I have been having this problem lately. When I close my eyes and try to sleep my mind wanders and soon enough I am thinking about code, programming mentally. And I wake in the middle of the night and I am still mentally coding in a semi hypnotic state. I have slight OCD if that matters. Does any one feel the same? It is as if my mind never turns off.
Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
1–10 of 146 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#2Who doesn't?
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#3Who doesn't?
I don't, FWIW.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#4This is true for everything in life. Do some thing alot, and your mind will start processing it while you are asleep.
I used to have such dreams about EverQuest. So I eventually realized I should play less :P
It's called the Tetris Effect, read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#5All the time
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#6I sometimes do. It is particularly satisfying when I debug (correctly!) the code in dream which I struggled to debug while awake.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#7I sometimes do. It is particularly satisfying when I debug (correctly!) the code in dream which I struggled to debug while awake.
Yep. My subconscious often gives me very interesting "left field" type problem solving/troubleshooting advice during my programming dreams.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#8This is not unusual. The brain processes and organizes information when we sleep, just that we don't all usually remember this happening.
I find that I tend to think about things in my sleep on three occasions:
1 when the activity is new
2.when I am sufficiently stimulated and excited by the material.
3. when I am worried or upset
This 'dream state'used to occur to me in the past when I actively played chess, when I was in school studying for exams and nowadays when I'm struggling with (and mastering) a new concept or paradigm in programming. Recognizing it for what it is - a process of deep archiving and reorganization, I have come to embrace it and even be happy when it occurs, since material I have processed in this way terms to be deeply ingrained in my memory for longer.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#9I do. But it doesn't happen very often, and I don't hate it.
The clearest memory I have, is when I was 15, debugging some hacky PHP codes for days still unable to find a solution. I dreamed that piece of code and suddenly wake up with a fix, it was a pretty nice feeling.
Also an year ago I started learning Haskell, despite reading a lot of tutorials I wasn't able to understand what a monad is. One day I woke up and find myself understood the concept. I don't remember the content of the dream, but it was a sweet dream and I slept longer than usual.
I am not sure if I have OCD, but I like coding so dreaming code is not an issue for me.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#10I can't read in my dreams. I'm able to dream that I'm reading but the whole understanding of what the text actually should transport isn't there.