You’ll sleep when you’re dead — if you’re not careful.

The current slate of sleeping pills available to insomniacs are dangerously good at what they do, putting millions at risk of sleeping through fire alarms or other warning alerts, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Benzodiazepines — including top-name brands Ambien and Halcion — are used regularly by six out of 10 Americans, but they lull takers into a slumber so deep it’s unsafe, says the group of Japanese scientists working on a new and improved drug which will knock you out without potentially fatal consequences.

A trial done for the new study found that half the participants on traditional sleeping pills could sleep through noise volumes as loud as a vacuum running by their bed.

“Benzodiazepines stimulate the widespread brain receptor GABA-A, which makes us sleepy but also suppresses off-target brain areas — including the ‘gatekeeper’ that decides which sensory inputs to process,” writes study author Dr. Tomoyuki Kuwaki, a professor at Kagoshima University in Japan.

A team of scientists is now experimenting with DORAs (dual orexin receptor antagonists), which can more selectively target neural pathways, making for a drug which helps its takers sleep without silencing their natural “intruder alert” system. Another plus to DORAs is a reduced hangover effect.

So far the drug, DORA-22, has only been used on mice, but the test rodents were shown to wake just as fast as sober sleeping participants when on the drug. In an experiment, mice on DORA-22 awoke quickly when their cages were shaken with the same frequency as an earthquake, and then fell back asleep. Mice on traditional sleeping meds responded much more slowly.

“Although it remains to be seen whether DORAs have the same properties when used in humans, our study provides important and promising insight into the safety of these hypnotics,” Kuwaki says.

One DORA drug, surovexant, already has regulatory approval in the US, Japan and Australia, but has limited use due to its noted drowsy, hangover-like impact the day after consumption.