This is USica, it doesn't matter where you're pumping it, just that it's out of where you're pumping it from. Doesn't really even matter what you're pumping, USians gotta pump something.
I can't find the name of them but in one of the Star Wars novels the Millenium Falcon ends up trapped in some ice caverns and they encounter sentient clouds of gas, methane iirc.
So we do have some people making up cool aliens.
Oh, the Pequeninos in Speaker for the Dead. They were sentient humanoid beings that became the trees of their world when they died. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist.
The Hooloovoo resemble a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue. One was seen in a prism for Zaphod Beeblebrox's address upon stealing the Heart of Gold. On certain special occasions, such as the aforementioned Presidential event, they refract into a free-standing prism.
No, I meant Obama. He should have said fuck you to Mitch holding up the nomination for Merrick Garland and gone full bore. I know, I know, he didn't have the house and senate votes for it by that point.
The reverse of that process sucks. I have trouble being in social situations that last longer than 30 minutes unless I'm actively engaged in something. I thought I was a very social person. Turns out I was just an alcoholic who overshares.
If it's a song looping and keeping me awake: I picture myself rising up above the earth to the vacuum of space where there is no sound and drifting off in the silent void.
Otherwise the go to is picturing my mind and consciousness as a submarine on the surface of wakefulness and I let myself slowly sink beneath the waves of sleep.
No but I know what I'm watching after getting my daughter on the school bus!