Q: Do Elves Sleep?
ANSWER: Yes, Elves sleep. There are numerous references to sleeping Elves and the beds they made for sleeping throughout Tolkien’s published books. Reader doubts about the Elves’ need for sleep appear to be inspired by Legolas’ semi-wakefulness during the pursuit of the Orcs who had taken Merry and Pippin prisoner. Unlike Aragorn and Gimli, Legolas could have continued the pursuit of the Orcs through both night and day. He certainly would have been tired by such exertion but it would have been in keeping with Tolkien’s theme of Elves possessing superior physical acuities to those of Men and Dwarves.
…Only Legolas still stepped as lightly as ever, his feet hardly seeming to press the grass. leaving no footprints as he passed; but in the waybread of the Elves he found all the sustenance that he needed, and he could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world.
Nonetheless, some examples of sleeping Elves include Turgon and Finrod sleeping while traveling through Beleriand, and each dreaming of the secret kingdom he was destined to found; Gwindor sleeping in the Orcs’ camp when Turin found him; Luthien putting her guards to sleep; Legolas is included in sleeping members of the Fellowship in various passages, too.
There are several passages where Legolas is said to sleep with the Fellowship. In one such passage he is also said not to sleep with them after the first night in Lorien.
They had not seen the Lord and Lady again, and they had little speech with the Elven-folk; for few of these knew or would use the Westron tongue. Haldir had bidden them farewell and gone back again to the fences of the North, where great watch was now kept since the tidings of Moria that the Company had brought. Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change.
And as for beds, Luthien had one in her tree-house prison; and there were beds aplenty in Elrond’s house; and the three march-wardens of Lorien (Haldir, Rúmil, and Orophin) had sleeping skins and furs on their flet when the Fellowship encountered them.
There should really be no doubt in the readers’ minds about the Elves’ need for sleep. Sooner or later they did sleep naturally, and so they made furniture and sleeping quarters for such purposes.
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Maybe the wakefulness of Legolas is one of the many modes of sleep for elves, one: they rest their minds on path of elvish dreams but are aware of surroundings and can perform straining physical tasks like cross country running, second: they lie (Gandalf later too shows this trait) with eyes open sort of a more wary sleep (though Gandalf’s movements of hand are nothing unusual man also moves hands in sleep)? And maybe typical eyes-closed dreaming deep sleep maybe what do you think?