How on earth did Christopher Nolan get snubbed for Best Director? While we still try to figure out if the snub was indeed just a dream (or a dream of a dream depending how you see your totem), we did a bit of research on how the nominees were selected and trust us, it wasn’t some dreamy calculations. I have learned the entire voting process is as tricky as the King’s stutter, or dancing in Natalie Portman‘s ballet shoes.

On Wednesday morning (Tuesday in Hollywood), the final votes for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be in and the heroes (I use this term loosely) at PricewaterhouseCoopers will tabulate the results come Oscar night on Sunday. And I hope by then you have figured out the process or else I’m afraid to inform you that you’re definitely stuck in a limbo dream.

1. Firstly, all members of the Academy get to nominate within their own branches. For example, a director who belongs to the directing branch will vote for the directing categories. Nobody belongs to multiple branches. Everyone gets to vote for Best Picture.

2. Voting is based on a preferential system so voters choose their favourite actors. Each category is given a magic number, which is calculated by taking total number of ballots for the category and dividing it by the number of nominees plus one. Confused? Let’s say Best Actress has 600 ballots received. There are 5 nominees in the Best Actress category, right? So we take 600 divided by 5 nominees plus 1, which equals 100. And that my dear is your magic number for the category.

3. Whoever reaches that magic number first will automatically become an official nominee for that category. And they begin counting the ballots from top-down, meaning they start with first-choice votes. For example, Natalie Portman received 130 first-choice votes. She’s an official nominee now and all the ballots for her are set aside.

4. The actress who received the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed to the second-choice pile.

5. Another four nominees remain and we count from voters’ second-choice selections. Another round of counting begins. For example, Annette Bening already has 95 first-choice votes and receives another five votes from the redistributed second-choice pile. She reaches 100 (the magic number) and she’s another official nominee now.

6. Lost? See above to recap.

7. The same process is repeated for the remaining nominees. Again, the actress with the fewest ballots in her pile will be redistributed to other piles of third-place, fourth-place and fifth-place selections respectively.

8. In any case when the ballot runs out of selections, the ballot is voided. So voters are reminded to choose 5 different nominees in order not to waste their ballot.

9. When ballots are voided, the magic number will decrease. For example, 18 ballots are voided so 600 – 18 = 582. 582 is then divided by 6 = 97. That’s your new magic number.

10. The actress will get eliminated and the ballots redistributed until remaining nominees reach the current magic number. And then it is done. You may wake up from your dream.

For more information on the voting process, visit http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/about/voting.html