Without the code it's difficult to be sure. But, it sounds like you are assigning a number to a reference to a scalar instead of to the scalar that's referred to. When the scalar is later dereferenced, a problem occurs.

Using no strict refs is very rarely the right solution to any problem. The few times it makes sense, you would know enough not to be asking the question.

Show the code and the monks can probably do a better job of helping.