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How to Program in Your Sleep

bellmar.medium.com

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Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#31

Post by dk404930 »

pluijzer wrote: post #27
zarzavat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vivid dreams usually happen during REM sleep, which is the deepest phase of sleep. So if you are dreaming, you are probably getting good rest, even if it doesn’t feel like it, e.g. because you woke up suddenly during a dream, rather than after it.

Is REM not the least deep sleep?

Yes, AFAIK the brain is electrically the most similar to being awake when it is in REM.

I’ve seen deep sleep used synonymously with “deep NREM” (non-REM).

They are indeed different, but both support cognitive function in different ways.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#32

Post by throwitaway156 »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #2

So many interesting articles I'm never going to read because of the paywall. I'm curious how people who see this actually create an account to gain access? I personally don't think it's worth giving up an email address and spending the time to do so to read a blog post.

scribe.rip also works for medium. Or you can host your own instance.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#34

Post by d3vmax »

macNchz wrote: post #9

I get those programming dreams but have always really disliked them, and find I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep, even if I was in fact asleep all night with code flying around in my brain like tetris blocks. I’m not sure I’ve ever woken up with a great idea after one of those nights. I do find, however, that solutions to sticky problems pop into my head in the shower, during a long steady run, or after a…

Walks have known to 'jog' the brain. Einstein did it all the time.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#35

Post by mongol »

developer93 wrote: post #20
mongol wrote: post #18

I remembered it happen in a very strange way when I studied calculus. I had a hard time to remember the integration rules and how to apply them. Spent a lot of time on it. But at one point I had a dream where integrals came "flying in" like in a computer game, and I solved them one after another, just like I can solve 1+1 without hesitation. Whether I really solved them or this was just imagined is of course the core…

Question is, were they easier after you woke up?

I don't remember exactly, this is more than 25 years ago, but I think in the dream they were easier than they ever were when awake. In the dream I was some kind of calculus-ninja. I know this sounds ridiculus but personally I believe that I actually were in a state of mind were I mastered the topic I had studied.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#36

Post by solumunus »

zarzavat wrote: post #23
macNchz wrote: post #9

I get those programming dreams but have always really disliked them, and find I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep, even if I was in fact asleep all night with code flying around in my brain like tetris blocks. I’m not sure I’ve ever woken up with a great idea after one of those nights. I do find, however, that solutions to sticky problems pop into my head in the shower, during a long steady run, or after a…

Vivid dreams usually happen during REM sleep, which is the deepest phase of sleep. So if you are dreaming, you are probably getting good rest, even if it doesn’t feel like it, e.g. because you woke up suddenly during a dream, rather than after it.

If you’re excessively lucid dreaming you get terrible sleep, anyone who has trained themselves to lucid dream will tell you that. There may well be a simple explanation but I’m on my phone so it’s annoying to look things up.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#37

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

I had an fairly extreme version of this. I went to bed one night after feeling defeated because I thought I'd made a fundamental design error and my core data structure was broken and it couldn't do what it needed to do.

I woke up in the morning with a solution in mind and went straight to the keyboard, but the strangest thing is I didn't really consciously know what I was writing, I just started typing as if straight from my subconscious. I was familiar with the code of course but I didn't think about the details of what I was writing. And it actually worked perfectly, basically first time.

It was a very spooky experience.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#38

Post by zelphirkalt »

macNchz wrote: post #9

I get those programming dreams but have always really disliked them, and find I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep, even if I was in fact asleep all night with code flying around in my brain like tetris blocks. I’m not sure I’ve ever woken up with a great idea after one of those nights. I do find, however, that solutions to sticky problems pop into my head in the shower, during a long steady run, or after a…

I got those with playing chess in my dreams. Always some difficult position that I need to find the best move in and when I finally do, the board size grows and somewhere "over there" is a bishop or a rook or so screwing up my whole previous plan, making me have to think all over again, but with a bigger board and an even more difficult situation.

Woke up from those somewhat with a headache, not well rested.

Re: How to Program in Your Sleep

#39

Post by brainbag »

dfee wrote: post #10
macNchz wrote: post #9

I get those programming dreams but have always really disliked them, and find I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep, even if I was in fact asleep all night with code flying around in my brain like tetris blocks. I’m not sure I’ve ever woken up with a great idea after one of those nights. I do find, however, that solutions to sticky problems pop into my head in the shower, during a long steady run, or after a…

Agree. I’ve even tried “seeding” my last minutes of consciousness with other things so that I don’t dream about eng problems (hell, even dinosaurs?). Feels highly dystopian that I’ve reduced my brain to an advanced calculator.

[Spoiler-free] Reducing the brain to an advanced calculator is a basic premise if Murakami's cyberpunk fantasy book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. One of my favorite books.
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