You might want to read "Why We Sleep" by Matt Walker. It's quite fascinating what sleep actually does and how it affects memories and thinking. There is a lar

You might want to read "Why We Sleep" by Matt Walker. It's quite fascinating what sleep actually does and how it affects memories and thinking. There is a large section devoted to debunking myths about pulling all-nighters; the super broad stroke is that the short term memory area of the brain needs sleep to offload data to the long term memory area and a lack of sleep causes the short term memories to just bounce off. Once sleep is achieved the brain can resume normal functioning which seems like "a-ha" moments but really is just your short term memory functioning with a fresh cache again.