Sometimes I feel like an alien when people suggest earplugs for noise problems. Maybe I just process sound very differently.
Earplugs succeed at exactly one task: attenuating dangerous sound levels down to comfortable ones. The don't reduce the amount of information. A 30dB conversation is exactly as distracting as a 60dB conversation. I also have custom fitted IEMs that provide similar attenuation. These are equally useless when disconnected. You still need masking sound. You just need less of it.
In a quiet environment, earplugs amplify the sounds of my own body. I hear my heart beating. I hear fluid sloshing around. I hear very prominent vibrations from anywhere my head is shifting relative to the pillow. I'd have to work pretty hard to design a more unsettling sleep-deprivation apparatus than earplugs.
None of this is remotely as useful as an actually quiet room with a box fan running.
Which earplugs did you try and what is their frequency attenuation? If they are designed for musicians, they may attenuate all frequencies equally.
I often sleep with Ohropax foam earplugs. They eliminate the high frequencies like sirens. They reduce the mid-range and low frequencies, too. Conversation becomes muffled quiet mumbling. Noises can transmit through the frame of the frame of the building, my bed frame, my mattress, my pillow, and my head. Luckily, such noises are rare in my building. I'm not distracted by my body's internal sounds.
I tried many many kinds of earplugs. The Ohropax ones work the best for me. I can wear them for 2-3 sleep cycles (3-4.5 hours) before my ears hurt, but only if I insert them far enough into my ears. For smaller ears, Mack's Dreamgirl earplugs are good.
They are molded to my exact ears. I have tried several other ear plugs, and none of them come close to the level of isolation, including normal custom IEM's. Sometimes things are a little too loud (e.g. neighbors that won't quit on 4th of july at 2am), so adding white noise helps smooth things over.
I will say that I can very clearly hear my breathing with these in, as well as my heart beat sometimes. It's sometimes that bothered me for a couple of nights, but now it's quite comforting.
I tried earplugs of several kinds, but they uniformly sucked. They fell out when I would roll onto my side during sleep, and my ears would produce like 3x the normal amount of wax the following morning.
Ears don't like having shit stuffed into them for prolonged periods of time. I've noticed it with headphones, earbuds, earplugs, etc.
Earplugs succeed at exactly one task: attenuating dangerous sound levels down to comfortable ones. The don't reduce the amount of information. A 30dB conversation is exactly as distracting as a 60dB conversation. I also have custom fitted IEMs that provide similar attenuation. These are equally useless when disconnected. You still need masking sound. You just need less of it.
In a quiet environment, earplugs amplify the sounds of my own body. I hear my heart beating. I hear fluid sloshing around. I hear very prominent vibrations from anywhere my head is shifting relative to the pillow. I'd have to work pretty hard to design a more unsettling sleep-deprivation apparatus than earplugs.
None of this is remotely as useful as an actually quiet room with a box fan running.