The Storey (story) of Journey into Dreamland

By Bill Storey

Hello, Bill Storey here. I am the author of Journey into Dreamland, the book and CD that calmly helps children get to sleep. My oldest daughter Hallie had sleeping difficulties and this is the story of how the book evolved to solve those difficulties, and how this program can help you and your child eliminate the bedtime battle and experience a restful night’s sleep.

“Just one more story Dad,” Hallie said as she sat wide-eyed, looking up from her bed.

“Just one more and I promise I will go to sleep.”

Looking at the stack of books on the bed stand, and my wide-awake daughter, I thought this was going to be another one of “those nights” and I would be reading many more books.

Refusal to read more meant dealing with sometimes two hours of Hallie crying herself to sleep. Exhausted and angry, I was at her mercy. Already 10 p.m., it would be at least another hour before she would finally be sleep. Something had to change.

But the battles were soon to be over for me.

I now know that many parents and caregivers share similar frustrations when attempting to get children to sleep at night or for afternoon naps. Sleep resistant children will cry, scream, throw tantrums, get out of bed, refuse to stay in their own beds, or exhibit any number of other behaviors in order to avoid going to sleep. Whole families can be disrupted by the bedtime battle.

The solution began when I started telling Hallie stories rather than read. I started with my youth, my family and my ancestors but soon ran out of material. I began to make up stories and noticed that this often had a calming effect. Then quite by accident, I started turning her into different types of animals during the course of the story. This technique kept her attention and also calmed her down. After a while, I purposefully softened my voice and added calming behaviors for the animals.

Wow, it worked beautifully.

Once all the pieces were there and what took at least two hours nightly now took about 10 minutes.

I told my friend Dr. Jerry Duprez, a clinical psychologist, about the stories and he asked for a tape because his son Chris also had sleeping issues. Jerry was so excited about the results with Chris that he suggested I produce and market a tape.

Only nine, Hallie was so entranced by the stories she was making drawings on her own. She gave me the idea of making an illustrated book to go with the tape. My daughter Carlee, seven, composed a piano tune that was used as the background music for the CD. McKenna, five, created the CD cover art.

The book and CD package were a go.

As a special education teacher, I knew there were a great number of children with sleeping disorders in my classes. Many had mild sleeping issues but others had very serious disorders. All of my students with sleep problems were given a book and CD and other books were sold to parents of children with sleeping disorders. All were helped to sleep!

After meeting others in the publishing field that were interested the book and CD, Hallie, now 18 and the very person the program was developed for, suggested that we recreate the book illustrations. She went right to work and drew the beautiful pictures featured in the “new” book.

And now our father-daughter team has come full circle and produced a wonderful new version of the book Journey into Dreamland. Our hope is that it will be as successful for you and your children as it was for us. Have a great night’s sleep!

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