There's different techniques for focusing on what you want to dream about, too. Like I've said, I've never gotten it to work on purpose, but I do think it'll help distract your mind. It's been claimed that you can explore a lot of psychological things while lucid dreaming, too. "Deal" with issues and possible outcomes for it, or de-stress by exploring worlds your subconscious creates or whatnot.
Of course, if you hate dreams, it's probably not as tempting for you. So instead I'll recommend trying astral projection! Woo!

This is when you try to have an out-of-body experience. There are actually quite a few more meditation techniques for this, like relaxing muscles in you body one at a time, concentrating on "opening your eyes" without actually opening them. I personally don't put a lot of stock in this being possible, seems like it would be just a very focused dream that you're walking around while you're sleeping, BUT the process of trying it is very sleep-inducing for me.
Either way, the point is to think of something else while trying to get to sleep instead of sleeping, regardless of what you actually focus on.
