I think I might be losing it

Im an analyst at a fairly data-centric manufacturer. Ive been spending a lot of time building an excel based tool that is designed to pull data in from several MS Queries, and format the resulting information to run a lot of IF statements in Excel that will churn the raw data into finished manufacturing specs...its a very in depth tool that has taken me a few weeks to get to where I am, and earlier this week I kind of stalled, not really sure how to proceed because the conditions of part of this data didnt fit right, and was going to take some clever work to get around. It had been driving me nuts!

Last night, I dreamt in VBA and Excel code... I dreamt I had come up with the solution.

The code I dreamt works

am I losing it? (well, is it more lost than it was before?)

halp

I haven't read your post, but I could have told you that a long time ago.

You should have taken the red pill...

Two points after reading:
- My friend did the same thing.
- I'm a paranormal researcher and this is more common than you would expect.

Guess you're alright after all.

Keep a pencil and paper next to you when you sleep. Write down the solution that you dream, often it works. Other times you will read it in the morning and wonder what is this. When asleep you can concentrate without distraction. That is my crazy theory.

I think they call that "WINNING". Seriously, you've broken through the barrier - congrats!

Better get yourself a totem...

Sleep is good.

During school I had dreams about Calculus before a big test.

4cylndrfury wrote: Last night, I dreamt in VBA and Excel code... I dreamt I had come up with the solution. The code I dreamt works am I losing it? (well, is it more lost than it was before?) halp

Happens to me all the time. The worst is freaking Staubli controller V+ language.

VBA gives me nightmares because I must have 100,000+ lines of code to my name at the current company because I cannot use a real language and Microsoft will randomly turn off functions that I really need because of security concerns.

pilotbraden wrote: Keep a pencil and paper next to you when you sleep. Write down the solution that you dream, often it works.

I was told this when I was having vivid dreams. I changed it to a crayon because of my RBD and I was worried about stabbing my wife with it.

93EXCivic wrote: During school I had dreams about Calculus before a big test.

I did that too, but I messed up on the test anyway.

I almost always have anxiety dreams about work. When I was in a pretty high volume kitchen, the ticket machine just would never stop printing. Six years later, I can still hear that sound...

But I often solve problems by not thinking about them. I just put it to the back of my mind and let my brain mull it over for a while. I think my record of elapsed time is 3 months on a motorcycle problem. Out of the blue I saw the solution, went out to the garage and it was exactly right. (That's my downfall as a pro mechanic. I'll get there, but it won't be quickly. Often glacial.)

The brain is a mysterious thing.

I've always heard it's impossible - or extremely rare - to be able to read anything in a dream. Something to do with the part of the brain that dreams not being the part that processes written symbols. Since i first heard this I always try very hard to read anything I see in dreams that's "text." Nine out of ten times, this wakes me up. The tenth time I spend the rest of the dream exasperatedly staring at the nonsensical symbols.

But the whole process tells me that directed or lucid dreaming is absolutely possible.

I've also commonly found solutions in the threshold state between sleep/waking.

The fact that you could CODE in a dream blows my mind, the fact that your subconscious solved the problem is just normal cool.

Normal programmer thing, I'm more concerned that you appear to be building an Office-Powered Clusterberkeley...I'm thinking you should have written a an app to do it in C or Python or something. Even PHP is much more portable and easier to adapt later on while still easy to code. The data source you're pulling from is an MSSQL database?

It's very easy to paint yourself into a corner using MS Office tools, and upgrades to Office could break your whole app anyways...

I used to dream tetris, a little less useful though...

I dream in German occasionally... My spoken German isn't great, but the other dream characters speak fluently like natives. Every time that happens it really pisses me off because they're people from my head! Why can't I use the dang language as well as they do when I'm awake?!

Berkeley you, own brain.

ultraclyde wrote: I've always heard it's impossible - or extremely rare - to be able to read anything in a dream. Something to do with the part of the brain that dreams not being the part that processes written symbols. Since i first heard this I always try very hard to read anything I see in dreams that's "text." Nine out of ten times, this wakes me up. The tenth time I spend the rest of the dream exasperatedly staring at the nonsensical symbols.

It is not impossible to read in dreams. I do it all the time, although I've heard this. You actually may have enabled this fallacy in your own brain. I actually have a lot of paranormal beliefs surrounding dreams though.

When I read stuff in dreams I find that if I look away and look back it says something different.

I once had a dream in spanish - woke up thinking in spanish, right up to the point I realized I don't actually speak spanish. Then it all went away.

I think it's probably that you're at such a high level of immersion and intensity that your brain is continuing the creative process with or without your consciousness. It's pretty cool.

GameboyRMH wrote: Normal programmer thing, I'm more concerned that you appear to be building an Office-Powered Clusterberkeley...I'm thinking you should have written a an app to do it in C or Python or something.

Hahaha! I was thinking the same thing. Glad you were the shiny happy person and not me.

Strangely, I figured out how carbs worked, in a dream. I had only known fuel injection, and suddenly one morning, they made sense to me.

GameboyRMH wrote: Normal programmer thing, I'm more concerned that you appear to be building an Office-Powered Clusterberkeley...I'm thinking you should have written a an app to do it in C or Python or something. Even PHP is much more portable and easier to adapt later on while still easy to code. The data source you're pulling from is an MSSQL database? It's very easy to paint yourself into a corner using MS Office tools, and upgrades to Office could break your whole app anyways...

I am all self taught in Excel, MS Query, etc, and am just starting to get my way thru VBA for dummies (I typically record a macro and then stumble my way thru editing the specifics into generalities vs. writing code)...REAL programming is outta my league on a Jessica Biel scale - I hear python and Java and C+ and PHP etc all over the place, but its just not something I know right now. I want to take some classes, but its not in the budget if its gotta be out of my pocket, and, currently, my employer wont fund it either.

Yes, Its MSSQL

My tools will only be used by me and 2-3 other people, and I build them knowing full well their lifespan my be one production year...the operation is growing at a rate that will likely have my tool obsoleted by process changes, not IT updates. But all the same, I realize the pitfalls Im lining up in my path by building an Excel based tool.

Can't lose what you never had.

I used to design landscapes. Every now and then I would design a difficult job in my sleep. I'd wake up and the design was all done in my head. Very cool!