the thinker

i dont think i've ever really been a big believer in the subconscious and especially in the extent of its importance.
but a few days ago i was trying to figure out this problem, and i spent a lot of time on it and still never figured it out. but since then i've had a few thoughts about somehow using the changing states of outputs on this hardware to feed them into NAND logic gates to get a certain  outcome. and a few times i remembered how an ex-employer of mine designed this timer circuit. it wasnt until after i finally "had the idea" (from god knows where) about how to solve my problem using the NAND gate, that i realized that my buddy's circuit had also been a NAND gate.
its like my subconscious was trying to contact me, to hand me "my" new idea.
for a while now i've found it "peculiar" if nothing else the way we all of a sudden find fully-formed "ideas".