I wonder if it's an age/brain development thing. I also had crazy math and programming dreams in my early 20s. I don't get those any more, though I still spend a lot of waking time (possibly more now than back then) obsessing over math and programming problems.

I don't obsess anymore. I just make observations and move on. For most problems, there are many facets with few distinctions.

Reminds me of a Pynchon novel or my favorite lyrics from The Dismemberment Plan.

"So in the end, whatever, we die, we dissolve / Equations unbalanced, riddles unsolved / And we were never connected or involved / Except for the intersections and crazy mathematics / With no time and no space and no schedule and no place."