What if you didn't have to sleep?

I guess most people at some point in life play around with the idea of not having to spend the 8 hours a day sleeping. There also seems to be quite a large consensus that the sleep, however, is needed for a human to function properly. I ran across polyphasic sleep today, and I guess I'll have to do some more reading on that, since it seems quite interesting. To be able to cut back sleep even to 5-6 hours without adding the extra tiredness would be incredibly nice.

Two problematic issues are that it requires a rigid schedule, which I'm not sure I can fit in my life right now (considering the fact that students do occasionally party, and that needs to be offset with proper sleep) and secondly that I have some actual obligations, like work. And I'm not so certain that I'd be able to explain to people well enough why it's imperative that I sleep for 20-25 minutes ever couple of hours. This might, however, be an interesting experience if I ever have a long summer vacation again, though.