Do Elves need any sleep at all?

[Kalimac]

There was that passage in TTT (some people have already mentioned it) which describes Legolas composing his mind and letting it wander the paths of dreams while walking normally with Aragorn and Gimli. It does seem a lot like the "sleeping with half your brain" idea. Also Legolas mentions somewhere that he will wander under the trees for a while "Which is as good as sleep to me" (paraphrasing). But then there are those Elves who fall asleep in Thranduil's cellar after drinking...hmm...

Since Legolas mentions that his routine is as good as sleep, then he must have experienced regular, eyes-closed sleep at some point. For some reason, and I don't know if this makes any sense, I was always under the impression that the walking-but-asleep thing was a sort of defensive maneuver; not something Elves did on a regular basis but which their bodies could summon up when they really had to, sort of in the way some people have been able to survive twenty minutes under freezing water without suffering any permanent damage. Not something you'd want to make too much of a habit of, but rather your body is pulling out all the stops in order to keep you going - afterwards you'll be able to collapse and recuperate, but the idea is to keep you going in the short term, until you're out of danger. Elves being Elves, they have rather more impressive capabilities for that sort of thing then Men do, hence the ability to walk for nine hours while simultaneously resting, then get a good stretch of regular sleep once you're safely back in Rivendell, or wherever [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. I don't know - does that make sense to anyone else?