Gamers Have Control Over Their Nightmares

[Hadrian]

Kinda interesting somewhat though no idea if its true.

LiveScience has learned.

That ability to shape the alternate reality of dream worlds might not match mind-bending Hollywood films such as "The Matrix," but it could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma.

Dreams and video games both represent alternate realities, according to Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada. But she pointed out that dreams arise biologically from the human mind, while video games are technologically driven by computers and gaming consoles.

"If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice," said Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada. "Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams."

Gackenbach first became interested in video games in the 1990s, when she watched her son repeatedly kiss a new Nintendo gaming console on the way home from a Toys "R" Us. She had previously focused on studying lucid dreams, in which people have awareness of being in a dream.

The last decade of game-related research has since yielded several surprises, although the findings represent suggestive associations rather than definitive proof, Gackenbach cautioned. She is scheduled to discuss her work as a featured speaker at the Sixth Annual Games for Health Conference in Boston this week.

What dreams may come

Several intriguing parallels between lucid dreams and video games first emerged when Gackenbach examined past research on games. Both lucid dreamers and gamers seemed to have better spatial skills and were less prone to motion sickness.

The two groups have also demonstrated a high level of focus or concentration, whether honed through lucidity-training activities, such as meditation, or through hours spent fighting virtual enemies to reach the next level in a game.

That encouraged Gackenbach to survey the dreams of both non-gamers and hardcore gamers, beginning with two studies published in 2006. She had prepared by conducting larger surveys in-class and online to get a sense of where to focus questions.

The first study suggested that people who frequently played video games were more likely to report lucid dreams, observer dreams where they viewed themselves from outside their bodies, and dream control that allowed people to actively influence or change their dream worlds - qualities suggestive of watching or controlling the action of a video-game character.

A second study tried to narrow down the uncertainties by examining dreams that participants experienced from the night before, and focused more on gamers. It found that lucid dreams were common, but that the gamers never had dream control over anything beyond their dream selves.

The gamers also frequently flipped between a first person view from within the body and a third person view of themselves from outside, except never with the calm detachment of a distant witness.

"The first time we simply asked people how often they had lucid dreams, looking back over their life and making judgment calls," Gackenbach told LiveScience. "That's open to all kinds of bias, [such as] certain memory biases, self-reported biases."

Gackenbach eventually replicated her findings about lucid dreaming and video games several times with college students as subjects, and refined her methods by controlling for factors such as frequency of recalling dreams.

Mastering the nightmare world

Finding awareness and some level of control in gamer dreams was one thing. But Gackenbach also wondered if video games affected nightmares, based on the "threat simulation" theory proposed by Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo.

Revonsuo suggested that dreams might mimic threatening situations from real life, except in the safe environment of dream world. Such nightmares would help organisms hone their avoidance skills in a protective environment, and ideally prepare organisms for a real-life situation.

To test that theory, Gackenbach conducted a 2008 study with 35 males and 63 females, and used independent assessments that coded threat levels in after-dream reports. She 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.

"What happens with gamers is that something inexplicable happens," Gackenbach explained. "They don't run away, they turn and fight back. They're more aggressive than the norms."

Levels of aggression in gamer dreams also included hyper-violence not unlike that of an R-rated movie, as opposed to a non-gamer PG-13 dream.

"If you look at the actual overall amount of aggression, gamers have less aggression in dreams," Gackenbach said. "But when they're aggressive, oh boy, they go off the top."

No fear

The gamer dream experience of high aggression levels matched with little or no fear inspired Gackenbach to pursue a new study with Athabasca University in Canada. If gaming can act as a semi-protective function against nightmares, she reasoned, maybe it could help war veterans who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after enduring combat.

"I don't think anyone has looked at whether there's been a protective function," Gackenbach said. "It makes a lot of sense, but it's a hypothesis."

Psychologists consider nightmares as one of the symptoms of PTSD, and studies have shown incredibly high rates of nightmares ranging from 71 to 96 percent among PTSD patients. By contrast, just 3 to 5 percent of civilians reported the same levels of nightmares.

Virtual reality simulators have already been used to help PTSD patients gradually adjust to the threatening situations that plague their waking and sleeping thoughts. If Gackenbach's hunch is correct, perhaps video games could also help relieve the need for nightmares.

Finding the balance

Gackenbach hopes to someday get a sleep lab and perhaps a virtual reality lab to verify her results, even if studies about video games and dreams have not proven the highest priority for receiving funds. Yet studying video games has attracted more interest and respect from colleagues than studying just dreams alone, she has noticed.

Some of Gackenbach's latest work includes studying the violence levels in games, based upon the video game ratings given out by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, and seeing what effect they have upon aggression within dreams.

"I'm not saying [gamers] don't get more aggressive, not saying there's not more problems with addiction, and not saying there's not obesity issues," Gackenbach said. "As with everything else, there's a balance."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/201005...msstudysuggests

 

[Ace Gunman]

I can't definitively prove that its related, but ever since I became a regular gamer about a decade ago, give or take, I have had a sharp decrease in nightmares. Those I do have I can generally manipulate in some form, and am more often than not at least partially aware that I'm sleeping.

Again, it may be purely circumstantial and unprovable as being related, but many if not all of the recurring nightmares I had all throughout my childhood no longer afflict me. If I had to pinpoint when that happened, I suspect it would be shortly after I purchased my first video game console.

On a semi-related note, many of my dreams (as opposed to my nightmares) contain aspects of whatever gaming trend I'm into at any given moment. Not long after becoming fascinated with Fallout 3, pre-release, I started dreaming about giant radscorpions.

Is there anything legitimate to the theory? Hard to say, but from my own experiences it seems to fit. My brain seems better able to control what occurs in my dreamscape.

 

[Danny600kill]

Since I started gaming I lost the memories of dreams, I only rarely remember them, this happened when I got the ps2, I had games before that but that was when I started to play a lot more.

 

[syko5150]

hmm i cant speak from personal experience but i know that my brother does nothing but play games all day long and he frequently has nightmares and wakes up screaming...so maybe this is something that works for some people.

 

[frogmyster3]

I can't definitively prove that its related, but ever since I became a regular gamer about a decade ago, give or take, I have had a sharp decrease in nightmares. Those I do have I can generally manipulate in some form, and am more often than not at least partially aware that I'm sleeping.

This is same with me. I used to have nightmares quite frequently so my mum bought me a 'dreamcatcher' which didn't seem to work but I'd also started playing on Pokemon which turned into a several hours a day thing. After that I've had virtually no nightmares and probably only one from the past couple of years that I can recall which made me wake up rather scared. Although if the experience from gaming thing had anything to do with it there is nothing in a game that resembled that particular nightmare which would explain why it got to me over all the others.

But I quite like that idea and it's a very interesting concept. Definitely a more sensible claim than that guy who says that playing games is the equivalent of snorting a line of coke.

 

[worlok375]

Reminds me of the times I wake myself up when bored in a dream.

Or when snow-cones (or throwing knives, swords etc.) randomly appear when I end up fighting something in a dream.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

Interesting read, I have no idea if it's all true but at least it seems to be so. Yesterday I had a nightmare but to be perfectly honest that was the first nightmare I have had in 3 years, at least the first I remember. Well, I don't remember what happened but I remember it was a nightmare. So, she might be right, and if so, we have a new Freud!

 

[Hadrian]

See its hard for me to know if being a gamer helps as I've been gaming for as long as I remember. There was a time where I wasn't playing games at all, I think I was 20 or so and I had horrid nightmares that only ended when the worst happened.

Modern day nightmares tend to be related my worst fears for my girlfriend and child and I'm usually able to solve problems in my dream. Interesting nonetheless.

 

[Gore]

I rarely dream (or if I do I forget them before I wake up) ayways

 

[Supersonicmonk]

I've been an avid gamer since I first got my Gameboy Original (which I still have in a shrine in my room with pokemon red, blue, green and yellow) and I have had about 5 dreams in total which I can remember in life. One of those I had recently and consisted of me asking mum if she had bought orange juice and she saying yes.

 

[_Chaz_]

I do this sometimes. Not often, but I love it when I do.

 

[zeromac]

Whoah this actually happens to me!

Sometime's when
I'm having a dream and it turns into a bad one, i can seem to control the dream...
Heres an example: This dream i had last month was me running away from this no-faced people, i got trapped somewhere (presumably an allyway) and they were approaching. For some reason i could use my concious mind and make me turn supersaian, it was so weird. It's like you realize something is wrong and your concious kicks in and goes 'Oh hell no! Fuck this shit'

Man it's so fun when you can control your dream but i find that i can't control it that much; so i can't like warp the world around me or anything

 

[gameboy13]

I am an avid gamer, but I rarely dream. If I do, I usually forget them.

 

[distorted.freque]

I've dreamed 8-bit dreams before... >_> And I've also had dreams where I do a load and save. Sometimes, that in itself is a nightmare. xD LOL.

 

[Devin]

Gackenbach first became interested in video games in the 1990s, when she watched her son repeatedly kiss a new Nintendo gaming console on the way home from a Toys "R" Us. She had previously focused on studying lucid dreams, in which people have awareness of being in a dream.

(I don't dream)

 

[Santee]

I barely remember my dreams and when I do they usually don't make any sense, but there was this one time in a nightmare I was being chased by a person who had a rocket launcher and kept missing after a while I decided that enough was enough and everything burst into flames and I woke up.

 

[Rock Raiyu]

I was once able to control my nightmare. But this was a few years ago. I was being chased by some super powered villains. Then I realized I was dreaming so I took control of it.

All I got to say is

Spoiler

ITS MORPHIN TIME! GO-GO-POWER RANGERS!!

Again, this was quite a long time ago. Since then I rarely have nightmares.

 

[Porygon-X]

I can wake up from my nightmares at will, as long as I realize I'm dreaming. Usually if the nightmare is bad, I'll realize that sooner.

As for controlling nightmares, I've never actually tried that.

 

[injected11]

Gotta say it's a little reassuring to know I'm not the only gamer who doesn't dream (or can't remember them). It had crossed my mind that it may not be normal.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I have a nightmare about once a year, and I only dream about once a month anyway, and even then most of the time I don't remember it at all.