Snakes sleep in much the same way that humans sleep. They lie there and shut down their brain. In fact, snakes do quite a lot of sleeping. During the colder times of year, snakes go into an almost-hibernating state. This allows them to slow their metabolism, conserve energy, and hopefully make it through until warmer weather appears and food is back on the menu again. Colder weather usually makes it quite hard for snakes (and other animals) to find food, which is why many of them sleep or hibernate long periods of winter away.
It might not look like a snake is sleeping when it actually is, and this is because the snake doesn't have eyelids. It is unable to close its eyes to sleep. If you were to look at a sleeping snake, it would simply look as though the snake were lying there staring right back at you. The only thing that would be different is that the snake would fork its tongue out at you if it were awake, and it won’t do that when it's asleep.
Snakes can go into a sleep-like state for other reasons than actually sleeping. When a snake is ready to lay eggs, or has just given birth to eggs or live young, she is likely to be exhausted. Pregnancy takes it out of all expectant mothers, and the snake is no exception. Feeding also makes these reptiles hungry. It takes a lot of effort for them to not only hunt down and fight/overpower an animal, but then to force it into its mouth and digest it. In some cases, large prey items can take weeks to fully digest. During this time, the snake will be rendered useless, unable to slither away fast, fight back, and in many cases, even defend itself.
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