A Corollary to Sleeping On It

Just "sleep on it" is one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned in my professional career. I find that when I start getting tired, my brain starts disk-thrashing for solutions. What I mean is, the time spent in logical analysis plunges and the time spent in trial-and-error, shotgun-style problem solving spikes. In the worst of these sessions - often well after the sun has come back up as I work - I end up with something that looks like a solution, only to reveal its whole host of new bug-inducing behaviors after I run with it and cut a software release or deploy to a production environment. The solution, of course, is to understand this about myself, and know when to put it away for the night, even if the problem isn't solved, and I don't know what the solution is. In fact, it seems that more often than not when I can do this, I wake up to find the problem has a simple solution that I just couldn't see the night before. I don't know what happens while I sleep, and I know it sounds a little silly, ...