The red light is optional, but the ping pong balls are not. That's kind of the whole thing.
Dreamy, you didn't think you were really trying it when you lied there with the lights out, did you? Because you do that every night.
The whole idea is that the ping pong balls diffuse the incoming light so that all you see is more of the same. I actually tried it myself, recently, and got some sort of results.