some shut-eye.

According to BREITBART.com, researchers have found that blocking brain receptors for orexin, a blood peptide, promoted sleep in rats, dogs and people. This was revealed in Sunday's online issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

Orexin, also known as hypocretin, is important in maintaining wakefulness. People who have narcolepsy don't have orexin in their bodies, hence the falling-asleep-at-really-inappropriate-times thing.

With this discovery, the research team now surmises that might be able to induce sleep by blocking the receptors in the brain that respond to orexin. They've come up with a drug that does just that and have reported successful testing on rodents, dogs, and (gasp!) people. The drug is currently being evaluated to pinpoint the correct dosage.

Dr. Thomas Scammell, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard University and who was not part of the research team, said the work was "promising, with a certain amount of caution." He does caution however that the drug might cause a problem in the brain that is similar to narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy victims often also experience cataplexy, a condition in which they lose control of muscle tone for a few seconds to minutes. Francois Jenck of the Swiss drug company Actelion Pharmaceuticals, who also led the research team, said in a telephone interview that the drug tests did not prompt indications of cataplexy. Scammell pointed out, however, that cataplexy is difficult to study in the lab because it is often triggered by strong emotions.