Paul Erdos (no, I'm not going to attempt to do the umlaut) was a brilliant mathematician, and -- personally -- I think a large part of his ability to think abstractly was due to long-term sleep deprivation. He lived his life on amphetamines because the less he slept, the more he improved math.
Perhaps I have a skewed view, but someone else called cheating sleep "...the closest thing we have to cheating death." (James Gleick, if you're wondering.) If I could choose to do without sleep and have no side effects (or even just minor side effects) I absolutely would. Sleep strikes me as such a waste of time.
