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Conference hydra::dejavu

Title:Psychic Phenomena
Notice:Please read note 1.0-1.* before writing
Moderator:JARETH::PAINTER
Created:Wed Jan 22 1986
Last Modified:Tue May 27 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2143
Total number of notes:41773

241.0. "Coding Dreams/Nightmares" by LA780::GOLDSMITH (Reserved for Future Use.) Thu Nov 13 1986 22:20

    Has anyone ever dreamed about code they were working on?
    
    Early this year before I came to work at DEC, I was working on a
    project that was consuming 10-12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week. After
    about 7 months of this, I began to hit heavy burn-out. At one point
    I began dreaming about the code that I was working on.
    
    The dream that stands out the most is one where I has riding a data
    element through each of the processing phases of the program.
    
    It was like riding a magic carpet that resembled a block diagram
    from the VMS internals manual. I stood up and watched the fields get
    updated one by one, saw each function as a new area of a vast universe,
    just incredibly strange stuff.
    
    After this dream, I cut my hours back to something a little more
    normal, when my boss asked me why (he was upset) I wasn't logging
    the amount of time I should me, I told him about this dream. He
    never asked again...
    
    							--- Neal
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
241.1GREAT IDEA FOR A MOVIE!BPOV10::COLLETONFri Nov 14 1986 02:122
    CAN WE CALL YOU TRON?  :^)
                  BILL
241.2More on work-related dreamsNATASH::BUTCHARTFri Nov 14 1986 11:5313
    Whenever I am working intensely on anything I will tend, if the
    effort goes on long enough, to dream about it.
    
    My favorite coding dream was reported to me by mu husband, a Principal
    Software Engineer.  He doesn't often remember dreams, but this time
    he dreamt that he kept going to the computer room for his listings
    and the operations staff kept giving him rabbits.  Towards the end
    of the dream he was sitting dejectedly in the lab with bunnies hopping
    all around him.  (This was during the debugging phase of a project
    and the problems were multiplying faster than anyone could keep
    track of.)
    
    Marcia
241.3Me tooAKOV68::FRETTSFri Nov 14 1986 12:5510
    I have had a couple of dreams like this.  Unfortunately I don't
    remember the details, though what I do remember is that I came
    up with solutions to problems in the dream and was able to use
    the solutions at work.  This same thing also occurred when I
    was taking night classes and was getting stuck on some homework
    problems - I would wake up early in the morning with the answers
    I needed.
    
    Carole
    
241.4Ditto...COLORS::GARYinclined to wear bedroom slippers...Fri Nov 14 1986 14:0611
Yes, it hasn't happened recently, but when I was playing bridge alot (daily)
I would dream bridge problems (and solutions), in vivid black and red.

Come to think of it, the same thing happened when I was learning bliss...

-vicki


P.S. Marcia, what a delightful image... It certainly takes the cake!
    

241.5My ex's experience.ERLTC::COOPERTopher CooperFri Nov 14 1986 14:3622
    I frequently have dreams about my computer work.  It is a part of
    my life and therefore part of my dreams, nothing memorable though.
    
    In the early 70's though, I got my (then future, now ex) wife access
    to our AI lab's PDP-10.  She used it on her senior thesis which
    was entitled something like "Literal, Figurative and Metaphorical
    Terms in Aristophenes 'The Birds'".  She entered manually, for every
    word in the work the number of times it was used in each of three
    ways.  A lot of data entry to say the least.
    
    She did this work over winter break while I was away visiting my
    folks.  This was her first exposure to computers.  She used, for
    data entry a ARDS storage CRT (precursor to the Tectronix), which
    had a bright green phosphore, and worked almost day and night on
    it.
    
    By the end of the week, she told me, she was having a consitant
    repeating dream.  In the dream she was in a large open space,
    surrounded by giant (8 feet) green numbers jumping, bouncing and
    dancing.
    
    					Topher
241.6INK::KALLISSupport Hallowe'enFri Nov 14 1986 14:377
    Re last several:
    
    This isn't limited to coding.  Often when we sleep our subconscious
    mind works on a problem and we wake up with the solution.  
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr
    
241.8Lambda Deer, Seeker of VisionsEXCELL::SHARPSay something once, why say it again?Thu Nov 20 1986 14:0914
I almost always dream about software when I'm working hard on it. I don't
know whether it facilitates or merely manifests a breakthrough understanding
of the problem. Like .0 I find myself as a data element personified, riding
through the program structure, or alternatively as the algorithm
personified, floating through the data structures.

It's a fun kind of dream for me, I don't remember experiencing this as a
nightmare. In fact, I actively seek out this kind of dream. It's like the
modern high-tech version of the vision quest: I go for days on minimal food
and sleep, shunning all contact with others of my tribe, concentrating on my
desire for knowledge, until my dream ally appears to guide me through
the visionary world.

Don.
241.9RE 241.8EDEN::KLAESIs anybody out there?Thu Nov 20 1986 15:0720
    	This is not meant to be funny, but your dream sounds somewhat
    like the 1982 movie TRON.
    
    	It had an interesting premise of an intelligent but evil (why
    are they always?) computer called the Master Control Program (MCP).
    It was taking over numerous other companies' programs, and would
    force programs to become part of it, or destroy them in video games
    (in the computer world, everything was anthromorphized).  One of
    the ways it controlled other programs was to tell them that the
    "belief" in having users (i.e., gods) was a lie, and only the MCP
    world existed.  The story focused around a user brought into the
    computer world kind of like the Messiah, and his assisting a program
    called Tron who was trying to contact his "god" and defeat the evil
    MCP.
    
    	Didn't ya ever wonder what's REALLY going on inside all those
    VAXes?  :^)
    
    	Larry