I'm exactly the same. I'm in my 40's now but have always been this way; the big difference that age has brought me is that I'm less flexible about it. In college I could get by with a few 3-4 hour nights in a row, as long as I made it up (and all of it) over the weekend, but now I can't carry a deficit nearly as well, so I don't.

I hear you. Even though I am still in my late 20s, I still need 8-9 hours of sleep a night. Anything less than that and I feel like I was hit with a trunk the next day.

I really wish I could get by on 5-7 hours like so many of my friends do, but after a while I just had to accept I couldn't physically do it.