I haven't had this in a long time, except for on the (fortunately rare) occasion that I have a fever. Fever dreams are already hell, but if they're non-sensical programming/computer science fever dreams, they were extra hell.

I remember one particular one a few decades ago, where I was feverishly (pun intended) trying to achieve something with XML, only it being a fever dream, nothing of it made sense, so I was wracking my brain for nonsense those entire hours.

I've had similar experiences, and (having studied neuroscience as an undergrad and in casual / amateur research in the many years since) feel there's a lot of untapped potential to leverage in our hypnopompic and hypnogogic states (at the fuzzy boundaries of sleeping / wakefulness). Fascinating stuff.

(tangent) Also, please forgive my question which may seem impolite but I really want to know: why did you type "whilst" instead of "when" or "while"? Have you ever said the word "whilst" out loud, in a normal conversation? More letters, an extra (half)syllable, zero meaning or nuance added, I just don't get it. I wonder this every time I see it, mean no disrespect and would be grateful for a straightforward reply. (/tangent)

Now try lucid dreaming those, it's amazing and brings me closer to Nolan's Inception than ever before. I even think I've had lucid dreams since before that movie came out as apparently he was directly influenced by lucid dreamers.

This happens to me too. Often my dream plows forwards with unsound assumptions and I wake up believing something confusing.

Well, maybe you did work on your problems in your sleep and did get less rest because of it, so the new insights you got the next day(s), the groundwork for it might have happened in your sleepwork.