Forced Sleep

You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy...

This is a kind of spell or power that induces sleep in the target. Typically, it's not the character's only ability; it may be one application of Functional Magic, Charm Person, Compelling Voice, or Magic Music.

In video games, this will take the form of a Status Effect.

Instant Sedation is the technological equivalent. Compare The Paralyzer.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Cardcaptor Sakura, the eponymous character uses the Sleep Card to put Muggles to sleep when she needs to subdue another Card spirit or something else she doesn't want them to see.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Mystogan uses a seriously powerful field of sleep magic whenever he comes to the guild to get a job that usually knocks out everyone in the room. Even Makarov feels drowsy when he comes around.
  • Larcade of Alvarez has three powers, of which R.I.P. is the most dangerous, as it causes extreme drowsiness that not even pain can snap you out of, and once you close your eyes, you'll enter an eternal slumber you'll never wake up from.
• In Gate, Tuka and Lelei both know spells that can make people fall asleep.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: In the episode "Flower Power", Kirby is tricked by Dedede into inhaling a Noddy which causes the victim to fall into a sleep that lasts for a hundred years. The only way to wake Kirby up is with the smell of the Pukey Flower.
• Midnight Horror School: In Episode 21, Liddy sings a song that makes everyone in the school, except herself, fall asleep. Not only that, they sleepwalk too.
• Shouta from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid casts a sleep spell on Saikawa at one point to keep her from seeing Elma's dragon form. He later uses a more powerful version to win a Wizard Duel.
• In the Moomin (1990) episode "Midwinter Bonfire" and its follow-up "The Spell", the Witch, frustrated that her granddaughter Alicia is being positively influenced by the Moomin family, uses a spell to make them sleep forever. While the spell isn't shown putting them to sleep (as it's cast while they're asleep during hibernation), it makes it impossible for anyone to wake the Moomins up unless the counter-spell is used.
• Midnight, a pro hero in My Hero Academia, has this as her Quirk, Somnambulist. She can release an intoxicating aroma from her body that can quickly put people to sleep, making her invaluable in hostage situations and taking down tough or excessively violent opponents.
• Naruto:
  • The Sound Village's attack on the Leaf Village begins by a group of Sound ninja casting a sleep-inducing genjutsu on the crowd watching the Chunin exams. Most of the actual ninja were able to notice and dispel it.
  • Gaara has the Forced Sleep Technique which seems only usable on himself—his Bijuu takes over his body while he's asleep, which makes him so averse to sleep that he'd presumably have difficulty doing so otherwise.
• In Nightmare Inspector, Hiruko uses his magic as a baku to put his clients to sleep so he can enter (and eventually consume) their nightmares.
• In One Piece, Brook once plays a special tone on his violin that puts his foes (and his own captain) nearby to sleep. The pirate Bobbin, a member of Big Mom's crew, can do something similar by ringing his head like a bell.
• Poison Berry in My Brain: The Mysterious Woman has the power to make the other members of the committee fall asleep so that nobody can get in the way of what she wants.
• In Pokémon: The Series, Jigglypuff inadvertently puts its audience to sleep whenever it sings. It doesn't seem to understand that this is its signature ability, and just assumes the audience is being rude. Its means of revenge on a sleeping audience is pretty well-known to Ash and friends.
• Rave Master: Chien Viverrien, one of the Six Guards of the Blue Guardians pirate gang, holds the power of the Dark Bring "Dulx Dormir", which can release a stream of leaves that put anyone in the way into a deep, eight-hour long sleep. Chien then proceeds to viciously pummel his victims while they're unable to fight back or wake up, but his trick fails to work on Musica because the latter, at the moment, is too furious to even think about sleep.
• Given the protagonist of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle is obsessed with sleeping, this was bound to crop up a few times:
  • At one point Princess Syalis attempts to cast a sleep spell on herself. Unfortunately, this is an RPG Mechanics 'Verse with No Self-Buffs, so she ends up knocking out everyone in the castle except herself.
  • One of the cursed items stored in the Demon Castle banquet is a cursed spindle that will put anyone who pricks their finger on it to sleep for a hundred years. Syalis is well acquainted with Sleeping Beauty and naturally takes an interest, although even she concludes that sleeping for a century is "a bit long" and decides to find a way to weaken the curse before subjecting herself to it. Unfortunately, Poseidon accidentally jabs himself on the spindle while trying to keep an Eggplant Seal away from it, forcing the demons to locate the witch who originally cursed it so that she can release him from the curse. When they finally find her, it turns out that the curse actually only lasts for a day; the witch made up the "100 years" thing because it sounded more impressive.

Comic Books

• In Marvel Comics' DP7 Lenore exudes an energy from her skin which sucks up the life energy of those exposed to it, so if anyone sees any of her their energy gets sucked out of them and they pass out. One of the other Displaced is a Speedster who can't turn off his speeding, so she exposes her face to him so he can sleep once in a while.
• In the Injustice: Gods Among Us, Zatanna uses a spell to put Batman to sleep after Batman wakes up from Superman having broken his back.
• In Justice League of America 196, the Psycho-Pirate—who can cause others to feel whatever emotion he is showing on his face—causes Hour-Man to fall asleep by surrounding him with images of his face showing tiredness.
• Inverted in an issue of Legion Of Superheroes where the government of the planet of Naltor, most of whose citizens have precognitive abilities, transmits a signal that prevents the planet's youth from sleeping, because sleep is necessary to their precognition and the government don't want them to see the future, in which there is a war coming that will necessitate a draft.
• In PS238, Marvin from the Rainmaker Program has this ability.
• Runaways has two instances. First, prior to her escape, Molly's evil mutant parents use their psychic abilities to force her to go to sleep (and it's implied that they've done this before.) Much later, Nico uses the "Settle Down" spell to force Klara to sleep after the latter suffers a panic attack... which, of course, pisses off Molly after she finds out about it.
• In The Sandman, Dream is capable of compelling mortals to sleep.
• In Shadowpact, the villain White Rabbit has an enchanted sword that causes instant sleep when it draws blood.
• Tintin: At the end of Flight 714, aliens use their psychic powers to wipe everyone's memories of the events on the island, then compel them all to sleep.
• In a parody of Dark City, the Futurama comic had an issue where pastiches of the Strangers were telepathically putting New New York to sleep so they could use their reality warping powers to rewrite the place as more wholesome and productive, planning to eventually improve the whole world in this way as they've done to every planet they've traveled to before. Fortunately at the same time they arrived Fry happened to be drinking an extra-caffeinated version of Slurm, keeping him awake to witness and eventually thwart their plan.
• An indirect example from The Smurfs has the eponymous item from "The Magic Flute" force people to dance when played but also tire them out so quickly that they pass out. This becomes a serious problem to fix when a thief gets a hold of it and begins raiding multiple villages and settlements of their treasure.

Fairy Tales

• Snow White is similar to Sleeping Beauty below, though in the original version she dies and then comes back to life.
• In Sleeping Beauty, Sun, Moon, and Talia and their variants, the title character is under some kind of curse/fate to sleep forever, until an outside force wakes them up.

Fan Works

• This fan song based off of Coraline shows that the Other Mother has this ability.
• Fleet Of The Homeward Bound: When each of the shipgirls tries to check the status of her crew, the only information they get is that the crewmembers are "Asleep in their quarters". This even includes any Artificial(or Virtual) Intelligence above a certain level of self-awareness, such as Analyzer or Data, who don't need to sleep or even have quarters to sleep in. At one point, Normandy gets EDI to essentially "sleep talk" to gain access to Babylon 5's jump gates.
• The Heart Trilogy: When Fankil resurrects Kathryn in the beginning of Heart of Ashes, she screams wildly due to her broken mind. Not wanting anyone to be alerted by the screaming, Fankil places a sleeping spell on her. It's all he has time to do before the nearby merchant caravan attacks him.
• Past Sins: Nightmare Moon can force people to sleep, possibly needing physical contact and being in cloud form:
  “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” Nightmare Moon answered Silver Platter. “After all, you’re about to go to sleep.”
  Before Silver Platter could turn around, Nightmare Moon had transformed into a cloud and engulfed him. In but a few moments the deed was done. She laid the sleeping Silver Platter out on the floor before disguising herself in his image.
• The Power of the Equinox: Rarity knows a sleep spell which she uses on Spike in the eight chapter. Her mother used it on her when she was a foal and taught her to use it on her little sister should she have trouble sleeping. However, Rarity explains that the spell doesn't force the target to sleep. It merely suggests them to sleep, working only on an already tired mind.
• Vow of Nudity: In one story, a noblewoman grabs a Wand of Sleep from her nursery to use against Haara. The fact that it was in the nursery suggests she uses it to put her son to bed.

Films — Animation

• Near the end of The Flight of Dragons, an entire flight of dragons is disabled by an enchanted flute that puts dragons to sleep when it's played. However, it has no effect on Bryagh, Ommadon's dragon - and since it also put the good dragon to sleep, he's able to descend on the party all but unopposed.
• Secret Magic Control Agency: Baba Yaga feeds Hansel and Gretel cookies laced with a sleep potion so that she can eat them.
• In Sleeping Beauty, after Princess Aurora succumbs to Maleficent's enchanted spinning wheel, the three good fairies cast a spell on everyone in the castle so that they'll all sleep until she wakes up.
• In Turning Red, the red moon ritual seems to involve magically putting the person undergoing the ritual to sleep so that their mind can enter the astral realm.

Films — Live-Action

• In Dark City, the Strangers are capable of putting humans to sleep at will simply by waving their hands and saying "sleep". They do this quite regularly in order to perform their experiments on the people in the city. One of the Strangers has the Meaningful Name Mr. Sleep.
• In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, E.T. lulls Elliott to sleep when they first meet, presumably in order to establish their psychic bond.
• The Force Awakens: When the First Order comes looking for the map, Kylo Ren determines Rey has seen it when he finds her and waves his hand in her face, causing her to fall unconscious.
• Iron Monkey: Attackers used the powder on Orchid, although it didn't immediately put her to sleep. They also attempted to use it again against Wong Fei-Hung, but he threw it back against the attacker.
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: The faun Mr. Tumnus makes Lucy, the visitor from another world, fall asleep by playing her a Narnian lullaby on his pan flute. He's imediately very sorry for doing so as soon as she drops unconscious and he realises he was just about to drug a little girl to betray her to the authorities - and wakes her up and helps her get out of Narnia back to her own world in secret instead.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Mantis can make people fall asleep with a touch thanks to her empathic power. It even works on Ego the Living Planet.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: Mantis uses this power again on the Mad Titan himself.
  • Avengers: Endgame: A time-traveling Captain America uses Loki's scepter to induce sleep on himself from the year 2012 to resolve their Mirror Match.
• This is an ability of the rogue angel Gabriel in The Prophecy. It takes inspiration from The Bible, where the Archangel Gabriel has the ability to make people collapse in a stunned heap with his mere presence.
• The Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz seems to have the ability to create poppies that cause this effect.
• X-Men: First Class: With his psychic powers, Charles Xavier puts a Soviet general and a soldier that Erik had covered in barbed wire to sleep.

Gamebooks

• Sorcery!: The NAP spell, when cast while swinging a magical pendulum, can induce sleep on any intended targets.
• Temple of Terror: One of the spells available right at the start is Creature Sleep, which can make any enemies fall asleep instantly (like what its name said). It's one of the better defensive spells in the book, costing only 1 stamina point and works on most opponents.

Literature

• The Afterward: Sir Terriam was put into slumber by a spell on the quest so that a spell causing her an induced infatuation ceased. Mage Ladros later also puts their horses to sleep when the party is in a battle, so they don't get into a panic.
• Artemis Fowl: Holly and other fairies often use their mesmer to induce this in humans.
• Daughter of the Sun: Aelia uses her magic to make a couple guards fall asleep so she can spirit Ioanna away.
• In Dragon Bones, a Jerkass God does this to one character who "woke up too early" while sleeping on the ruins of his temple. He had to talk to the protagonists, and wanted no listeners.
• In The Dresden Files, putting people to sleep is one of the few mind-influencing effects that is not considered illegal by the White Council. That's because it's used exclusively to induce dreamless sleep in victims of psychic attacks, providing relief from their mental suffering.
• Mercedes Lackey's Firebird: The Firebird's Magic Music induces sleep in all who hear it. She uses this ability to steal Tsar Ivan's cherries from under the noses of his guards. Ilya defeats it by festooning his clothing with pins that poke him if he starts to drop off, and holds another pin in each hand for good measure. The spell is useless against the Evil Sorcerer Katschei's dragon, which is an automaton that listens only to what it's been ordered to. In the climax, however, Ilya summons the Firebird into the Katschei's throne room and she puts all his monsters to sleep. Even the Katschei is affected strongly enough to give Ilya (once again using pain to counter the effect) enough time to reach his Soul Jar and smash it at his feet.
• In Firestarter, Andy uses his Compelling Voice to tell a Shop agent to "go to sleep." The man remains asleep for six months, and even after he wakes up, every time somebody mentions the word "sleep" in his presence, he will fall into a deep slumber again that usually lasts for four hours to a day.
  • Stephen King uses this one again in Doctor Sleep, with Andi being the character with this power.
• The Girl from the Miracles District has a calligraphomancer - a witch working by writing - whose favourite spell seems to be the one that puts everyone in its area of effect to sleep. She usually doesn't add the wake-up time to it.
• Goblins in the Castle: Twice in Goblins on the Prowl.
  • Shortly after the stone toad comes to life and the group finds the warning "Beware of Helagon" on its pedestal, the Baron recognizes the name and is about to tell them what he knows about the man (or wizard, rather), only to be suddenly forced into an enchanted sleep. Bwoonhiwda later tells the cast that they need to break the spell soon or he'll die of starvation.
  • When Fauna and her group meet the sorceress Sophronia, she reveals she's put herself in an enchanted sleep that lasts about a year, and after a few days awake (to check on the stone toad of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle), returns to it. She's been doing this for seventy-five years.
• When Navaeli and company reach Silamir’s temple in the first book of Heralds Of Rhimn, the goddess uses her influence to forcibly put Navaeli to sleep for a private conversation, since dreams are the only place where gods and mortals can properly meet face-to-face.
• Journey to the West: during his sojourn in Heaven as a minor deity, Sun Wukong won several "slumber bugs" at gambling with other gods and kept them on his person during the journey. At one point he decides to deliver some karma to a buddhist-hating king by using the bugs to put the entire court to sleep and then use his clones to shave everyone in the palace bald, making them all look like buddhist monks.
• Max & the Midknights: When Fendra turns herself into a monster to attack the Midknights, Millie hits her with a spell that puts her to sleep.
• In the Old Kingdom series, ringing the bell Ranna can put both the living and the Dead to sleep. Charter Magic can be used to the same effect.
• In the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Morpheus casts a spell on all of Manhattan. It's spread out so thinly that the demigods aren't affected, but all the mortals (except Rachel) are.
• Perelandra: Maleldil does this to both Tinidril and the Un-Man to enable an undisturbed chat with Ransom.
• Piilomaan pikku aasi: Mukkelis Muuli overthrew the donkey king by poisoning the water supply with sleeping potion, and later he forces his subjects to drink juice and eat ice cream that makes people lazy.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: Cookies and Campers: The Twa-San "can cause any target with full attention on them to fall asleep".
• Quarters: A Bard can make someone sleep with a Song, only reawakening when they bid it.
• The protagonist of Renegades, Nova, can instantly put someone to sleep just by touching them.
• The Saga of the Greenlanders: Shortly after killing several natives on the headland of Krossanes, Thorvald and his companions suddenly get so sleepy they cannot stay awake. A supernatural voice wakes them up just in time to escape from a host of vengeful natives. The implication is that the natives have cast a sleep spell on them.
• In The Silmarillion, Lúthien can cast almost any kind of creature into an enchanted sleep. It even works on giant demon-wolves and fallen Valar.
• In The Spirit Ring Abbot Monreale (a sorcerer as well as a Christian clergyman) and two of his brother monks attempt to cast a spell of "deep sleep" on the villain and his own sorcerous henchman, but the enemy sorcerer is able to turn the tables and instead send Monreale into a coma-like state of unconsciousness.
• Sweet & Bitter Magic: Marlena tries to put Tamsin asleep while they fight, so she can draw on her magic with no further interference while she's magically slumbering.
• Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World:
  • In "Mirror, Mirror, on the Lam", Magdelene puts the Tarzabad-har governor's guards to sleep by magic so she can talk with him.
  • In "We Two May Meet", she puts two bodyguards of a doctor to sleep when they try removing her.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: On the Island of the Star - or so the main characters assume - there seems to be a Schmuck Banquet. As explained by Lilliandil when she finds them at the table afraid to eat anything: the feast actually is a completely benign one set up in Aslan's honor (and any travellers are welcome to be his guests and tuck in) - the reason the Telmarines in a many years' sleep beside it were cursed was a different one: a Divine Punishment for trying to use the stone knife set up in the center of the table to fight one another. Since this knife is the setting's equivalent to the One True Cross (and more importantly their purpose with it was not exactly what He thinks good either), the deity in question was less than amused. Outright smiting them would have caused serious problems with the plot, so the sleepers are cursed until someone can find a way to disenchant them (which is one of the main characters going to the setting's equivalent of Heaven).

Live-Action TV

• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...": While in a threesome with Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lily, Lestat de Lioncourt uses his vampire powers to put Lily to sleep so that he can have Louis all to himself.
  • In the extended Season 2 trailer, Armand has the ability to make everyone sitting at the dining table lose consciousness with his Psychic Powers.
• Merlin:
  • In the first episode, a witch puts Uther's court to sleep with a song. Merlin avoids the effects by plugging his ears.
  • In "The Fires of Idirsholas", Morgause lulls Morgana into a trance so that she can cast a spell on her that causes everyone in Camelot to fall into a deep sleep when she sends her back there. This sort of thing happens to Morgana pretty regularly actually.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: In "Mother Mycellum", Raelle accidentally casts a sleeping spell on her entire class. Later, Anacostia uses one on her in order to sneak her into the prison and back without her being able to recall where the prison is.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: A recurring joke has one of the characters yelling "SLEEEEEEEP!" at another, oftentimes in the middle of otherwise typical hypnosis-styled scenes in order to put someone to sleep.
• The Order: A sleep spell exists, while the powder used to wipe people's memories memories also makes them fall down unconscious.
• Several examples in Power Rangers Dino Fury and its sequel Cosmic Fury:
  • In several episodes, villains use "sleeping cuffs" on captives, often to set up a Hostage for MacGuffin situation for the heroes or to use the person as a Living Battery.
  • In the episode "Crossed Wires", the villains plan to release a "sleep bomb" that will knock out the entire city so Void Knight can hunt for the MacGuffins in peace. Aiyon, Javi, and Ollie all succumb to it, forcing Izzy to apply Ollie's lessons about electronics to save the day.
  • The Rangers also have a "Snooze Dino Key" in their arsenal, which forces opponents to sleep. They mainly use it when they want to non-lethally subdue an opponent, like a Brainwashed and Crazy team mate.
• Preacher: After Tulip stops sleeping in order to avoid having nightmares of her encounter with the Saint of Killers, which in turn causes her to engage in increasingly dangerous behavior, Jesse finally decides to use Genesis to force her to sleep.
• Sam, from Sam & Cat has the ability to pinch someone KO, as seen in the episode "#peezyB". It's (very lightly) implied that the victims fall asleep, as the victims are being told "good night" beforehand and are referred to as sleeping FAR more often than as unconscious.
• The Sandman (2022): As in the original comic book series, Dream can force mortals to sleep.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Q-Less", Q gets annoyed that Bashir is making moves on Vash and suggests that he looks "very, very tired", which of course, by the power of Q, immediately becomes the case. Bashir isn't seen again until the very last scene of the episode.
  Bashir: I feel as though I've been asleep for days. [notices strange looks from the others] What? Did I miss something?
• Supernatural:
  • In the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be" the djinn induces a sleep state, where a person's greatest wish is true, while he drains blood from his victims.
  • Angels have the ability to induce sleep in human targets by touching their forehead. Castiel demonstrated this with Bobby in his first appearance but otherwise rarely uses it, opting for the Touch of Death instead.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?. The guys seem to invoke this from time to time. For example, from the U.S. version:
  • In a game of Greatest Hits, Colin is able to put Ryan to sleep, simply by tapping his temple, and wake him up again by doing the same.
  • In a game of Helping Hands, Ryan has Colin grab Kathy Greenwood's face, then says, "Aaaaaand... sleep!" Kathy starts to stumble, as if to fall asleep on the spot, until Ryan says, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," then she regains herself.
• Quinn from Zoey 101 has a similar ability by pinching people's elbow which instantly knocks them out.

Myths & Religion

• In European folklore, the Sandman is said to bring sleep and good dreams to children.
• Greek Mythology: Endymion was a king whose handsomeness was (both figuratively in-universe and obviously literally out of it) the stuff of legend. In the end, the Goddess of the Moon, Selene (Artemis was not considered the Goddess of the Moon at this time) was so attracted to his beauty that she had Zeus put him into an eternal slumber so that she could gaze upon his handsome face forever.
• Classical Mythology has Hypnos/Somnus, the god of sleep. His children are the gods of dreams.
• In Hindu Mythology, Kumbhakarna was a demon who was granted one boon from the god Brahma; distracted by the goddess Saraswati, he accidentally asked to sleep.^note Depending on the telling, he was either going to ask for Indraasana, "the seat of Indra," only to say Nidraasana, "bed of sleeping"; or he meant to say Nirdevatvam, "destruction of the gods," and instead said Nidravatvam, "sleep." Brahma, being a Literal Genie, made him rest for six months at a time, after which he would briefly rouse himself and eat everything (or anyone) in sight.
• Celtic Mythology:
  • The hero Finn MacCool is challenged to stop Aillen, a supernatural figure who lulls everyone to sleep with Magic Music and then burns the king's palace to the ground. Finn manages to stay awake by pressing his magically-hot spear to his forehead.
  • This happens to Cú Chulainn twice. As a boy, he's being trained by Scáthach, who has to do battle with her rival/sister, Aífe; worried that Cú Chulainn will jump into the fight and get hurt, she gives him a sleeping potion, but being a demigod, it only knocks him out for an hour instead of a day. Years later he is injured during the Cattle Raid of Cooley and put in a magic sleep by his father, the god Lugh, during which time Lugh heals his wounds. Unfortunately, many of Cú Chulainn's young friends die during this time, so when he wakes up he warp spasms and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• The Bible: In the Book of Genesis, this is done on Adam much in the way modern medicine would use general anaesthesia - God lets Adam fall into a deep sleep, so that one of Adam's bones can be extracted to clone Eve from it.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Spells
    • The wizard sleep spell puts opponents to sleep. It was a favorite of low-level casters in early editions because it allowed No Saving Throw.
    • The cleric/priest spell symbol has a Sleep variant that sends multiple opponents to slumberland.
  • Monsters
    • Some creatures have breath weapons consisting of sleep gas, such as the brass dragon (cone 70 feet long), moonstone dragon (cone 30 feet long) and kamadan (cone 30 feet long).
    • The bite of a homunculus causes its target to fall into a comatose sleep for from 5-30 minutes.
    • The gaze of a jackalwere makes its victim fall asleep.
    • Certain monsters have the innate ability to cast the sleep spell, such as ice lizards, night hags, ogre magi and the slaad lord Ygorl.
    • Pixie, sprite and hybsil arrows cause the target to sleep for 1-6 hours.
    • A satyr can use its pipe to play a tune and put other creatures to sleep.
    • The sussurrus gives off a "dronesong" that could put undead to sleep (despite them normally being immune to such effects).
    • In Module IM3 The Immortal Storm, while in a technological plane where their magical powers are suppressed, when the Immortals use a direct Power attack on mortals, it puts the mortals into a comatose sleep for several minutes.
    • Any creature coming within 20 feet of a sandman must make a saving throw or fall asleep for 30-130 minutes.
    • The Brood Gibberling can infect another creature with a burrowing gibberslug by biting or spitting at it. When the burrowing gibberslug reaches the brain it will put the victim in a sleep from which they can't be awakened and cause them to suffer from horrible nightmares.
  • The alternate magic system Spheres of Power has this as a talent in the Mind sphere, but it's not as much as a Game-Breaker as its Pathfinder equivalent.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Several spells force their targets into unshakable sleep for a few rounds if they fail a Will Power test, leaving them helpless. The Petty Magic version works by touch, whereas priests of Morr, God of the Dead and of Dreams, learn a version with a large Area of Effect.
  This miracle is often used to calm the bereaved. Particularly the noisy ones.

Theatre

• In L'Orfeo, when diplomacy and flattery fails to sway Charon, Orpheus sings him to sleep and hijacks the ferry.

Video Games

• Arknights:
  • Sleep is a debuff that causes the affected enemies to stop all actions for its duration, but also prevent them from being attacked by all but a select few operators. Notable sleep users in the game at the time of writing include Blemishine (who notably deals more damage to sleeping enemies), Blacknight (her summon prioritizes sleeping enemies), Sora, Iris and Kafka.
  • Nine who steps up to lead the Reunion Movement in Chapter 9 has this as her specialty Originium Arts.
• Castle of the Winds: The Scroll of Sleep causes the user to fall asleep. The Scroll of Make Sleep (i.e. to make someone else sleep) also exists in this world. The two do not advertise the difference.
• Seen in the backstory of the first Dark Parables game, "Curse of Briar Rose." Once she fell into her magical coma from the Evil Godmother's curse, the princess's good godmothers joined forces to put everyone else in the castle into the same magic sleep. Along came the prince to kiss her and wake her up, but True Love's Kiss failed. It woke up everyone else in the castle, but Briar Rose continued to sleep.
• In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, the Architect uses magic to put the Warden and their party to sleep.
• The Dragon Quest series also features the spell, and in Dragon Quest, a.k.a. Dragon Warrior, it's the first of the really nasty spells that enemies will start using as you advance in level, necessitating the use of Stopspell to keep them from casting it.
• Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars and Dota 2:
  • Bane can induce a Nightmare that leaves them unable to act. Nightmare expires when the target gets hit, but when someone directly autoattacks them (even teammates), it gets transferred to the attacker instead.
  • Naga Siren's ultimate, Siren's Song, puts all nearby enemies to sleep over an extremely large area. It lasts a whopping 7 seconds, but sleeping enemies can't be attacked at all.
• Elden Ring: Sleep is a rather rare status effect that either stuns enemies until hit, or staggers them if they're bosses. Consumables that induce Sleep can be crafted by the player, and the weapons St. Trina's Torch and Sword of St. Trina cause Sleep buildup.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the miasma within Nightcaller Temple kept both the devotees of the Daedric Prince Vaermina and an invading band of Orcs in a coma for several years.
• Elona: The description for the Hypnotism feat explains that it's used to make people sleep:
  Suddenly, you know how to make everyone sleep.
• Most Final Fantasy games have a Black Magic spell called Sleep. Early on in Final Fantasy, the party has to save the Elven Prince from a Sleeping Beauty-type curse put on him by the Dark Elf king Astos.
• Folklore has a class of folk designed around sleep, which can send its victims into a temporary state of helplessness (though only two folk actually occupy the class.) Ellen can gain a cloak in the Faery realm that makes her immune to it, and the effect is required to catch or defeat certain other folk later on.
• A multi-target spell in Golden Sun, represented by sheep falling all over the targets (but doesn't work that well). Several weapons have this as a side effect.
• In Heroes of the Storm, Sleep is a type of crowd control similar to a stun, but its cancelled early if the target takes damage. It was first added with Ana's Sleep Dart, and later expanded by Deckard Cain's Stay Awhile And Listen and Mal'Ganis' Night Rush.
• The plot of Jade Cocoon is kicked off by the town being attacked by demonic locusts called the Onibubu that induce this in many of the townsfolk, leaving their bodies asleep and their souls wandering the netherrealm. You're forced to go into various forests searching for the Calabas Herb that will cure it. There is also the ancient kingdom of Gehena, which is now nothing more than crumbling ruins you find in the forests, which was also allegedly destroyed by an Onibubu attack.
• The recurring Noddy enemy in the Kirby games forces Kirby to sleep if inhaled, making him Sleep Kirby. In most games, this is detrimental since it leaves Kirby open to being attacked so as a result, Noddy is normally placed as a hard-to-avoid obstacle or as Shmuck Bait. In Kirby and the Forgotten Land though, the Sleep Ability can be used to restore health and its evolved form can also grant a status buff on top of extra healing.
• In League of Legends, Zoe can put enemies to sleep using her ability called Sleepy Trouble Bubble.
• In Lunar: Eternal Blue, enemies can be put to sleep by Herbal Breeze (in the original) or Jean's Sleep Dance (in the remakes). While such abilities are practically useless in many RPGs, one enemy in this game, Susie Death, is not only vulnerable to it but difficult or impossible to defeat otherwise.
• Onmyōji (2016) has the Dream Eater whose special skill is this. Sakura-no-sei can also cause enemies to fall asleep, but the chance is extremely slim.
  • Equipping any shikigami with at least four Makuragaeshi^note a yōkai who hides in pillows and turns a person upside-down in bed as they sleeps mitama allows them a 20% chance to do exactly this.
• In Overwatch, Ana can put enemies to sleep with her Sleep Dart.
• A variant occurs in the Non-Standard Game Over in Persona 5 Royal for failing to complete The Very Definitely Final Dungeon on time. Mad Scientist Dr. Maruki comes to the conclusion that Joker/Ren was too overwhelmed to make a decision on whether to accept his World of Silence or not, and grants him Freedom from Choice in the form of removing his will to live, turning him into an Empty Shell that wants nothing more than to spend all his time sleeping.
• In Pikmin 3, the Plasm Wraith was able to keep Olimar hostage on PNF-404 by manually triggering his spacesuit's auto-sleep function to prevent him from leaving.
• Pokémon: Sleep is one of the five volatile status conditions in the mainline games. It acts as a stun that lasts between two and five turns, during which the target is totally vulnerable to attacks. However, most of the moves that are guaranteed to cause it are inaccurate, and the reverse also applies.
  • There is only one move with 100% in both probability and accuracy that doesn't require very specific circumstances to use. That is Spore—Mushroom Spore in the original, which shows in that the only Pokémon that can learn it are mushroom Pokémon^Which?Paras and Parasect, Shroomish and Breloom, Foongus and Amoonguss, Morelull and Shiinotic, Toedscool and Toedscruel, and Brute Bonnet the Paradox Amoonguss...and Smeargle. Even then, Grass-type Pokémon became immune to it in Gen VI.
    • The one other instance of 100% in probability and accuracy is Psycho Shift, which transfers any status condition that the user has to the opponent. Which, of course, means that the user has to be asleep and know Sleep Talk, and get lucky in that Sleep Talk selects Psycho Shift. Oh, yeah, and let's not forget that that Dark-Types are immune.
  • For other notable usages, Pokémon with the ability 'Effect Spore' have a chance of putting the attacking Pokémon to sleep, as well as paralyzing them or poisoning them. This same trifecta of probabilities also applies to G-Max Befuddle, the signature move of Gigantamax Butterfree in Gen VIII, and Dire Claw, the signature move of Sneasler.
  • Hypno is the original example of a sleep-focused mon, carrying a pendulum and all, but was far from the only one in Gen I to use the potent combination of Hypnosis and Dream Eater.
  • Darkrai is easily the best example of a sleep-focused mon, as his lore is forcing people into endless sleep and horrible nightmares. Its signature move, Dark Void, has low accuracy but targets all adjacent opponents in double or triple battles, and its signature Ability, Bad Dreams, robs all sleeping foes of 13% of their HP every turn.
• Richman series has the Hibernation Card, which, when used, put every other opponent (or just one opponent in 10 and 11) to sleep and prevents them from taking any actions for a few turns. Other ways of making a character fall asleep also exist, such as chances where the character gets "extremely lazy" or unique character cards like Octopus Ink Card.
• In Sly 2: Band of Thieves, the Music Box is a power-up that, after thrown, starts to play music that lulls all nearby guards to sleep.
• In Super Mario RPG, one of Princess Toadstool's spells is Sleepy Time, which involves a sheep bouncing on top of the enemy. If the d-pad is rotated quickly enough, she can knock out the entire enemy party with a storm of sheep.
• In Tales of the Abyss, Tear can induce sleep using the first Fonic Hymn, Nightmare.
• Temtem has four non-damaging techniques that can inflict this: Hypnosis (single-target), Lullaby (both opponents), Relax (all Temtem on the battlefield), and Slow Down (in addition to lowering speed, if the user has a Mental-type ally). Haito Uchi is a damaging technique that inflicts this, and so does Crystal Deluge if the user has a Mental ally. Narcoleptic Hit inflicts this on the user. In all cases, Mental-types are immune to the asleep status.
• Titan Quest: Sleep infliction, such as with weapons enhanced by Fungoid Spores, which give at 20% chance of sleep for 5-10 seconds:
  Fungoids emit this soporific purple power to render their victims defenseless.
• Twisted Wonderland:
  • Epel's unique magic encases a target in an impenetrable force field that protects them from all incoming attacks, but also renders them unconscious.
  • Malleus's unique magic puts all sentient creatures in its area of effect to sleep as long as he likes and allows him to control their dreams. The area of effect can cover an entire country and extend even larger.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The Sleep spell:
  Puts the enemy to sleep.
• In Warframe, Equinox can put enemies to sleep in her Night version, using her second ability called Rest. There are also two other characters with the ability to put enemies to sleep, Ivara and Baruuk.
• "Sleep" in Warcraft III is a powerful Dreadlord spell when used correctly, as it keeps a single unit (including heroes) out of the fight for a long time^note other unit-disabling spells and abilities cost more mana and last at most half as long as Sleep along with interrupting channeling spells. It can be interrupted by attacking the sleeper, but fortunately units will only do so if ordered to.
• Workshop In The Ironwood Grove: Copper Dolls' Hypno Dances, which don't always work to make the target sleep, and as revealed later:
  [Copper Dolls] were meant to be toys for children, not weapons. Their Hypno Dance ability was similarly benign, meant to help children go to sleep.

Visual Novels

• The Sleep spell is used a couple of times in Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane. First, to allow Eris into the Inquisition's dungeons so she can wipe out Redmond's memories. Second, to render Pierce and Tyrion unconscious in the Prayer Room.

Webcomics

• Crowshed: Sheryl can do this by pointing at someone.
• The wizard Abraham from El Goonish Shive once possessed a single-use magic item that basically functioned as a sleep grenade, He was rather reluctant to use it due to its wide range, and the fact that he wasn't entirely sure that he could resist its effects.
• In Freefall, Ecosystems Unlimited has a remote control that does this to Florence.
• In Godslave, when Turner prepares to hunt for Edith across the museum, he puts a guide who's seen too much to sleep by a spell.
• Grrl Power: Dabbler has a sleep spell for non-lethally subduing criminals, though Vehemence can resist it. Halo also considers asking Dabbler to cast it on her during a bout of Adderall-induced insomnia, but finds that she's busy.
• Vriska from Homestuck has mind control powers, but they only work on her own species. The only thing she can do to humans is put them to sleep.
• Subverted and Played for Laughs in this strip of The Order of the Stick. Vaarsuvius appears to have used a sleep spell on a group of goblins, but they actually bored them to sleep with a Wall of Text.

Western Animation

• Ben 10: Omniverse: After initially dismissing Pesky Dust as useless, Ben finds that it can spray dust that forces the target to sleep, then manipulates their dreams.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog. In, "The Sandman Sleeps," the Sandman is actually unable to sleep himself, so he decides to steal Muriel's sleeping sand to give to himself, causing Muriel to suffer from serious Sleep Deprivation. As it turns out, Courage finds the Sandman's lost teddy bear, so he returns the sleeping sand to Muriel so she can sleep again herself.
• Gargoyles: One episode has Oberon put the entire city of New York to sleep by shouting "SLEEP!"
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Skeletor can do the same thing, as can Evil-Lyn.
• Invader Zim: Dib is woken up by the Meekrob, who give him powers and then cause him to go back to sleep by saying "Now rest." Though technically none of this happened.
• Jackie Chan Adventures episode "Armor of the Gods" has Jade do this to Uncle, whom hasn't slept in days and is driving everyone crazy. She makes a chi potion and tricks Uncle into drinking it, and he's out like a light. The only problem is that they need Uncle to create a chi spell to banish the Earth demon Dai Gui, and Jade and Tohru cannot wake Uncle up.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series: Experiment 360 (Drowsy) is designed to make people fall into eternal sleep by just bleating at them and the only way to awaken the victim is to splash him or her with water.
• Looney Tunes: In "A Tale of Two Mice," Babbitt tries to hypnotize Ratstello into mustering the courage to face the kitchen cat.
  Babbitt: You are getting sleepy...
  Ratstello: But I'm not sleepy, Babbitt.
  Babbitt: Yes you are!! (slaps Ratstello upside the head) Sleep!!! Sleep!!!
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: "Sleeping Minnie" centers on Minnie accidentally picking one of the sleeping roses, causing her to fall asleep for an entire century. Mickey, Donald, Daisy and Goofy have to find the golden harp so they can wake Minnie up from her hundred-year sleep.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "Flight to Cloud Castle", Ariel was placed in an enchanted sleep by her wizard father to keep from all but the most determined suitors, and can only be woken by True Love's Kiss.
• In the The New Adventures of Superman episode "The Japanese Sandman" has an evil figure who can put people to sleep in seconds with magic sleep sand. Even Superman can't No-Sell it. However, he does manage to fight off the effects long enough to spin the sand out of his eyes.
• Prep & Landing: Santa's elves carry bags of magic dust so that if the children wake up during present delivery, they can be put back to sleep very quickly.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power: The evil sorceress Shadow Weaver can conjure sleep mist that affects even She-Ra.

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Oh, and by the way: SLEEEEEP!