I remember watching a movie that featured people climbing into a sleeping pod that automatically made them fall asleep. A few minutes after they got in, the machine just made them fall asleep.

Falling asleep is your brain transitioning from one state to another. You can change your brain chemistry through drugs like zolpidem that shorten the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Would it technically be possible to excite the brain in certain regions in order to force someone into sleep?

Such a thing would obviously cure my insomnia. I would just brush my teeth and turn off all my digital devices, and hop into my sleeping pod at the same time every night, knowing that I'd wake up in the morning with a solid 8.5 hours of sleep.