Waking up in the morning to the sounds and smells of breakfast being made is divine, and not something that I get to experience very often (I haven't been able to teach my cats how to cook). Catching a whiff of coffee being brewed, I perk up, and in the dead of winter it is almost necessary to pry me out of my warm, soft bed. But could breakfast sounds help someone fall asleep instead of wake up? That's what Holiday Inn Express hotels in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are trying to find out.

Overnight sous vide bacon from Serious Eats by J. Kenji López-Alt

Now through the end of November, select hotels are offering a pillow that plays the sounds of breakfast being made, and guests can choose from different scenarios: "coffee brewing, bacon sizzling, fresh juice being poured and the ambient chatter of a breakfast buffet." Think white noise generation with a breakfast theme. The pillows have volume controls and guests can set time limits for the sounds to play.

Holiday Inn vice-President Dave Jones said this experiment comes on the heels of last year's "Breakfast Alarm Clock," where hotels would wake people up by providing the scents of breakfast. I'm not sure why they thought this would work in reverse, but perhaps the noise is generic enough that it will provide the right kind of stimulus to lull people into a restful state. I don't think it would work for me, because if I hear bacon sizzling, I'm going to want to get up and eat.