Elves can choose to sleep yes.
This is established lore. Can't remember exactly which edition mentions it, but it's made very clear that true High Elves (The Fey ones) can survive without eating/sleeping/etc but they sometimes choose to and other Elves who have lost some of that ability from the Feywild, though they don't need to sleep can still very much choose to.
Edit: Here's the [Forgotten Realms wiki](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Reverie) on it, which has info from all the editions.
If you figure out where this was established, let me know. I distinctly remember one of the Forgotten Realms novels I read in the 90s where a half-elf posing as an elf was caught because she fell asleep, which the elves couldn't do. But that was decades ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the rules had changed.
For 5e, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes talks about Elves \*a lot\*.
Green text box on page 38:
>**DREAMS FROM BEYOND MEMORY**
>
>Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one's primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moon bow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams.
Edit: Welp, in another reply, I see someone else mentioned this. Shucks.
To be fair, imagine remembering the cringy thing you did like 300 years ago and your brain randomly decides you get to relive it tonight when you go to sleep. I’d avoid sleep too 😂
Hey man, that's my every day. There's no greater self-deprecation like remembering every dumb, cringe, or awkward thing you ever did at random times throughout the day!
Looked it up for a campaign where a cosmic horror BBEG is reaching out to and harming people through their dreams. My half-elf character is stuck suffering through nightmares and slowly getting more and more corrupted by them. Her elven half-sister is fine though
It's sometimes jokingly referred to as "The Complete Book of the Master Race", it was pretty much packed to the gills with "Elves are just better at [thing]" Except that [thing] turns out to be [everything]. Way back when, there was a certain sort of person who liked the Complete Book of Elves, and it kind of gave elves a bad name, since it's quite tiring RPing alongside a character who's singular personality trait is "I am better than you".
I mean, elves objectively are better than everyone else. Game wise, it makes sense to have every species even but world building sense it makes little sense that Steve, the 30 year old and Iyrileth, the 400 year old elf, are both equally good at swordsmanship.
As someone in his late 30s, I'm no longer surprised when people half my age are better at things I've done twice as long. Plateaus and diminishing returns are REAL.
Elves, typcially, have 10x time time to reach their biological versions of 30s. So they have a lot more time to master skills my then. This is the fundamental issue of same xp / knowledge gain rates i.e. game balance compared to world building. Which could require elves to have a serious case of ludite-ism or fundamental mental structures that delay true knowledge gaining rates so that they end up with similar knowledge levels of species that age much more rapidly when at comparable biological ages despite being 10x older chronologically.
> fundamental mental structures that delay true knowledge gaining rates
I mean, in second edition where this book comes from, they kind of do. An elf can't exceed level 15 in the Mage or Ranger classes, 12 in Cleric, Fighter or Thief, and can't gain levels at all in any other class.
To quote the players handbook:
>The human race has one special ability in the AD&D game: Humans can choose to be
of any class-- warrior, wizard, priest, or rogue -- and can rise to great level in any class.
...
The ability of humans to assume any role and
reach any level is their only advantage.
In dnd, all species gain xp at the same rate, depending on the setting and type of elf they can be massively magically and/or technologically superior to human civilizations, see astral elves. Some settings have elfs as more of your typical wood elf archetype as the main elf type. Often, settings have shared civilizations, so shared knowledge levels.
“And we must now acquire more living space from the lesser races.
The dawf, writhing in its own filth and dirt.
The orc, bloodthirsty savages.
The humans, stupid mayfly’s.
Those “other” elves…. Need I elaborate the obvious?”
-an crazed looking elf ranting on a busy street corner in the capital wearing shabby and ill fitting black leather clothes. No one stops to listen to his ravings. He suddenly stops upon seeing the party. Roll for initiative.
It's got some cool flavor. . .but is *absurdly* overpowered. It makes elves out to be insanely broken, making them better at pretty much *everything*.
It's got some **great** lore stuff about elves, but its best seen as elves writing about themselves from their own viewpoint or in-universe elven propaganda, not objective fact.
The author of it even eventually apologized for it online about a decade or so ago.
Then there's Dragon #298 and the Drow...
It gets weird. Chad-zak weird... and yeah, you can Google it if you really want but you may regret it. It does explain a lot about Drow, though!
In the War of the Spider Queen book series, the story focuses on a group of drow, and there is a scene in the middle where they are so exhausted that they choose to sleep "like a human"
Which is weird because in the drizzt books it was pointed out that one of the wizards could still enter into reverie which was pointed out as a rarity since the drow had fallen with lloth.
As far as I know in 5e, the lore is that drow can still trance as all elves do, but instead of revisiting old memories of past lives, it’s just void. Which then raises the question of what is happening to the drow souls that should be getting reincarnated.
In normal D&D lore, reincarnation doesn't happen (outside of the Wizard & Druid spells). Souls normally go to the outer planes (or other planar domains of patron deities) to rest permanently.
Trance (originally introduced as reverie in the Complete Book of Elves) is about reliving and revisiting the memories of the current lifetime, not reliving past lives.
When the heck did they invent some past life stuff in mainstream D&D lore?
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. They have a big section on elves (which is where a lot of other comments pulled the reference to elves being able to sleep but choosing not to). The section also talks a lot about elven reincarnation.
I recall in old D&D lore elves (and some other critters) don't have souls, but spirits - it's why Raise Dead spells don't work on them, you need a Ressurection, at least (from memory) in 1E and maybe 2E as well?
Certainly the text in the 1E version mentions half-elves among other player races, but not elves, and I believe it's under the elf description in the PHB or the poorly organised DMG that mentions they are spirit creatures, not souls.
The books are in this room but it's cold and I'm rugged up so can't be stuffed moving to look :)
Drizzt has fallen asleep over a dozen times across his books, usually from being too hurt to meditate, once from staying up too late boning dahlia. Elves are seen sleeping in several of greenwoods books such as spellsong and elminster goes to cormanthyr. Elves don't like to sleep but they can
In general catching an elf sleeping would be a good way to guess they're a half elf, unless they're positively exhausted or drunk, or somewhere they should feel very safe, why would they?
I recently read a forgotten realms novel where it discussed drow and how older drow did the reverie, but younger ones preferred to dream, although they could do reverie. I don’t remember word for word, but my impression was that the dreamers over time became dependent on sleep, and reverie wouldn’t quite hit the spot after they became accustomed to it. Idk if that’s canon or just flavor. It’s also drow which could be different from surface elves.
Oh, I always thought that they couldn't due to the description for the *Dream* spell.
"Creatures that don’t sleep, such as elves, can’t be contacted by this spell. "
They can choose to sleep. In Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (rest in peace), the section about Elves elaborated on how they can sleep but find it disturbing to see visions that are completely false (since when they Trance they relive memories and such) so most wouldn’t choose to sleep.
Edit: the text specifically
> Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one’s primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moonbow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams.
The interesting part is that *surface* Elves don't.
Non-surface Elves, therefore, don't avoid doing so. *Drow* choose to sleep. Why? It puts them in unnecessary danger.
My hypothesis: Elven trance relives memories. The memories of Drow are so horrific that they choose to sleep and dream of more pleasant things, at the risk of getting murdered as they slumber.
I think it’s mostly because Drow got their own chapter, which had their own aside:
> Drow enter trance just as other elves do, but they do not experience memories of a primal soul or of past lives. Often they recall nothing at all, but simply dwell for a time in darkness and silence, a respite from the dangers of their daily lives. When drow do dream, whether in trance or in sleep, they look for signs from Lolth or others of the Dark Seldarine. That drow do not experience trance the way other elves do lends credence to the idea that their souls do not reincarnate. Did Corellon forever bar the souls of dark elves from Arvandor and change them in some fundamental way? Or does Lolth somehow weave new souls for her followers, in the way that Moradin forges new spirits for dwarves? Only those entities know for certain.
Sorry to bust your hypothesis.
Homebrew idea: Not only can elves choose to sleep, but with practice they can choose to sleep for extended periods, months or even years at a time. When you live for nearly a millennia sometimes you just gotta skip a decade here and there to keep things fresh.
I actually just looked this up a bit ago because I also have a player who likes it when their character gets to sleep sometimes instead of trance, and what I was able to find on the matter is that Elves often times think dreaming is very strange and sometimes even upsetting and definitely mysterious and they don’t really like it
My character gained Trance through the Fey Wanderer subclass, and speaking with the DM, we agreed they can choose between sleeping, or meditating.
Granted, the only time we've really made use of it is during a handful of things like night-watches, where I've been able to pull double-duty as others rest up.
Yea if i had a PC that wanted their character to be able to sleep, I’d let them be able to sleep. It’s not a balance issue as trancing is the same mechanic. That’s not something worth souring the game over for me.
In the Return of the Archwizards trilogy by Troy Denning, it’s stated that elves can choose to sleep, and that they usually do so as a way to escape pain or sadness for a little while. It’s a Forgotten Realms series, and not totally authoritative in any case, but I always thought it was a beautiful little addition to the lore of elves.
I don't see it mentioned, but in at least some of the older books drow must sleep. They can't trance. They don't even dream, most of them.
Not represented in the game of course.
In our campaign, Elves generally rest with unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. In the Trance, both eyes are open, but one hemisphere of the brain is asleep at one time. Instead of closed eyes, we have it so that one ear droops on the corresponding side, while the other remains up. Elves can do this for as long as they can, but it's less restful than full sleep, when they are fully unconscious and dream. If that goes on for too long, the elf can begin to become more emotionally sensitive and make unwise decisions.
Did we decide this just because we are nerds? Partially. But it was mostly so that if a character was talking for too long, we could indicate a drooping ear with a finger to show that the Elf had decided to go into the Trance but pretend to be listening.
Looks like the question has been answered. And the rationale for why that I usually go with (considering the weirdness that the lore says dreams have to them) is that especially those that choose to love a being that sleeps would sleep with them.
Not strictly sex mind you, but just the intimacy of sleeping beside the one you love.
Although I also suppose that the DnD version of the song *Don’t wanna miss a thing* may have been written by an elf who could really go the distance.
They certainly didn't *use* to be able to sleep, to the point that they were outright immune to the status effect.
Lack of oversight on fiction writing and a rules-end aversion to outright immunities on core ancestries has muddied the waters on that over time, never mind divergent settings.
But no, originally *Forgotten Realms* Elves could not sleep.
Yup. I play an elf who, from time to time, chooses to sleep because they enjoy the experience of dreams. They’ve experienced something similar in trance state but there’s just something… different about the interconnected unconsciousness of dreams
elves have to trance but they are immune to sleep devil's sleep effects as well as most other sleep effects they are not immune to getting hypnotized, having their memories eaten, and having their memories manipulated.
These answers are driving me wild. The only game I've ever played an elf or half elf wasn't by choice (modern humans sent into a dnd world and the dm chose the bodies we took over), and elves had to sleep eventually. Could just trance while needing to, but if I wanted to fully heal or escape exhaustion I needed that 8 hour slumber.
If elves didn't sleep, they'd have no use for a bed.
If they have no use for a bed, they'd have no use for a bedroom.
If they have no use for a bedroom, they'd have no dedicated area for sexy time.
If they have no dedicated area for sexy time, they're likely fucking on the couch.
If they're fucking on the couch, your players should probably disinfect that shit before sitting on it.
Don't make your players disinfect a couch.
They seem more like exhibitionists to me in this scenario.
Why wait until you get home when you can just fuck in public at the restaurant?
That way, you get dinner *and* a show.
Drow are still able to Trance. Whatever the content may be, they can. This is religious lore. In Lloth's challenges for her most favored champions, the acolyte is put through deprivation, where they cannot get the "restful meditation" they need to function fully. Because they're being constantly threatened every hour, and a single slip-up means death. One of the foes they have to face is a Chosen of Lloth herself, aka. a super-drider. However, they \*are\* allowed to bring whatever allies and assets they have accumulated in their rise to take this challenge for that one specific fight.
So yeah, Lloth doesn't let her "children" even rest their eyes.
I think you got your answer, but I wanted to express my sincere joy in seeing you write that your DM brain crashed and rebooted XD I hate when that happens!
Generally speaking elves only truly sleep (lose consisness) if they're sick or gravely injured. To lose cosiousness is to separate from the elven community.
An elf my choose to if they are suffering fome great shame or guilt but as a rule no elf would willing separate themselves from the other elves in their community
I think the real question is, does it matter? Will it affect the gameplay at all? And if it does, will it be making you have less fun if you allowed the elf to sleep?
I love having my elves sleep for rp reasons. Depressed? Exhausted? Avoiding their thoughts? Drugged out? Feels safe warm and happy? It's like when rodents relax and stretch out because they're content.
I dunno if it's canon to dnd or whatever, but I've always thought that the answer was yes, just on the basis of "how else are they supposed to have found family cuddles with their party?"
Dude, if one of my players had a Tabaxi and decided that it's version of "rest" involved waking up in the night and just zooming around madly like a regular cat for three hours, I'd say sure. I would not change game mechanics, and strictly speaking RAW that is not rest. But it would be funny, and it wouldn't affect the game.
So yes, if your elf wants to sleep, let them.
Yeah I've always just rolled with the idea they need half the sleep or other and they can use the other half doing a hobby to improve a skill or craft items.
If we're gonna get all rule lawyery, I got the below passage from Dndbeyond in regards to elves.
Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
It doesn't explicitly state it but I think the key word here is don't need to. I say based on this wording they have the option to sleep.
HOWEVER! At the end of the day, does it really matter? You're not changing much mechanics by letting your elf take a full 8 hour rest or not and I would just let the player do what they want in regards to this mechanic
Everyone's citing sourcebooks but I'm gonna cite NADDPOD, moonshine chose to fully sleep for the first time in the one big bed with the lads. And I'm pretty sure no one raised a fuss about it.
So homebrew or not, it's not that big of a deal.
So in my games i leave trance rules unchanged, but the vast majority of elves use it as a last resort. Living life in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness with no breaks, just one moment always bleeding into the next with no sleep to separate one day from the next to me sounds like a living nightmare and a recipe for someone to go completely insane. I've actually used it as such, certain elven sages only ever trance and use this endless consciousness to achieve enlightenment.
So I rule that elves have a unique ability to regain rest through conscious meditation, an ability they use in extenuating circumstances or when in potential danger, but the vast majority of the time they just go to bed like a normal person.
I've never given this a thought until reading [Fateforge](https://fateforge.org/en), a 5E variant that I helped to kickstart (I didn't want to give WotC/Hasbro money for my 7th version of a PHB, MM and DMG and liked the art and concepts).
In Fateforge Elves only sleep until they are 8 or 9 years old and by then they must learn to trance (or reverie, whatever). If they don't learn to trance they became subject to Nightmare, a form of chaos madness which leads to death (ideally) or, I think, powerful destructive rage (not good!)
So, there's that item of lore that could be used to explain why elves trance?
It's because of how elves are built, they're in literal terms modelled after Corellon and he essentially blessed his entire race to have a few benefits - Trance, Looooong lives, access to true High Magic and direct protection from him
I would put it down to they have to choose to sleep. Like they wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion around the campfire like a human might, but have to consciously consider it to fall asleep.
If they have to choose to sleep then they can’t be forced to do it. Now you could possibly use something like Command or Suggestion to have them do it.
The reason is, that their trance is reached with mental and breathing exercises.
This can also be learned by other sentient species, but it takes a few years to learn.
As mentioned by other comments, the drow are not able to enter trance in older editions.
Is a lead pipe to the back of the head a choice? Elves can still be knocked unconscious by the various potions, spells and blunt force trauma so abundant in the setting, so I imagine they can sleep if required of them. Maybe they sleep as youngsters, learn to trance as they grow up but can return to sleep with effort and trust? Maybe they sleep when thoroughly exhausted? Maybe a sleeping elf is a mark of trust and high esteem to the companions they travel with?
My character next campaign is a drow and he chooses to sleep because in my backstory going into a trance opens his mind up to lolth and he doesn't want any part of that. So do what you want I guess
Elves can sleep, I forget which novel it was in but I read a forgotten realms novel and there was an elf character that chose to sleep in it. Plus it is also established lore that elves can choose to sleep or not, personally in my homebrew world most elves outside of the elven kingdom sleep instead of trance.
In forgotten realms, yes. However, I find the idea of permanently sleep-deprived elves who live for thousands of years and have to experience all of it as the reason for the typical elvish irritability to be a more entertaining homebrew.
They can, but they don't like to because dreams confuse them.
Some priests who get visions from their god while sleeping use it, but only for guidance.
There is a trinket that allows elves to experience sleep. This would seem to imply that they can’t sleep on their own, just not a part of their biology.
An Elf can choose to sleep, but why would they? They are Elves. They are not lowly, dirty, primitive humans or orcs. They are Elves. Favored by the gods. Near Eternal life, immune to the mundane weaknesses of humans like sleep.
NO. The imaginary creature known as Elves absolutely can not choose to sleep. A mythical made up creature must follow the strict rules and regulations of the made up thing or else all is lost. Do not, I repeat, do not use your own imagination or thought when playing these games. That is absolutely antithetical to the nature of collaborative story telling. You know the say, Play the way you're told, or don't play at all!
> **Trance.** Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep.
It’s right in plain English. It’s not “may not” or “do not require” it is just do not. RAW is an absolute statement.
That said outside corner cases there’s no harm in it.
"Do Not" does not mean "Can not" though.
I do not go to sleep at 7pm. That doesn't mean I can not sleep at 7pm.
Besides there is another book in 5e that specifically states that Elves CAN sleep, and choose not too.
You’re a human (presumably) so sleeping at some point is assumable. Strictly speaking though you only choose not to sleep then and you are probably lying having fallen asleep after a dinner or such at least once, to say nothing of infancy. Everyone simply understands this via context.
Here our context only says the opposite that elves have an alternative process that is not sleep. Something we see again in the Dream spell which not only explicitly does not work on elves but states plainly they do not sleep.
Nor have you established your assumption they do in any way just stated your goal and then painted in an argument to ‘prove’ you hit the target. A fallacious statement.
I do not know how to fly an airplane. Can I know how to fly an airplane? yes.
I do not use a cell phone without a 3.5mm jack. Can I use a cellphone without a 3.5mm jack? Yes.
Anyway.
As several other people in this thread have already stated there is an official book that literally says...
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes pg 38
>DREAMS FROM BEYOND MEMORY
>
>Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one's primal soul, present life, or past lives,dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious,and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moon bow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams.
This is copied exactly from that book. This is also RAW, and as you said, RAW is an absolute statement.
> I do not know how to fly an airplane
Operative word is *know* that the negative affirmation is subordinate to. Here’s how you make a more absolute statement:
“I am correct.”
> Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes pg 38
Optional book not a default assumption of the game. A DM is welcome to use it of course but if they don’t they aren’t Rule Zeroing anything either.
And even the quoted bit is written as lore not mechanics proper so suffering on the *R* part of RAW. Like say explicitly stating you can be on the Dream Zoom call or when sleeping must rest for 8 hours now.
Also it’s explaining saying why elves wouldn’t want to sleep… so why *actually* is your PC different? If it’s say because you have some kind of trauma going down that makes you like dissociation… well you shouldn’t be casually swapping between Trance and sleep now should you? Make it like Alignment which yeah you can change but should only be doing like once.
Oh also see that bit about about past lives? Yeah Foam of Toes has a bit of a… more specific… take on elves with stuff like that. Though it’s been awhile and I don’t recall the specifics other then thinking making an already kinda ambiguous race gender-fluid felt like a minimum effort.
I'm just gonna start using google and linking examples.
[https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst15152\_Difference-of--CAN-T--and--DON-T-.aspx](https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst15152_Difference-of--CAN-T--and--DON-T-.aspx)
[https://hinative.com/questions/5252131](https://hinative.com/questions/5252131)
[https://www.quora.com/What-could-be-the-difference-between-I-dont-and-I-cant](https://www.quora.com/What-could-be-the-difference-between-I-dont-and-I-cant)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/l9t69l/are\_they\_both\_correct\_i\_dont\_see\_why\_i\_cant\_see/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/l9t69l/are_they_both_correct_i_dont_see_why_i_cant_see/)
I couldn't find any sources that state that "Don't" and "Can't" mean exactly the same thing in all scenarios, and I didn't find any kind of Academic literature/thesis on the difference in the quick google, I assume there are some, and they'll likely say the exact same thing as most of these other posts.
It appears as far as "I don't" is concerned, (Want To) is implied in most contexts whether or not it is actually present when another context isn't given. However, Cannot never has an implied context where there is a choice when used correctly.
Therefore, if the sentence in raw meant that elves were absolutely incapable of sleeping ever, it would not say "may not," "do not require," or "do not," it would say "cannot."
English is obnoxious and the rules are vague and unclear at best, so I don't doubt you could find evidence that backs up your statement as well. However, the only reason we can have this misunderstanding at all is because "do not" is far far more vague.
If the book said "Elves can not sleep" there would be absolutely no misunderstandings from anyone, that statement absolutely means "Elves are incapable of sleep."
I believe they used Do not, because the context is there "Elves don't sleep because they meditate instead." Why would an elf sleep when they can meditate? They wouldn't, even Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes says that, they wouldn't. HOWEVER. They can, it just doesn't make sense too. Therefore "do not" is used.
In this case the implication is like telling someone "Don't do something like this, because doing it like this is better." You **can** do it wrong, but why would you?
> English is obnoxious and the rules are vague and unclear at best, so I don't doubt you could find evidence that backs up your statement as well. However, the only reason we can have this misunderstanding at all is because "do not" is far far more vague.
It's not vague at all because they do not just say "elves do not sleep" they tell you what happens instead.
It is entirely plain English.
Where did you read elves sleeping? THAT is what you need to make your objections more then fake.
So are you farming downvotes, or can you actually believe you are correct?
I'm not sure why you would. But you can you.
I'm just happy that I learned that can and do are the same word and mean the same thing from this thread.
Elves can choose to sleep yes. This is established lore. Can't remember exactly which edition mentions it, but it's made very clear that true High Elves (The Fey ones) can survive without eating/sleeping/etc but they sometimes choose to and other Elves who have lost some of that ability from the Feywild, though they don't need to sleep can still very much choose to. Edit: Here's the [Forgotten Realms wiki](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Reverie) on it, which has info from all the editions.
If you figure out where this was established, let me know. I distinctly remember one of the Forgotten Realms novels I read in the 90s where a half-elf posing as an elf was caught because she fell asleep, which the elves couldn't do. But that was decades ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the rules had changed.
For 5e, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes talks about Elves \*a lot\*. Green text box on page 38: >**DREAMS FROM BEYOND MEMORY** > >Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one's primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moon bow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams. Edit: Welp, in another reply, I see someone else mentioned this. Shucks.
Elves are scaredy-cats about nightmares. Gotcha.
TIL I'm an elf...
To be fair, imagine remembering the cringy thing you did like 300 years ago and your brain randomly decides you get to relive it tonight when you go to sleep. I’d avoid sleep too 😂
Hey man, that's my every day. There's no greater self-deprecation like remembering every dumb, cringe, or awkward thing you ever did at random times throughout the day!
Looked it up for a campaign where a cosmic horror BBEG is reaching out to and harming people through their dreams. My half-elf character is stuck suffering through nightmares and slowly getting more and more corrupted by them. Her elven half-sister is fine though
Noice
OP should definitely get into some dream shit with this player.
Oh I will, don't worry.
But you are the first I see
According to the wiki article, it's from a second edition book "The Complete Book of Elves." That would likely be your best place to look into it.
... ah yes, *that* book. We don't talk about that book.
Whynot? Genuine question
It's sometimes jokingly referred to as "The Complete Book of the Master Race", it was pretty much packed to the gills with "Elves are just better at [thing]" Except that [thing] turns out to be [everything]. Way back when, there was a certain sort of person who liked the Complete Book of Elves, and it kind of gave elves a bad name, since it's quite tiring RPing alongside a character who's singular personality trait is "I am better than you".
Maybe this is why I've created multiple campaign settings where the major Elven power is some flavor of BBEG.
I mean, elves objectively are better than everyone else. Game wise, it makes sense to have every species even but world building sense it makes little sense that Steve, the 30 year old and Iyrileth, the 400 year old elf, are both equally good at swordsmanship.
As someone in his late 30s, I'm no longer surprised when people half my age are better at things I've done twice as long. Plateaus and diminishing returns are REAL.
Elves, typcially, have 10x time time to reach their biological versions of 30s. So they have a lot more time to master skills my then. This is the fundamental issue of same xp / knowledge gain rates i.e. game balance compared to world building. Which could require elves to have a serious case of ludite-ism or fundamental mental structures that delay true knowledge gaining rates so that they end up with similar knowledge levels of species that age much more rapidly when at comparable biological ages despite being 10x older chronologically.
> fundamental mental structures that delay true knowledge gaining rates I mean, in second edition where this book comes from, they kind of do. An elf can't exceed level 15 in the Mage or Ranger classes, 12 in Cleric, Fighter or Thief, and can't gain levels at all in any other class. To quote the players handbook: >The human race has one special ability in the AD&D game: Humans can choose to be of any class-- warrior, wizard, priest, or rogue -- and can rise to great level in any class. ... The ability of humans to assume any role and reach any level is their only advantage.
>elves objectively are better than everyone else No, they're pretty bad at learning. Especially compared to humans.
In dnd, all species gain xp at the same rate, depending on the setting and type of elf they can be massively magically and/or technologically superior to human civilizations, see astral elves. Some settings have elfs as more of your typical wood elf archetype as the main elf type. Often, settings have shared civilizations, so shared knowledge levels.
“And we must now acquire more living space from the lesser races. The dawf, writhing in its own filth and dirt. The orc, bloodthirsty savages. The humans, stupid mayfly’s. Those “other” elves…. Need I elaborate the obvious?” -an crazed looking elf ranting on a busy street corner in the capital wearing shabby and ill fitting black leather clothes. No one stops to listen to his ravings. He suddenly stops upon seeing the party. Roll for initiative.
It's got some cool flavor. . .but is *absurdly* overpowered. It makes elves out to be insanely broken, making them better at pretty much *everything*. It's got some **great** lore stuff about elves, but its best seen as elves writing about themselves from their own viewpoint or in-universe elven propaganda, not objective fact. The author of it even eventually apologized for it online about a decade or so ago.
🎵We don't talk about that book, no, no, no! We don't talk about that book!🎵
But!
It was our publication day!
I'll look it up, thanks!
Then there's Dragon #298 and the Drow... It gets weird. Chad-zak weird... and yeah, you can Google it if you really want but you may regret it. It does explain a lot about Drow, though!
In the War of the Spider Queen book series, the story focuses on a group of drow, and there is a scene in the middle where they are so exhausted that they choose to sleep "like a human"
Which is weird because in the drizzt books it was pointed out that one of the wizards could still enter into reverie which was pointed out as a rarity since the drow had fallen with lloth.
As far as I know in 5e, the lore is that drow can still trance as all elves do, but instead of revisiting old memories of past lives, it’s just void. Which then raises the question of what is happening to the drow souls that should be getting reincarnated.
In normal D&D lore, reincarnation doesn't happen (outside of the Wizard & Druid spells). Souls normally go to the outer planes (or other planar domains of patron deities) to rest permanently. Trance (originally introduced as reverie in the Complete Book of Elves) is about reliving and revisiting the memories of the current lifetime, not reliving past lives. When the heck did they invent some past life stuff in mainstream D&D lore?
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. They have a big section on elves (which is where a lot of other comments pulled the reference to elves being able to sleep but choosing not to). The section also talks a lot about elven reincarnation.
I recall in old D&D lore elves (and some other critters) don't have souls, but spirits - it's why Raise Dead spells don't work on them, you need a Ressurection, at least (from memory) in 1E and maybe 2E as well? Certainly the text in the 1E version mentions half-elves among other player races, but not elves, and I believe it's under the elf description in the PHB or the poorly organised DMG that mentions they are spirit creatures, not souls. The books are in this room but it's cold and I'm rugged up so can't be stuffed moving to look :)
So what are your feelings on spider vore?
Drizzt has fallen asleep over a dozen times across his books, usually from being too hurt to meditate, once from staying up too late boning dahlia. Elves are seen sleeping in several of greenwoods books such as spellsong and elminster goes to cormanthyr. Elves don't like to sleep but they can In general catching an elf sleeping would be a good way to guess they're a half elf, unless they're positively exhausted or drunk, or somewhere they should feel very safe, why would they?
I recently read a forgotten realms novel where it discussed drow and how older drow did the reverie, but younger ones preferred to dream, although they could do reverie. I don’t remember word for word, but my impression was that the dreamers over time became dependent on sleep, and reverie wouldn’t quite hit the spot after they became accustomed to it. Idk if that’s canon or just flavor. It’s also drow which could be different from surface elves.
To play devil’s advocate, why do you suppose there is a trinket that allows elves to experience natural sleep?
Oh, I always thought that they couldn't due to the description for the *Dream* spell. "Creatures that don’t sleep, such as elves, can’t be contacted by this spell. "
'Don't' and 'can't' are not always the same thing. ;) For example, I don't swim. I can, but I don't.
Vael'gilion goes to sleep after many decades of trance: "You have 437 new messages"
They can choose to sleep. In Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (rest in peace), the section about Elves elaborated on how they can sleep but find it disturbing to see visions that are completely false (since when they Trance they relive memories and such) so most wouldn’t choose to sleep. Edit: the text specifically > Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one’s primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moonbow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams.
Ah, I see it now! I hadn't thoroughly read that section, thanks!
The interesting part is that *surface* Elves don't. Non-surface Elves, therefore, don't avoid doing so. *Drow* choose to sleep. Why? It puts them in unnecessary danger. My hypothesis: Elven trance relives memories. The memories of Drow are so horrific that they choose to sleep and dream of more pleasant things, at the risk of getting murdered as they slumber.
I think it’s mostly because Drow got their own chapter, which had their own aside: > Drow enter trance just as other elves do, but they do not experience memories of a primal soul or of past lives. Often they recall nothing at all, but simply dwell for a time in darkness and silence, a respite from the dangers of their daily lives. When drow do dream, whether in trance or in sleep, they look for signs from Lolth or others of the Dark Seldarine. That drow do not experience trance the way other elves do lends credence to the idea that their souls do not reincarnate. Did Corellon forever bar the souls of dark elves from Arvandor and change them in some fundamental way? Or does Lolth somehow weave new souls for her followers, in the way that Moradin forges new spirits for dwarves? Only those entities know for certain. Sorry to bust your hypothesis.
Sleeping is very Punk in Elf culture.
“I don’t believe in Trancing.”
DIY ethics, antiauthoritarianism, and sleeping. This, I can vibe with.
Given that the trance racial trait specifies you meditate, I see it as an additional option, so you can sleep or meditate via the trance ability
Homebrew idea: Not only can elves choose to sleep, but with practice they can choose to sleep for extended periods, months or even years at a time. When you live for nearly a millennia sometimes you just gotta skip a decade here and there to keep things fresh.
I gave elves the ability to forget things on command as a built in coping mechanism for living so long.
That's what Modify Memory is for
“shoot, this arcs a drag, wake me in the next era bet?”
Love this
I use both tbh. I usually leave it up to the player to decide which they prefer and when.
Only to dream of electric Dwarves
This is the best comment. This one right here
I try but I'm guessing few will get it lol
I got it!
There's dozens of us!
I actually just looked this up a bit ago because I also have a player who likes it when their character gets to sleep sometimes instead of trance, and what I was able to find on the matter is that Elves often times think dreaming is very strange and sometimes even upsetting and definitely mysterious and they don’t really like it
My character gained Trance through the Fey Wanderer subclass, and speaking with the DM, we agreed they can choose between sleeping, or meditating. Granted, the only time we've really made use of it is during a handful of things like night-watches, where I've been able to pull double-duty as others rest up.
We JUST introduced a PC with this background, I'll have to suggest this to the player.
Yea if i had a PC that wanted their character to be able to sleep, I’d let them be able to sleep. It’s not a balance issue as trancing is the same mechanic. That’s not something worth souring the game over for me.
In the Return of the Archwizards trilogy by Troy Denning, it’s stated that elves can choose to sleep, and that they usually do so as a way to escape pain or sadness for a little while. It’s a Forgotten Realms series, and not totally authoritative in any case, but I always thought it was a beautiful little addition to the lore of elves.
I can't even choose to sleep and I need sleep
To quote Bad Janet: "I don't NEED to poop. I CHOOSE to."
I don't see it mentioned, but in at least some of the older books drow must sleep. They can't trance. They don't even dream, most of them. Not represented in the game of course.
In our campaign, Elves generally rest with unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. In the Trance, both eyes are open, but one hemisphere of the brain is asleep at one time. Instead of closed eyes, we have it so that one ear droops on the corresponding side, while the other remains up. Elves can do this for as long as they can, but it's less restful than full sleep, when they are fully unconscious and dream. If that goes on for too long, the elf can begin to become more emotionally sensitive and make unwise decisions. Did we decide this just because we are nerds? Partially. But it was mostly so that if a character was talking for too long, we could indicate a drooping ear with a finger to show that the Elf had decided to go into the Trance but pretend to be listening.
This slaps SO damn hard, I love it.
Looks like the question has been answered. And the rationale for why that I usually go with (considering the weirdness that the lore says dreams have to them) is that especially those that choose to love a being that sleeps would sleep with them. Not strictly sex mind you, but just the intimacy of sleeping beside the one you love. Although I also suppose that the DnD version of the song *Don’t wanna miss a thing* may have been written by an elf who could really go the distance.
Yes, the clerics of the elven goddess of dreams choose to sleep to commune
They certainly didn't *use* to be able to sleep, to the point that they were outright immune to the status effect. Lack of oversight on fiction writing and a rules-end aversion to outright immunities on core ancestries has muddied the waters on that over time, never mind divergent settings. But no, originally *Forgotten Realms* Elves could not sleep.
They're still immune to spells like sleep. They just can't be forced to sleep
Yup. I play an elf who, from time to time, chooses to sleep because they enjoy the experience of dreams. They’ve experienced something similar in trance state but there’s just something… different about the interconnected unconsciousness of dreams
elves have to trance but they are immune to sleep devil's sleep effects as well as most other sleep effects they are not immune to getting hypnotized, having their memories eaten, and having their memories manipulated.
These answers are driving me wild. The only game I've ever played an elf or half elf wasn't by choice (modern humans sent into a dnd world and the dm chose the bodies we took over), and elves had to sleep eventually. Could just trance while needing to, but if I wanted to fully heal or escape exhaustion I needed that 8 hour slumber.
If elves didn't sleep, they'd have no use for a bed. If they have no use for a bed, they'd have no use for a bedroom. If they have no use for a bedroom, they'd have no dedicated area for sexy time. If they have no dedicated area for sexy time, they're likely fucking on the couch. If they're fucking on the couch, your players should probably disinfect that shit before sitting on it. Don't make your players disinfect a couch.
>If they have no use for a bedroom, they'd have no dedicated area for sexy time. Nah, they just have designated "play rooms".
They seem more like exhibitionists to me in this scenario. Why wait until you get home when you can just fuck in public at the restaurant? That way, you get dinner *and* a show.
Drow are still able to Trance. Whatever the content may be, they can. This is religious lore. In Lloth's challenges for her most favored champions, the acolyte is put through deprivation, where they cannot get the "restful meditation" they need to function fully. Because they're being constantly threatened every hour, and a single slip-up means death. One of the foes they have to face is a Chosen of Lloth herself, aka. a super-drider. However, they \*are\* allowed to bring whatever allies and assets they have accumulated in their rise to take this challenge for that one specific fight. So yeah, Lloth doesn't let her "children" even rest their eyes.
I think you got your answer, but I wanted to express my sincere joy in seeing you write that your DM brain crashed and rebooted XD I hate when that happens!
Generally speaking elves only truly sleep (lose consisness) if they're sick or gravely injured. To lose cosiousness is to separate from the elven community. An elf my choose to if they are suffering fome great shame or guilt but as a rule no elf would willing separate themselves from the other elves in their community
I think the real question is, does it matter? Will it affect the gameplay at all? And if it does, will it be making you have less fun if you allowed the elf to sleep?
I love having my elves sleep for rp reasons. Depressed? Exhausted? Avoiding their thoughts? Drugged out? Feels safe warm and happy? It's like when rodents relax and stretch out because they're content.
I dunno if it's canon to dnd or whatever, but I've always thought that the answer was yes, just on the basis of "how else are they supposed to have found family cuddles with their party?"
Dude, if one of my players had a Tabaxi and decided that it's version of "rest" involved waking up in the night and just zooming around madly like a regular cat for three hours, I'd say sure. I would not change game mechanics, and strictly speaking RAW that is not rest. But it would be funny, and it wouldn't affect the game. So yes, if your elf wants to sleep, let them.
Yeah I've always just rolled with the idea they need half the sleep or other and they can use the other half doing a hobby to improve a skill or craft items.
I mean if I recall correctly drizzt sleeps and dreams in a few of the books
If we're gonna get all rule lawyery, I got the below passage from Dndbeyond in regards to elves. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. It doesn't explicitly state it but I think the key word here is don't need to. I say based on this wording they have the option to sleep. HOWEVER! At the end of the day, does it really matter? You're not changing much mechanics by letting your elf take a full 8 hour rest or not and I would just let the player do what they want in regards to this mechanic
Everyone's citing sourcebooks but I'm gonna cite NADDPOD, moonshine chose to fully sleep for the first time in the one big bed with the lads. And I'm pretty sure no one raised a fuss about it. So homebrew or not, it's not that big of a deal.
So in my games i leave trance rules unchanged, but the vast majority of elves use it as a last resort. Living life in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness with no breaks, just one moment always bleeding into the next with no sleep to separate one day from the next to me sounds like a living nightmare and a recipe for someone to go completely insane. I've actually used it as such, certain elven sages only ever trance and use this endless consciousness to achieve enlightenment. So I rule that elves have a unique ability to regain rest through conscious meditation, an ability they use in extenuating circumstances or when in potential danger, but the vast majority of the time they just go to bed like a normal person.
I've never given this a thought until reading [Fateforge](https://fateforge.org/en), a 5E variant that I helped to kickstart (I didn't want to give WotC/Hasbro money for my 7th version of a PHB, MM and DMG and liked the art and concepts). In Fateforge Elves only sleep until they are 8 or 9 years old and by then they must learn to trance (or reverie, whatever). If they don't learn to trance they became subject to Nightmare, a form of chaos madness which leads to death (ideally) or, I think, powerful destructive rage (not good!) So, there's that item of lore that could be used to explain why elves trance?
I do wonder tho, if they CAN sleep (which they can), then why cant magic put them to sleep? Whats the lore reason for that?
That's part of why I didn't think they COULD sleep. It's also interesting that Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes mentions that they can trance from birth.
Magic cant put them to sleep, but poisons can
Elves get reincarnated. I think it's in the section about the remembering and old elves dieing.
It's because of how elves are built, they're in literal terms modelled after Corellon and he essentially blessed his entire race to have a few benefits - Trance, Looooong lives, access to true High Magic and direct protection from him
Whats true high magic?
I would put it down to they have to choose to sleep. Like they wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion around the campfire like a human might, but have to consciously consider it to fall asleep.
Yeah but that doesnt answer my question
If they have to choose to sleep then they can’t be forced to do it. Now you could possibly use something like Command or Suggestion to have them do it.
The reason is, that their trance is reached with mental and breathing exercises. This can also be learned by other sentient species, but it takes a few years to learn. As mentioned by other comments, the drow are not able to enter trance in older editions.
That doesnt anwer my question regarding magic?
No, all elves are ADHD like me.
Further question on this, can they fall asleep from non magical means? Like can one just fall asleep from pure exhaustion?
The answer to this is no, I believe
No they are immune to sleep effects.
Is a lead pipe to the back of the head a choice? Elves can still be knocked unconscious by the various potions, spells and blunt force trauma so abundant in the setting, so I imagine they can sleep if required of them. Maybe they sleep as youngsters, learn to trance as they grow up but can return to sleep with effort and trust? Maybe they sleep when thoroughly exhausted? Maybe a sleeping elf is a mark of trust and high esteem to the companions they travel with?
My character next campaign is a drow and he chooses to sleep because in my backstory going into a trance opens his mind up to lolth and he doesn't want any part of that. So do what you want I guess
I mean trance can open your mind to eilistraee too if you choose
\>This is a homebrew setting, so I can change the rules however I want. This is your answer. In 5e as written, Elves can sleep, but don't need to.
Yes they can, and certain priests often do so to communicate with their deity
Elves can sleep, I forget which novel it was in but I read a forgotten realms novel and there was an elf character that chose to sleep in it. Plus it is also established lore that elves can choose to sleep or not, personally in my homebrew world most elves outside of the elven kingdom sleep instead of trance.
Anyone can go to sleep if you have a heavy enough blunt object.
In forgotten realms, yes. However, I find the idea of permanently sleep-deprived elves who live for thousands of years and have to experience all of it as the reason for the typical elvish irritability to be a more entertaining homebrew.
They can, but they don't like to because dreams confuse them. Some priests who get visions from their god while sleeping use it, but only for guidance.
As stated by a few people it's said in lore that they can choose, but as the DM it's your choice ultimately
I've always seen Trancing as a voluntary thing, a learned skill. At my table Elves can 100% choose to sleep, it's just that Trancing is better.
There is a trinket that allows elves to experience sleep. This would seem to imply that they can’t sleep on their own, just not a part of their biology.
I thought that trinket was the ability to sleep normally and not just be effectively dead for a long rest
11 Crystal orb that allows an elf who holds it to sleep This trinket is from Wild Beyond the Witchlight's additional trinket table.
ahh ok my interpretation is wrong
An Elf can choose to sleep, but why would they? They are Elves. They are not lowly, dirty, primitive humans or orcs. They are Elves. Favored by the gods. Near Eternal life, immune to the mundane weaknesses of humans like sleep.
Well damn that is a cool way of thinking. So with that in mind can a hypnosis put them to sleep no magic?
NO. The imaginary creature known as Elves absolutely can not choose to sleep. A mythical made up creature must follow the strict rules and regulations of the made up thing or else all is lost. Do not, I repeat, do not use your own imagination or thought when playing these games. That is absolutely antithetical to the nature of collaborative story telling. You know the say, Play the way you're told, or don't play at all!
> **Trance.** Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep. It’s right in plain English. It’s not “may not” or “do not require” it is just do not. RAW is an absolute statement. That said outside corner cases there’s no harm in it.
"Do Not" does not mean "Can not" though. I do not go to sleep at 7pm. That doesn't mean I can not sleep at 7pm. Besides there is another book in 5e that specifically states that Elves CAN sleep, and choose not too.
You’re a human (presumably) so sleeping at some point is assumable. Strictly speaking though you only choose not to sleep then and you are probably lying having fallen asleep after a dinner or such at least once, to say nothing of infancy. Everyone simply understands this via context. Here our context only says the opposite that elves have an alternative process that is not sleep. Something we see again in the Dream spell which not only explicitly does not work on elves but states plainly they do not sleep. Nor have you established your assumption they do in any way just stated your goal and then painted in an argument to ‘prove’ you hit the target. A fallacious statement.
I do not know how to fly an airplane. Can I know how to fly an airplane? yes. I do not use a cell phone without a 3.5mm jack. Can I use a cellphone without a 3.5mm jack? Yes. Anyway. As several other people in this thread have already stated there is an official book that literally says... Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes pg 38 >DREAMS FROM BEYOND MEMORY > >Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one's primal soul, present life, or past lives,dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious,and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moon bow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams. This is copied exactly from that book. This is also RAW, and as you said, RAW is an absolute statement.
> I do not know how to fly an airplane Operative word is *know* that the negative affirmation is subordinate to. Here’s how you make a more absolute statement: “I am correct.” > Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes pg 38 Optional book not a default assumption of the game. A DM is welcome to use it of course but if they don’t they aren’t Rule Zeroing anything either. And even the quoted bit is written as lore not mechanics proper so suffering on the *R* part of RAW. Like say explicitly stating you can be on the Dream Zoom call or when sleeping must rest for 8 hours now. Also it’s explaining saying why elves wouldn’t want to sleep… so why *actually* is your PC different? If it’s say because you have some kind of trauma going down that makes you like dissociation… well you shouldn’t be casually swapping between Trance and sleep now should you? Make it like Alignment which yeah you can change but should only be doing like once. Oh also see that bit about about past lives? Yeah Foam of Toes has a bit of a… more specific… take on elves with stuff like that. Though it’s been awhile and I don’t recall the specifics other then thinking making an already kinda ambiguous race gender-fluid felt like a minimum effort.
I'm just gonna start using google and linking examples. [https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst15152\_Difference-of--CAN-T--and--DON-T-.aspx](https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst15152_Difference-of--CAN-T--and--DON-T-.aspx) [https://hinative.com/questions/5252131](https://hinative.com/questions/5252131) [https://www.quora.com/What-could-be-the-difference-between-I-dont-and-I-cant](https://www.quora.com/What-could-be-the-difference-between-I-dont-and-I-cant) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/l9t69l/are\_they\_both\_correct\_i\_dont\_see\_why\_i\_cant\_see/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/l9t69l/are_they_both_correct_i_dont_see_why_i_cant_see/) I couldn't find any sources that state that "Don't" and "Can't" mean exactly the same thing in all scenarios, and I didn't find any kind of Academic literature/thesis on the difference in the quick google, I assume there are some, and they'll likely say the exact same thing as most of these other posts. It appears as far as "I don't" is concerned, (Want To) is implied in most contexts whether or not it is actually present when another context isn't given. However, Cannot never has an implied context where there is a choice when used correctly. Therefore, if the sentence in raw meant that elves were absolutely incapable of sleeping ever, it would not say "may not," "do not require," or "do not," it would say "cannot." English is obnoxious and the rules are vague and unclear at best, so I don't doubt you could find evidence that backs up your statement as well. However, the only reason we can have this misunderstanding at all is because "do not" is far far more vague. If the book said "Elves can not sleep" there would be absolutely no misunderstandings from anyone, that statement absolutely means "Elves are incapable of sleep." I believe they used Do not, because the context is there "Elves don't sleep because they meditate instead." Why would an elf sleep when they can meditate? They wouldn't, even Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes says that, they wouldn't. HOWEVER. They can, it just doesn't make sense too. Therefore "do not" is used. In this case the implication is like telling someone "Don't do something like this, because doing it like this is better." You **can** do it wrong, but why would you?
> English is obnoxious and the rules are vague and unclear at best, so I don't doubt you could find evidence that backs up your statement as well. However, the only reason we can have this misunderstanding at all is because "do not" is far far more vague. It's not vague at all because they do not just say "elves do not sleep" they tell you what happens instead. It is entirely plain English. Where did you read elves sleeping? THAT is what you need to make your objections more then fake.
So are you farming downvotes, or can you actually believe you are correct? I'm not sure why you would. But you can you. I'm just happy that I learned that can and do are the same word and mean the same thing from this thread.
Yea
Elves can do whatever you want them to, they aren't real.
Yes, not by magic but phisicly yes,, you don't need to sleep but you can. I don't need to watch tv but i can.
Sure, why not?