Math Dreamer

I saw over at The Zero Boss that they were having a Blogging for Books contest where you're supposed to write about a dream you've had. That inspired me to write this post. I suppose I'll enter it in the contest just for the heck of it.

I dream about math.

I think about math when I'm awake, so why not while I'm sleeping, too? If I'm working hard on a problem, chances are I will have a dream about it. Usually the dream makes sense even after I wake up. They should pay me for the time I spend sleeping!

I'm not kidding. I figured out how to parallelize the computations for my dissertation one night while I was examining the backs of my eyelids. And over the course of several sleep-filled nights I solved some complicated algorithmic problems I've been working on here at my job. If I can't figure something out at work, I go home early, with the knowledge that I will sleep on the problem and have a solution in the morning.

Sometimes, other things in life mix with math to produce a really bizarre dream. In college, when I was studying multivariate calculus, I had an anxiety dream that if I didn't triple integrate myself, I would cease to exist. I actually came up with some formulas and shortcuts using lines of symmetry before I woke up. And as a low-income graduate student, the solution to the problem of my empty fridge came to me in my sleep: If I took a similarity transform of the fridge, it would be the same refrigerator, but it would have food in it! Too bad I haven't figured out how to implement that one.

At the moment, I have several things on my mind: complexity analysis of my new algorithm for distributing workload on a supercomputer, a sick baby, finding the time to pick up my new glasses. What will my dreams be like tonight?