I don't think I can remember a specific dream about computers or the Net, though I expect I must have them sometimes. I want to do a poll on this but I need preliminary feedback on questions to ask. I'm thinking of a multi-answer (MrPoll) format that includes these options:

I've dreamt I was inside a computer or program (cf Tron).

I've dreamt I was in a VR version of the Net.

I've dreamt I was web-surfing.

I've dreamt I was net-chatting.

I've dreamt I was writing email.

I've dreamt I was working at a computer.

I've dreamt I was looking at a computer.

I've dreamt I was trying to write a program.

So what else am I missing?

-- Jorn (jorn@mcs.com), December 10, 1999

Answers

How about something like "When I tried it out after waking up, the program I dreamt I was writing ran." The phrasing could be more felicitous, but you get the idea.

I can answer yes to it.

--Andy Hickmott

-- Andrew Hickmott (hickmott@crossover.com), December 10, 1999.

How about a more general "I dreamed I was using a computer to write"? Not just email, but any kind of text: letters, essays, a novel, poetry, all sorts of things.

Also, ask if anyone has dreamed about using graphics software: page layout, Photoshop, all that stuff.

-- Vicki Rosenzweig (vr@redbird.org), December 10, 1999.

I have occasional dreams about trying to solve real-world problems using computer programming methods that don't really apply. These are hard to describe; the best example I can think of was trying to feed a dog by piping food from the bowl object to the dog object. These dreams usually involve a feeling of incredible frustration, and usually come when I'm trying to solve a really nasty programming issue in "real life". Also, while I do have "inside the computer" dreams, they aren't that much like Tron; more like walking along giant circuit paths, or crawling through a vast "differnce engine" type mechanical computer.

-- Brennan O'Keefe (bmokeefe@hotbot.com), December 10, 1999.

Usenet! I've had plenty of dreams about trying to come up with a snappy answer or seething over someone else's. There were some other Usenet dreams, but they were about binaries (wink wink, nudge nudge).

-- Jim Gallagher (nfn@hotmail.com), December 10, 1999.

At the risk of being labeled a super-geek, I've dreamt I was playing a game on the computer really well, much like I used to dream I could catch like Willie Mays in my youth.

-- Kip DeGraaf (kip@monroe.lib.mi.us), December 10, 1999.

How about: I've dreamt that I received a new piece of computer equipment to play with

-- Andrew Ross (ampersnd@panix.com), December 10, 1999.

I had an dreamt in HTML (not *about* HTML--emotional content somehow packaged in HTML)

I dreamt tetris (same as above: the patterns signifying emotional content, but when you remember the dream it was just the shapes moving into place)

-- rebecca blood (rebecca@rebeccablood.net), December 10, 1999.

The only dreams relating to computers I can recall are of me running around inside the worlds of Doom and Quake :-) Maybe because they're played from the first-person perspective? I don't recall every being inside a third-person-based game.

-- Justin Kramer (justin@tin.nu), December 10, 1999.

Have you ever dreamt in a computer language?

I had a dream *in* SQL once. It was very odd, but the syntax of my thinking and of my actions in the dream was in SQL. Anyone dreamt in a procedural language?

-ccm

-- Carl Coryell-Martin (carl@civilution.com), December 10, 1999.

Had a couple of those computer language ones, Applesoft BASIC in the early days, later dreaming of QuickTime codecs in assembly language during the Toy Story Animated Story Book crunch.

-- Dan Lyke (danlyke@flutterby.com), December 11, 1999.