I use the Bépo layout (dvorak equivalent for French) on a TypeMatrix at work and a TrulyErgonomic at home.
I've had the same experience as you though, I switched to touchtyping, changed the layout, and the keyboard (columnar) at the same time, so I can always switch back to an AZERTY (french QWERTY), but only on a regular standard keyboard (and it's a pain to use BÉPO on a non-columnar keyboard, slow and lots of mistakes).
As for the speed, well, I was around 70wpm on AZERTY, and now (around 4 years later), I'm around 100wpm on BÉPO, so yeah, I'm never going back.
You're right,
for the first part (waking up), dreaming and programming are the opposite, but
for the second part "let them know you are there but say nothing until they are ready", "If someone wakes you out of bed and starts shouting a long list of things at you to remember, you’ll almost certainly forget what you were dreaming", both are similar (you need time to transfer your dream/task from short term memory to longer term memory, otherwise, you get a short term memory overflow ^^)
I've had the same experience as you though, I switched to touchtyping, changed the layout, and the keyboard (columnar) at the same time, so I can always switch back to an AZERTY (french QWERTY), but only on a regular standard keyboard (and it's a pain to use BÉPO on a non-columnar keyboard, slow and lots of mistakes).
As for the speed, well, I was around 70wpm on AZERTY, and now (around 4 years later), I'm around 100wpm on BÉPO, so yeah, I'm never going back.