I'm good at solving problems in my sleep. Remember the graphics glitch I was having last night with the rotating Cobra ship from Elite that I temporarily bodged by using floats? Turns out I can use an assembler function I wrote for the clipping to do it much quicker.
Happened to me once. A solution to a SQL query which would solve a long-running query instantly. "I'll remember that!" I thought at 3a.m. Needless to say, the solution eluded me entirely in the morning. I still get annoyed thinking about it.
I keep a pen and pad near my bed for exactly this reason. Sometimes I wake up and I have *no idea* what I was on about.
In my case I think any notes would have been illegible :-)
This is me with my writing. The solutions are so fucking simple and obvious once you know them.
I often used to get up at 3am because I'd solved a problem from the previous day in my head and wanted to put it into practice. Programmer's Curse. 🤷
Yeah, I sometimes make a note on my phone. And sometimes the note still makes sense in the morning.
I've done similar... though I'm usually more old school and scribble it on a post it note.