Obviously, it’s because they don’t have to spend any time hunting down food and without opposible thumbs they can’t play video games, so they sleep until they can find the right moment to annoy the food providers. But exactly (or roughly) how many hours is this? (And can I be a cat in my next life?)
My cat books provide estimates averaging around 16-18 hours per day, which based on the behavior of the fuzzy black land shark who lives in my house and eats my food sounds about right. In fact, he’s sleeping on my lap right now as I type this. I will have to wake him up in a few minutes. He won’t be happy. Oh, only sleeping 15.9 hours, what horrible torment… 
As with all other things cats do, the answer is “as much as they damn well please”.
All the cat reference books that I’ve read say around 18 hours out of each 24, usually broken up into catnaps. I’m not sure how they distinguish between sleeping cats and meditating cats, though. Mine seem to meditate a lot…that is, they’re lying still, with their eyes almost closed, but they will perk up if something INTERESTING happens, for instance, the sound of the can opener is interesting. And we don’t have an electric can opener, just the hand-operated version.
My cat books agree with Lynn’s and Cervaise’s. One book notes that cats will sometimes sleep more out of boredom.
In the case of our old cat, all of them.
Well, I asked the Fat Boy, and he tells me “as much as I want”.
My Father’s cat, however seems to sleep only 3 hours per day.
I read somewhere that cats have basically the same level of neural activity awake or asleep, so the transition between the states is no big deal for them. That explains the “meditation”.
The current “Sky” magazine on Delta had a statistic about cats. It said that the average 15 year old cat has spent about 10 years of it’s life sleeping.
Just a thought.
D.
We check out cat Meiko from time to time to see if he’s still alive.
Seems like they are always asleep.
They only way we were able to control an outta of control gopher problem is hiring our cat.
Also explains why my cats are so dumb when they’re awake. 
:runs away from cat-lovers in the thread::
wipes away tears of laughter No, really. I actually and literally laughed out loud at that one!
I’m a cat-lover myself. Always served at least one, usually two. I’m just not a snooky-ookums is the smartest, bravest, sweetest creature in da whole wide world kind of cat-lover. They’re cats, let’s keep some species-specific perspective here. Not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas Tree of Evolution. But they’re warm and cuddly and like to sleep on me when I’m sick or sad. For 16-18 hours a day. That’s enough to make them valuable in my book without pretending they’re smart.
Au contraire, WhyNot, I would disagree with that hypothesis. Let’s think about this:
A. They can make the most powerful mammal on the planet do their hunting for them, not to mention provide a den, health care, and toys.
B. They can frequently make a human who swears they won’t get a cat (or another cat) take them in and feed them.
C. They can make people who say they don’t even like cats go “awwww” when they do something cute. (Most of the time.)
D. No matter how mad you get at them, usually all it takes to get cats out of trouble is some curling up on your lap & purring to soften you up.
Are these the acts of something lots further down the evolutionary scale? I mean, really? 
Sounds to me like they’ve got us exactly where they want us.
I suppose that any additional debates on the intelligence/control level on the part of cats would have to move over to Great Debates. 
Yes, I know there are exceptions, both on the human side & the feline side, but aren’t worth measuring.
Hmm… sounds like babies.
Sweet and manipulative I’ll give you. Trained us humans right and proper, no doubt.
Now, excuse me, as Miss Fluffy Box O’ Rocks can’t figure out that the east door to the office is open, (and in fact is always open since it doesn’t have a door in it!), so she’s scratching a hole in the west door.
Indyellen, don’t forget-they come already potty-trained/housebroken. You have to train dogs to go outside, you have to potty train humans. But kittens are trained by their mothers to use the litterbox, and it’s already instinct.
Which is cool if you like the idea of an animal crapping and whizzing in your home.
I take it that you use an outhouse? Or perhaps just the bushes when you’re feeling outdoorsy.
My older cat used to sleep at least 18 hours a day. That is, until I got Little Holy Terror Osama bin Kitten (not her real name). Now he sleeps with one eye open.