Wiktionary
n. (context games English) A children's game in which some participants lie on the floor and attempt to stay motionless, while others try to make them move, without physically touching them.
Wikipedia
Sleeping Tigers (also known as "Dead Dogs," "Dead Donkey," or "Dead Fish") is a children's game.
All but one or two players are " tigers", and lie down on the floor, eyes closed, as if they were sleeping. The remaining one or two players (" hunters") move about the room attempting to encourage the tigers to move. The hunters can't touch the tigers, but may move close to them, tell things to them, jokes, etc. Any person who moves must stand up and join the hunters.
Sleeping tigers is also sometimes used in schools as an exercise. All the children will play "tigers" and the teacher will play the "hunter". Usually in this case the teacher will make no effort to make the "tigers" move, because in this case the real aim of the "game" is to calm the children down after playing other exciting games.
Variations of the game can include: dead elephants, dead soldiers, sleeping logs, standing scarecrows, snoozing tigers and dead lions.
Usage examples of "sleeping lions".
Though confused about the palace's layout in her first days at Augensburg, she now knew the route well because of the fire, when she had plunged in more times than she could count in her vain attempt to drag all the sleeping Lions to safety.
Though confused about the palaces layout in her first days at Augensburg, she now knew the route well because of the fire, when she had plunged in more times than she could count in her vain attempt to drag all the sleeping Lions to safety.
He didn't look like the kind of man who would miss so I tightened my grip on the cases and went down those steps with all the care and delicate precision of a Daniel picking his way through a den of sleeping lions.
As the raft drew closer and the sun mounted higher, gray became the pale gold of hills that edged the plain like sleeping lions.
The hum of Cincinnati was far away and distant, the rumble of sleeping lions.
This was the time of the unlimited belief in progress, and Queen Victoria sat with the sleeping lions at her feet and watched benevolently how the sky was darkened by smoke from railways and steelworks.