I always thought these stories were made up, but then it happened to me.

I was in that meditative state this morning that you find yourself in between sleeping and waking, and some how I got to thinking about work and Perl. I suddenly remembered a dream I had a couple of years ago.

I do data conversions for new clients with Perl. About 2 years ago, I was working on a really big project. The conversion spec was about 1500 lines long. I would spend all day every day for months trying to trudge through this evil spec.

Now as any true Tetris player knows... if you concentrate on something for that long... it starts to take over you mind. When you close your eyes at night... you still see those Tetris blocks stacking in your subconscious.

This started to happen to me with work. As I would try to sleep, and I would be frantically trying to fit a slew of data elements into their proper spaces or containers. I find it hard to describe, because this was in no way visual in my head. Then, one night, something disturbing happened.

I was in full sleep and I was dreaming of the data elements flooding my mind. But this time, it was different. When I successfully altered a piece of data and moved it to it's proper place, I would feel a pang of physical enjoyment. If you know what I mean.

This went on for some time, and the stimulation was increased with each successive element was put in it's place. Then, when I finished with all the data... I was finished too. If you know what I mean.

As I type this, I do feel a bit embarrassed. But I wanted to know if there were others out there who had the same kind of love of Perl that I have.

And I assure you... this is not a fable.

- FrankG