We lock Olive in the living room, where she has a litterbox, food, and water. If we don’t she walks all over our heads in the middle of the night. Every so often she’ll protest, but generally she seems to be used to it.
I’m in the behaved crowd. One doesn’t seem to like sleeping on the bed when I’m there, so when it’s my bedtime, he vacates while the other three and I get in. One has her own blanket on one corner of the bed, one always must sleep snuggled in my right armpit and will fuss about until I get in my “go to sleep” position that allows him to do that, and the third will often dive in behind my back and either stay there or get between my feet/knees. Depends on how cool or warm the room is. Everybody settles in and goes to sleep.
My previous cat slept by my knees every night. The worst it got with her was about once a month I’d wake up to find her sitting a foot away from my face staring intently at me. It was both cute and disturbing.
So when I got the new cats, I left the bedroom door open for them to come and go, as was the practice with the old cat. The new cats like to play with each other at night. Playing includes chasing one-another from room to room at breakneck speeds and taking great leaps and bounds, bouncing off any object in their path. One night during the first week of their occupation of my abode, one of them used my face as a launching platform, waking me suddenly from a deep sleep. Emphasis on suddenly.
The bedroom has been off limits since then.
My cats have the run of the house, and feel pretty strongly about being where ever I am,* so on the rare occasions they annoy me at night they get tossed out for a few minutes, after which I let them back in (because the yowling is insane, and I have neighbors) and they behave. Mostly one sleeps on my legs, one curled up to my back or belly, and one near my head. The one that likes to sleep on my legs is a 20 pounder, so sometimes that wakes me up when I try to roll over, but not often and even when it happens generally everyone adjusts and settles back in with no fuss. I’m sure they move around during the night, but I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.
The one who sleeps by my head IS a bit of a bitch in the morning, but only once the alarm goes off and I kinda need extra prodding to get up anyway.
*It’s kind of hilarious, actually. If I’m in any room for longer than two minutes, they’re there. I’ll be watching tv surrounded by dozing cats, and if I get up to get a drink by the time I take my head out of the fridge they’re all in the kitchen. As I’m getting ready to go out, they literally trail behind me from room to room. I’m constantly leading a little kitty parade.
I had a cat that used to sleep all day and spend all night standing a few feet away from the foot of my bed meowing “PLAY WITH ME!”
Nothing worked until I got him a pet cat.
The SO’s cat usually curls up with me at night. He doesn’t wake up the humans. He’s a very polite cat.
My cat is usually well behaved at night. He’ll either curl up at the foot of the bed or in the big chair in the living room.
However he has lately developed this annoying habit of rubbing his nose on the bedroom window at 4am. Why he started doing this I don’t know, but it makes this awful squeaking noise, kind of like styrofoam rubbing on styrofoam.
I have two of these, I bought them at PetSmart.
The bonus for these is that, at least for my cats, they know that the can is what causes this terrifying blast of air. These days, I don’t even have them turned on, just putting the cans there makes my cats take notice and stay away.
We keep two doors closed between us and the animals. No problems.
I kept the bedroom door closed for the first few years we had the cats. Otherwise, they just roamed all over and woke me up all the time.
A few months ago, we got a puppy, and I decided to start sleeping with him in the room with us, since keeping him out just caused him such problems, well…it was worth a shot.
And it’s worked great. Now all the animals sleep in there with us, with one big cat being a total bed-snuggler who doesn’t seem to mind being moved into the middle, and the other sleeping under it. No problems.
My cat is very clingy, but I have to have everything just so in order to sleep and thus she is shut out of the bedroom at night. She has gotten used to the routine and knows that after I take a shower, she gets fed (this gets her out of my room if she was in there) and the door closes until the morning. She spends the night on the couch. I usually start hearing yowls and scratches from her about breakfast around 7am, which is fine on weekdays. It’s a bit annoying on weekends but if I get up and give her breakfast then go back to bed, she’s usually quiet until 11 or so when she starts getting lonely.
I let her sleep with me one night, the first night she was living with me. I got maybe 1.5 hours and vowed never again.
My cat is only bad at dinner, where she’ll literally jump up and bounce off my shoulder for some thinly sliced table scraps. At night, she’ll either sleep elsewhere or sleep on my pillow with her paw on my hair. Sometimes she’ll crawl on my chest, go down flat, and nap for an hour going,
purr-prett…! purr-prett…! purr-prett…! purr-prett…!
I think she likes it here.
I have 6 indoors and 2 who are mostly barn cats except when the weather is foul. They have the run of the house, and I’m rarely wakened by them. Every once in a while one of my elderlies will walk around yowling, but a call or two and she comes and settles on the bed, usually. If not I’ll get up and go get her and put her next to my husband (he is HER person) and then everyone’s happy again.
Occasionally there will be a minor spat for territory on the bed, but that results in a mass booting, so they’ve learned to keep their tiffs to ugly looks and the odd growl. It’s been a long long time since we’ve had cat-town races at night, thank heavens.
I do give everyone a dab of canned food at about 8 pm, and they’re usually circling in anticipation at least an hour before, and then there’s bath time afterwards. I wonder if that’s enough to work off any restlessness? They’re all usually snuggled into their favorite spots by the time we head to bed.
For years I slept with cats, but for the last 10 years or so, I’ve shut them out of the bedroom at night for all the reasons listed here. Both my dogs sleep in bed with me. They are like dead rocks at the bottom of the ocean all night long, God bless 'em.
Recently I acquired a kitten. At night I put her in a wire crate in the bedroom with her litter pan. She’s not big enough to use the big kitties’ pan yet. When she gets older she will be out of the bedroom at night. I gotta have my sleep.
I have two cats. One has adapted to human rhythms, i.e., he sleeps with us at night, no problems. Well, an occasional brawl with the dog, who also sleeps with us, but mostly not.
The other cat has remained nocturnal, and we hear her zooming around, skidding around corners, etc. But she doesn’t bother us.
Both cats also sleep pretty much all day.
One cat goes out, but he must come in at night. They would both like to go out and explore in the dark, but we don’t let 'em.
The dog gets to go out whenever he wants. The cats resent this. They also occasionally take advantage of a sleepy human letting the dog out, and slip out into the darkness, which would really make us nervous except we don’t realize it until we wake up.
Update: I have not yet murdered Bruno! 
I did have to abolish kitty breakfast, and though it hasn’t solved the problem, it’s been a great improvement. I get up at six a.m. and the cats get their first meal of the day around noon. I think it’s actually improved their overall personalities as well.
Also, with the weather cooling down now, I chill their furry asses on the porch for a little while before bed. They appreciate the hell out of a warm laundry room and a can of wet food after that!
I don’t say that Butthole will let us sleep in peace from now on…he is incorrigible. But (at least for now) I am winning.
“Butthole” - what an excellent nickname for a cat! 
Also works well for teenage children.
Our cats stay in the house at all times.
Through the years, despite the changing roster of cats, one has always slept on or next to my wife. There have been four different cats filling this post. Only one of them sleeps on her. The others sleep on the couch, or chairs, or in the cat beds.
I’m generally up at night, so the cats and I socialize during this time.