Board Thread:Fanon: Season 8 & Beyond/@comment-37379796-20181102100652/@comment-26967699-20181102134555

Actually they can sleep in fact, as seen in 2x19 where Gold wakes up from his bed.

I think of this this way: They do not NEED sleep, as they can’t die from exhaustion and the energy of the Darkness always keeps them intact. However, they CAN do sleeep if they want.

Probably Rumple adjusted to this and could sleep considering his long experiences being the Dark One which is a little bit less than 200 years. Emma, on the other hand, had just become the Dark One, and it’s very normal for her to close her eyes and not travel to the Dream World immediately.