Do you ever dream in code?

[frankus]

I have regularly dreamt in code since I was about 12, first basic, pascal, lisp, c, sql and Perl.

Perl is cool as I usually dream about benchmarking and optimising the code :), the other day I dreamt I was in a team meeting; that was very disturbing, I found myself falling asleep in it.

I had dreams as a Windows user where I'd see a status bar with a process indicator crawling it's way to 100%. I had arguments with my Mum; I couldn't get up for work till my program had compiled.

My wife has quite often asked me things like "what is a character class?" or "what did you need to download from CPAN?", apparently I have quite vociferously argued, whilst asleep, that I wasn't budging till X had been completed.

I'd write it off as people winding me up if I hadn't heard an argument between my Mum and Dad. Mum was trying to get Dad to work. Dad threatened to send Mum to the head master and got really angry when she said "Peter, get up, you're asleep.

I am quite confident that this meditation is as old as the hills, but worth re-introducing so the newer monks can contribute.

--

Brother Frankus.

[tye]

Yes, but do you ever dream of your code in color?

use Syntax::Highlight::Subconscious;

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

[frankus]

Yeah, I dream I am editting in an emacs environment so it is always colourized :)

It was the same when I used MS Developer Studio, once I changed the highlighting to reflect that in my dreams as it worked, I didn't remember all of the colours though.

--

Brother Frankus.

[neophyte]

I do not really dream in code but in pseudo-code or something vaguely algorithmish. While dreaming in second or third language is quite familiar to me, I'd never dream (of) code. Nevertheless my dreams help me solving problems by pointing in the right direction. The neat thing with dreaming up solutions is that somehow my dreams can access things I have learned and (seemingly) forgotten.

neophyte

[c-era]

I had a nightmare in code last night, but I was coding in C# yesterday so it was expected ;-)

[clemburg]

Yes, if I am involved deeply with a problem. E.g., when working through Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, I was quite regularly dreaming Scheme code.

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com

[lhoward]

I dream in code too. Also my wife claims that I program out-loud while I'm sleeping.

[Blue]

... *snore* ... *snore* ... shebang slash usr slash local slash perl ... *snore* ... use strict semicolon ... *snore* ...

(I've always told people there are things I could code in my sleep.)

=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue...

[japhy]

Agh! That soundsl ike the dreaded... OmniPerl!

$_="goto+F.print+chop;\n=yhpaj";F1:eval

[little]

No, but other strange things happen while dreaming. As I have problems to get up, I just deleted the configs for my inner clock and set the value to 7.00, but that didn't suffice, the damned value didn't want to go until I found another place, where cause of some reason resided a fallback value at 11.00. Can't remember how I fixed it, but the fallback value was the standard one always, so something went wrong but looked ok, all time. :-)
In another situation I felt quite comfy after deleting all info about a former girl friend, as I could not get rid of the very sad feeling. To push those back from memory didn't suffice cause they where all related to each other. Dereferencing did simply not work.
So, as I don't dream in code, I sometimes use their very logic features to make my life easier.
It's enough if you smile, so I do while writing this - just with a half tongue in cheek*

Have a nice day
All decision is left to your taste


(* see ybiC, I learned not only perl in here)

[jeffa]

I dreamt one night that I was coding my way to a restful sleep - the more I thought about the code - the less rest I got. I just couldn't _stop_ coding long enough to actually fall asleep.

I think the language was a hybrid of Perl and purple umbrellas, but don't hold me to that.

Jeff

[reyjrar]

I've barely ever experienced this... heh.. but my ex-roommate and close friend cleen told that he had recurring nightmares of code similar to "donald Duck in Mathematica Land" when he was really stuck in developing a kick ass network monitoring system..

just thought I'd share :P

-brad..

[extremely]

I dream in code every so often. I've had to get up in the middle of the night to scribble it down too. =)

Worse, I've dreamed in relational tables over and over. I actually had a recurring DB dream that haunted me for days till I actually got up one night and punched it all into an email to my work address.

When I got to work the next day, there was this incredibly fsck'ed up mail from me with only five tables in it and weird names, self-linked keys and more. My current design was over 9 tables and seriously non-normalized. Three weeks later, when I completed the design I went back and looked, and sure enough, I should have used the dream spec. It would have been much easier to use. Only it took me three weeks awake to get near what I had there. And I missed a simple generalization that would have reduced three tables from the final design. *sigh*

Follow your dreams I say, or at least try and take notes!

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)

[eduardo]

My ex would remember... the alarm went off one morning, and she thought it was too early, so she elbowed me and asked: "eduardo, what time is it?" to which i replied: "i don't know, select time from alarmclock" and went back to sleep. :)

[stephen]

Back in my pagemonkey days, I would occasionally dream in HTML. The dream would involve bizarre tags that I didn't understand. (So, unbeknownst to me, I was really dreaming in XML!)

Nowadays I'm far more likely to dream in Quake or Diablo II. At least in the dreams I remember...

Once, when slightly feverish, a die-hard sysadmin friend of mine dreamed she was the UNIX operating system. When the alarm went off, she dreamed of a SIGALARM and kept trying to trap the signal...

stephen

[chromatic]

I've dreamed about writing programs. At least twice, they've turned into real programs or pieces of real programs and became good code.

More often, I've fallen into a half-asleep state where my brain won't stop thinking about a program. That's the worst. It's not restful at all, but I'm too tired to walk to my office and punch out code.

I have better luck coming up with designs (if not actual code) while showering, walking, or driving.

[tune]

Hey it is becuz you code before going to bed!

I used to play strategic games into the late night, and sometimes I just go to bed from the screen. Those are the nights, I have difficult situations dreamed, and to solve.

If you do the same with coding, you will be coding during your sleep :)
But why the heck did I bankrob last night, without mask? :)))

-- tune

[larsen]

When I was younger I was frequently subject to headache. During that period, I was used to dream about natural numbers. Sums, multiplications and so on. Very quickly, almost too quick to be perceivable, but I was aware of the results: I was actually doing those operations. Very strange experience.

But I've never dreamnt of programming :)

[Beatnik]

When I was about 15, (and into Pascal), I programmed stuff in my sleep (altho being unaware that I did). My brother, with whom shared a room at that time, told me I talked Pascal and he never really had pen and paper ready when I started talking. Apparently a friend, who's into electronics talks about similar things in his sleep.

Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.