Yep. Not so much the act of coding but weird abstract concepts around code. To the point where once when I was working with Chrome and Firefox extensions and trying to get notifications to work just right, I woke up from deep sleep, and in a daze started shaking my wife saying that the notification were attacking us because I had made an error in a loop (she related this to me the next morning. I couldn't remember it :D ).
Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
81–90 of 146 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#82Why is it a problem? Are you getting enough rest/sleep? Do you have enough control over your day that you can rest when you need to? Are you effective in your work and personal life (controlling for OCD)?
If the answer to most of that is mostly yes, you're doing pretty well.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#83Yes, only when I'm working on a project and spend significant time looking at code during the day.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#84I have dreamed of code. There are times when it feels like I am patterning the dream space (each space has its own rules, plot, feel, etc).
When I was working with Kubernetes intensely, I was moving around abstract "lego blocks" representing concepts. The space was black, 3D, no gravity. (I remember someone coming into the space to visit and I told her I'm still working on it...)
There were times when I was trying to figure out something in the dream and a different mind-thread was hacking code that maps to the plot of the original mind-thread.
I have walked in dream spaces where I took a corner off the happy path and watched the world glitch for a moment and start procedurally generating.
There were dreams about startups, working in an office (I work remotely most of the time).
Lucidity and clarity varies. Sometimes it is very clear, the visuals and the coding concepts I am working with are sharp. Sometimes they are fuzzy. It is occasionally lucid (how aware I am that I am dreaming). That "semi-hypnotic" state seems like it is not high on the lucidity spectrum. That's pretty normal if you are coding in a semi-hypnotic state while coding during the day.
I usually meditate before falling asleep, try to offload things in my day's working memory. It's usually whatever I am binging on, whether it is coding, anime, or even martial arts or whatever. For example, there was a time when I binge watch My Little Ponies and saw the ponies cavorting in the phosphenes. I'm not surprise this happens with code.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#85I've been doing this for 30 years. Why? Because I work in such a way to make it happen. What you call a problem, I embrace as a gift. Of all the things I've discussed here at Hacker News over the years, this is probably the #1 subject. Most programmers have the opposite problem of you: they have trouble turning their minds on . I always turn my computer off several hours before bed. The last thing I do every night is…
I suppose it is a gift. But you can turn this on by training in mindfulness and concentration exercises. The former increases lucidity. The latter increases clarity.
Frankly though, the dreams you get are the dreams you need to see and experience, whether you like the contents or not. If someone is not dreaming about code but about those other things, those are the deeper stuff related to life that the person needs to deal with.
If you are consistently dreaming about code, the gift is not that you are dreaming about code. The gift is that your daily life is aligned to a deeper sense of purpose and being. Your inner life and outer life is in better alignment than most people's. _That_ is rare.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#86I think this happened to me once. I try to read a little fiction right before bed to help get my mind off work and programming.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#87I started out in system administration and network engineering before switching to programming. I once had a dream that my cigarette needed an IP address before I could smoke it.
haha
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#88I dream a lot about what I could do with the money I'm making from coding. It's never enough...
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#89I don't really remember my dreams, my wife says I'm coding in my sleep though, and if I'm working on a difficult problem I usually solve it instantly when I wake up... I think maybe I really DID solve it in my sleep...
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone dream of code?
#90When I've been paged overnight, my alarm clock integrates itself into dream logic as something that has to be defeated so that I don't wake up. not sure if the role assignments are random (alarm = pager = evil).