Indeed, this is the subconscious aspects of your brain presenting information to your conscsious parts. I notice this too! It's amazing, and I think it's where the whole "gut feel" comes from.

If you're interested in more of this stuff check out "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer, and "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett.

Then the best part comes next: you read some more theory again, and suddenly it connects - the abstract becomes understandable in the context of pains and solutions suggested by gut. And now you have a solid piece of understanding you can reason from.

I always save the big picture books for after a bit of successful hands on stuff. Often then i want to go back and redo the original learning efforts.