I went through quite a hellish period just after my 17th birthday (First AS exams, Gotta love the fuckers!) of basically getting something along the lines of 1-2 hours sleep total per night, the rest of the time lying awake dead still, or trying to read, or counting sheep, or trying to bore myself to sleep, or reading, pretty much everything you can possibly try.
I found one solution of get hammered till I pass out but thats clearly not ideal, inducing unconciousness via poison usually isn't.
Anyway, eventually I went to the doctors after my exam period had finished (mostly because whatever they gave me I didn't want it to make me even worse at the damn things) what they actually gave me was the same stuff Keith Moon killed himself with (Chloromethiazole)
For the record, that DOESN'T HELP YOU SLEEP AT ALL, seeing as one of the side effects is severe irritation of mucous membranes (IE, the back of your nose burns... and burns... for hours.... and hours... and hours)
Either, the pain of that course of meds scared my body back into doing what its told or I got over whatever was keeping me up.
Either way, a slight positive of the whole experience is that I don't have much trouble staying awake when I need to now, about 2 hours sleep and I'm like a spring daisy.
(Also helps when at house parties ;])