This is an interesting question, in fact it’s a rhetorical question. It’s exactly the same as saying “how long is a piece of string?”. It depends. What it depends on though, can be easily identified and an answer retrieved from the factors that it depends on. How many pillows you should use depends on only a small number of factors, each as important as the other. It depends on how much support you want when you sleep, how soft you like the surface you rest your head on to be, what sort of bed experience you’re searching for and finally what you prefer visually. There’s a specific technique for those who only want 1-2 pillows just as there’s a specific technique for those individuals who want to be surrounded by pillows completely, an experience not unsimilar to the composition of hotel beds.
If you’re not very interested in support and you just require the bare minimum so you’re not just lying on a flat surface, then the answer if quite self explanatory. You’ll need only 1 or 2 pillows to provide you with the comfort you need. If you’re only going to have 1 or 2 pillow though, we’d strongly recommend getting a thick, soft pillow. It’s important to raise your head slightly away from a horizontal position, as laying completely flat can cause breathing problems as our necks naturally arch and our heads tilt backwards when we lie flat.
If you’re searching for a steady medium between the hotel experience and the bare necessities, we’d recommend 3 to 4 pillows. That may sound over the top, but there’s a reason for it. For the bottom two pillows, you should get quite firm pillows, we’d recommend memory foam. This is because of two things. Firstly, you need a firmer, supporting pillow at the bottom of your pile. Secondly, we’d recommend memory foam because it won’t become crushed over time; it’ll retain its shape, and it has a decent amount of springiness and give in it that’s perfect for a supporting layer. The top two pillows should be a softer, less springy variety, something you can lay your head on and not bounce straight back up. The bottom two pillows should be laid next to each other, with the top two pillows stacked on top of each other, in the centre of the two supporting pillows. This provides you with a good level of support from the bottom layer, and a nice level of softness for you to sink your head into at the top.
Now, if you’re looking for that hotel luxury feeling then you will need at least 5 pillows, all quite soft but in varying levels of softness. You shouldn’t have more than 8, as it’s easy for you to become swamped in pillows. It’s quite a fine line that you can cross without realising it. There should be a mixture of low firmness to extremely soft pillows, so that when you lay your head down in your collection of pillows, it feels exactly like at a hotel: like laying your head on a cloud. This effect is quite easily achievable with a large number of pillows but if you want to perfect that visual correlation, we’d recommend a few firm cushions scattered at the front of the pillows.
