It's not the shape of your pillow that gives you sweet dreams, but what's inside. Buckwheat husks and bean sprouts are a step backward of comfort.

"Put your head on my pillow," Paul Anka sang in Bangkok last week. Ask him what kind of pillow first

If you share the common nostalgia for resting your head on a pillow that's made of something other than artificial fluff, get in bed with Sarisa Pinthong and Sudachan Santisatitkun.

Reviving a fondly remembered trade, Sudachan makes pillows out of bean sprouts.

"This is forgotten wisdom," she says, having learned the craft from her mother-in-law. "Our grandparents' generation always used bean-sprout pillows."

Sarisa stuffs her pillows with soba, known in the West as buckwheat, something new to Thailand but long a tradition in Japan. The practice has spread to the West over the past two decades, and Sarisa introduced it to Thailand about 10 years ago. She's earned lots of fans.

Sarisa and Sudachan use a similar process in preparing their "ingredients". The husks are sorted and treated, but the carbohydrate in the buckwheat hulls has to be removed as well.

These days, of course, the usual choice in pillow filling is foam, feathers, rubber or cotton. They're easy to find, but the natural fills are more durable, better ventilated and can be readily reshaped.

Synthetic fills tend to lose their shape after awhile and retain heat. Popular para rubber fills are flexible, but chemicals are used in their production, and the filling is also easily damaged by heat, which means you can't dry the pillows in the sun.

As for duck feathers, says Sarisa, they certainly make soft pillows, but the down is expensive and doesn't support the head.

The old stand-by cotton gradually balls up after regular use and, besides, cotton has become relatively rare - a 100-per-cent cotton pillow is almost impossible to find. Some pillows these days are made from recycled cotton that's been re-woven.

Sudachan has no trouble stocking bean-sprout husks, and says her pillows should last a decade or more. They'll gradually flatten, but can always be refilled. She reckons the one she's slept on for seven years has flattened by about 7 or 8 per cent.

Sarisa predicts the same longevity for her soba pillow. She's used the same one for years and dries it in the sun once a month.