4 Sleep Apps for your iPhone or iPod you've never heard of!

The future is here and your phone can help you sleep... or Not! Using built-in motion sensors, your iPod4 or iPhone can track your sleep and act as an external sleep regulator, helping you wake up at a good time or preventing deep sleep during napping. Some apps even promise conscious dreaming.

A very cool concept that started some time in 2008 and is still going strong is smart alarm clocks. Now there are dozens of these on the App Store with 2 clear leaders: Sleep Cycle and Smart Alarm. These apps claim to wake you up in the light sleep state that follows dreaming sleep. The benefit is that it is a lot easier to get out of bed, wake up refreshed and have more energy throughout the day.

Sleep is divided into multiple distinct stages, from the lightest to the deepest. When you are in deep sleep and an alarm tries to wake you up, the result is torture and desire to snooze. When you are in light sleep stage, you can literally jump out of bed in just a minute or two!

Smart Alarms work by being put on the mattress and detecting your movements while in sleep. During light sleep stages you move more, causing the app to wake you up.

#1 Sleep App for the iPhone app store is Sleep Cycle, it has been around for a while and has over 1million customers, the reviews of the app are terrific, and it's very easy to use. It only costs a buck.

#2 Smart Alarm clock for iPhone is called... well... Smart Alarm. Beautiful and simple, this is one of the highest quality apps that I've ever encountered. Everything from the button clicks to background is done very professionally. The app even helps you calibrate itself while on the bed. And best of all, it is free!

The effectiveness of smart alarm varies from day to day, and is heavily dependent on your mattress. In the worst case scenario the app wakes you up at the time for which you set the alarm. In the best case, it wakes you up half an hour earlier, ready for action! What do you have to lose by trying one of these?

I love to nap, and my biggest hassle is picking the right duration. With a 20 minute nap I feel like I'm just getting to the fun part of nap, but with a 40 minute nap, I can find myself in bed, hitting the snooze button for the next 3 hours.

Here comes iPowerNap. It is a unique concept that asks you to hold the screen with your fingers as you nap. The app claims that as you fall into deeper sleep, the fingers relax, letting go of the screen. This is when the app will play an alarm, waking you up at the point of maximum refreshment.

The presets in the app are named as follows: NASA, Lufthansa and SAS, those guys are real pros and cannot feel groggy. It makes me feel real cool by taking a 20 minute SAS power nap :)

The app claims reduced sleep inertia and "maximum fatigue recovery in minimum time". The app works, and often surprises me with its results - on some days I only need to nap for 7 minutes. I highly recommend this app if you are prone to "over napping".

Lucid Dreaming is simply taking conscious control of your dreams with an intent of having a fun, mysterious virtual reality like experience.

Singularity Experience: The Lucid Dreaming App, is an iPhone app that claims to wake you up when you are dreaming, so you can re-enter the dreams consciously. There's a whole technique that comes with the app and it is claimed to be highly effective. The app works similarly to the smart alarm clocks - it can be placed on a mattress or worn on a wrist.

The app is very complex, but customizable with multiple types of reminders that can be played at night. I've had weird experiences and dream signs since I started using this app, and was only able to re-enter the dream once as advertised. I'l keep trying with different audio duration and volume

At 5$, this is an expensive tool that I would only recommend to dedicated lucid dreamers.