Slashdot Mirror
Video Gamers Have Power Over Their Dreams
Ponca City, We love you writes "Live Science reports that researchers say playing video games before bedtime may give gamers an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams, which could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma. 'If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice,' says Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada, who says that hardcore gamers represent the leading edge of immersion in virtual worlds that increasingly has come to define a large part of contemporary entertainment and communication. 'Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams.' One intriguing theory holds that dreams are a sort of threat simulation where nightmares help organisms hone their skills in a protective environment, and ideally prepare organisms for a real-life situation. To test that theory, Gackenbach conducted a study using independent assessments that coded threat levels in after-dream reports and found that gamers experienced less or even reversed threat simulation (in which the dreamer became the threatening presence), with fewer aggression dreams overall. In other words, a scary nightmare scenario turned into something 'fun' for a gamer."
I learned to fly... it makes nightmares non-existent as I know i'm sleeping, and just "neo" away from whatever is bothering me... Pretty fun stuff - this will sound utterly retarded, but I once flew so fast and so far that I broke through space and met two odd green creatures who were looking down at the universe within a globe. I don't remember our conversation. Doh.
But the key is to become aware that you are dreaming, and that you *can* do anything... It eliminates nightmares.
>> Other than testing the number of respawns.
Praise Buddha for respawns!
I don't know about games, but last night I did an in-dream Wikipedia search on a piece of botany I encountered in a dream. It was pretty freaking weird. Very realistic too, as the wikipedia entry was quite inaccurate.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I hate these long respawn times - you're having a great game and suddenly - woosh, it's gone, connection dropped! It takes forever to calm down and reconnect to the realm of dreams. Even when you eventually manage to, there are no dedicated servers and the maps are random, so you rarely end up playing the same good map that you got disconnected from...
Lucid dreaming is where you know its a dream, but in the case of the article, you still control yourself in the dream state without realizing its a dream till you wake up.
I remember reading a paper about this like last year, that said gamers are more likely to be lucid dreamers and I found it to be true, in my case. I played a LOT of video games during my teens, I'd say at least 5 hours a day, averaging about 40 hours a week. Once you get -REALLY- immersed in a game that you can turn off and shut down, it becomes easier to be a lucid dreamer. I haven't had it as much lately, since I stopped playing when I got job, but every month I get at least 2 or 3 fully lucid dreams, and in 99% of cases I can remember my dreams.
Let me describe how it usually goes down for me. You fall asleep. You either wake up in your room, or doing some trivial task you usually do, like laundry. Something slightly odd will happen, and happen either quicker than usual or slower than usual, like a spider scuttling across the floor, or someone walking into the room. This is the first signal, you don't have any real thoughts before this, but now you start remembering everything that happens very clearly. When it comes to a point where you are compelling to do something, perhaps your mother asks you to go to the store, and you leave, something VERY odd will happen. This will trigger the thought process of "This can't be right".
Now this can happen normally in any dream, and often times it does to me. Sometimes this will cause me to wake up, other times I will just have to continue with whats happening trying to figure it out. But the lucid part comes when you go "This can't be right, it must be a dream". Once you realize its a dream, a whole lot of doors open up. You feel like you have conscious thought to do whatever you want. I have trained myself that when I see that first signal, I will go and try something to see if I can trigger the "this isn't right" thought. For me, this involves walking some place, and if it takes 5 seconds to walk down the entire block, I know thats not right. If I flick the light switch numerous times but it doesn't flash properly, I know thats not right. Those kinds of things work for me, they get my mind to realize its a dream.
Now, once you get that power to do whatever you want in your dreams, the next step comes in FULL CONTROL of your dreams, which is very difficult to achieve. I have only ever had maybe 2 dozen fully controlled dreams, but I remember each one of them as though it happened yesterday. This is where its not that you have control of your actions, but you also have control of your surroundings. Times I would think "This is a dream, so why don't I just fly?" And I'd be able to fly. Times I'd be "There is a monster, this is clearly a nightmare. Well if I'm dreaming, give me a weapon", and turn a nightmare into a great experience.
Being a nerd, you can imagine where some of the fantasies led. The sad thing is, its the best I've ever had. I have had some very enjoyable endeavours in the real world, but nothing really relates to the pleasure of being able to do what you want to when you want to, without limitation or inhibition. You can do the things you'd be embarassed about without reconsideration. One day I had the thought of "I have already manifested anything I could ever want. What is to stop myself from manifesting the things I would hate or fear the most?" I was able to see deeper into my fears than ever before. Some things I discovered shocked me so much I didn't want to sleep anymore. Luckily that subsided.
If you want to learn to do this, its not as difficult as it might seem. Video games have been shown to help, or at least statistically. The other thing is a dream journal. Keep a journal by your bed. Every day when you wake up, and you remember a dream, write something down, jot it quickly if you're in a rush. But put it down before you forget. Then when you come home from work and you re-read it, you'll get a flurry of memories.
One thing I've n
I usually just find a dream-bathroom and pee. If my thighs suddenly get really warm, it's a dream. And my girlfriend is very angry.