Some pokemon, such as Snorlax and Abra, sleep away most of their days. Others, such as Sharpedo, sleep rarely, although artificial sleep can be induced. And then there are Noctowl, which can fly over a field of Breloom and Parasect without so much as closing their eyes, and take them all down with air slashes for good measure.

When effective spore traps were first discovered as a means of information warfare, Noctowl were pressed into service as messengers, because their bulky bodies and resistance to sleep allowed them to perform the task far better than carrier Pidgey. Similarly, when chemical agents were developed and spread sleep spores across the battlefield, it was Noctowl who battled in the air and roused their teammates from their slumber. Perhaps the world would have been better off had they not; war would be so much less horrible were it simply a matter of seizing power and killing leaders while the enemy sleeps. And of course, in the year when a certain trainer decided to bring a Darkrai and Breloom to the Indigo Plateau, he was only defeated when a clever trainer included a Noctowl with U-turn in his team.

It has long been suspected that Noctowl have obtained a superior control over their mind and have therefore evolved past the need for sleep. This is of course nonsense. Even with the superior focus of an upside-down head, their psychic powers are far too weak to do the impossible; even Alakazam and Metagross need to rest their brains sometimes.

Instead, whenever Noctowl fly past a sleeping pokemon, they steal its dreams, hypnotizing pokemon into sleep themselves when they get tired. By feasting on the dreams of others, they rejuvenate without sleep, a skill which they lost with their clock feathers the moment they evolved.