German bed pillows give me nightmares. Next time I go to Berlin, I'm bringing my own.

26.04.2024 - 15:21 / insider.com

I never paid much mind to the pillow I rest my head on at night until I went to Berlin.

Germany's capital is known for its cool vibes, artsy cultural scene, and unique history, but the country's truly terrible bed pillows are seared into my memory.

They drove my boyfriend and me to distraction — first because of the discomfort, then over the lunacy of it all.

A classic German bed pillow is a monstrosity measuring 31 by 31 inches (80 by 80 centimeters if you're local). In comparison, a standard US pillow is 20 by 26 inches. I don't know how big your head is, but I daresay that's plenty of space for it.

The first night in Berlin, we shrugged at the unusual format and went to bed, our heads teetering on the edges of two giant pillows that stretched out far above. We chuckled — experiencing different cultures is the fun of travel!

But a few hours later, I woke up. Why was my head resting on the mattress? The pillow was still there, but it didn't look the same. All the stuffing had somehow migrated into a halo, hugging the corners of the pillowcase, leaving the center empty and flat.

No wonder my neck was complaining: This pillow provided no more support than a T-shirt. Confused, I scooped it up, tucked the edges in like a bread loaf, and went back to sleep. But the same thing happened a few more times that night, and the next night too.

The pillow kept unfurling, and with it, my sanity.

Fighting his own nocturnal pillow battle, my boyfriend got a tip from the Germany subreddit that worked OK: Take the bottom corners of the pillow and push them upwards inside the cover, until they meet the top corners.

This gave us a pillow that more resembled a standard US one, and crucially, it mostly stayed in place, so we only had to repeat the process once or twice per night.

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But we were perplexed. It was the first thing we discussed each morning, freshly frustrated and unable to let it go.

We weren't alone in our struggle.

The first Google result for "German pillows" is "German pillows are a crime against sleep," an article by travel blogger Ryan Murdock who writes: "I've devoted a considerable amount of time to thinking about those giant square pillows. … Only a giraffe could use one of those square sleep thieves without suffering acute spinal discomfort."

I kept digging, and I learned that although the giant marshmallow pillow is the German standard, other sizes are now also available across the country.

This made the pillows even more confusing: Why would a pragmatic people like the Germans continue to choose this miserable situation? Instead of a nightly tucking project, you could just have a pillow that stays put, leaving you to sleep in blessed peace.

Back in the Germany subreddit, defenders