Video Gamers Can Control Dreams, Study Suggests

reply to post by MikeboydUS


This is true. I am capable of ordering my brain what to dream. I did this a lot years ago. Today not so much. I enjoy the random generator part of my brain.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


This explains a lot of my own outer body experiences lol. My lucid dreams and so on... Hmmm. Thanks for the read it was quite enlightening. I kinda thought I should start playing my games again.

This is very interesting, it explains a lot for me. Has anyone had a dream that helped them in a real-life situation? A dream I had the other night helped me to avoid getting hit by a car. I just did what I did in my dream and it worked. Of course I had to deal with people looking at me like wtf? right after, heh.

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.

Hahaahahaa - video games, hone concentration? If anything, it makes kids short-attention spazzes that need to be constantly stimulated to stay focused.

Also - I know a LOT of "gamers" and none of them can lucid.

In short - I think this article is utter b*lls**t. The concentration part almost actually pisses me off, especially since people are buying it so readily.

This is true I assume, since I was a strong smart dreamer and gamer. I use lucid dreamer abilities in all my dreams (but I'm no longer lucid).

Or mybe this theory is #. Cause otherwise a lot of people would do this.

[edit on 29-5-2010 by ickylevel]

Well this is intresting. I've been able to control or manipulate dreams from an early age. Around 10 to be exact. Starting with early dreams of flight using a tricycle. To actually landing when I have lifted off a cliff in a car. It's probably the most amazing experience to control all and any dream scenerios. From those awesome war dreams where your shots don't do any damage or bullets are made of wood. The dream world is most certainly a jungle of solutions and tangents to wonder off on.

But I have also been an avid gamer for years n years. I don't think it's from the gaming tho. As I have spent many years practicing how to control them.

All I can say is when your first laying down for seep seep. Begin by just I
agining another world whatever it may be. All while your eyes are closed. And continue going through scenerios if that imagination. The little details of consequences or gains from the imaginary actions. Keep doing this night after night. You will most certainly see more control as the days pass. I rob banks as I'm trying to sleep.
Pep pep cheerio

MikeboydUS said: "Virtual reality seems to induce the same kind of processes found in transcendental meditation. Makes me wonder what the Pineal gland is doing when I'm gaming."

Explain, please, how the enlightenment achieved in TM is comparable to getting deep into a video game. It ain't just alpha or any other brainwave or combo thereof that gets you to enlightenment.

I'm not a game player but have done TM. Enlightenment me, please, from the player's side. The primary question to be answered is: Video game playing can make you at one with the Universe?

The main reason I post this is that it cheapens TM and any program of deep meditation. And honestly, there can be no comparison.

and i was about to give up COD. ha. well catch me on the ps3 network MiEnDica

s&f

I still play that old MMORPG EverQuest (Not part 2, but part 1 still) that a lot here probably remember.

COOL THREAD!

Yhea I remember telling my Dad nonchalantly about dreams I've had that I could control what happens when I was age 12, or change the dream into something less scary.

He was shocked that I was able to do this! I took me awhile to understand why he kept trying to explain that I only thought I could do that. He Himself must never have been able to control his own dreams! He grew up in the 50's, I grew up w/ SEGA Genesis!

This actually happened to me last night. I couldn't sleep so I began playing a few games of Modern Warfare 2 (SmackinPuppies is my name), after getting my ass kicked a few games I decided to try to go to sleep again. Ended up having a dream where a few Call of Duty levels were blended together and I was running from a bunch of gunmen in gas masks. Man could I run; I was running around about 40 mph, nothing could catch me, eventually it dawned on me that I was dreaming when I closed my eyes (fearing I would get hurt) and jumped off this balcony, and instead of falling I sort of floated down; when I opened my eyes I was in some big house and saw this good looking woman standing by a window, she didn't have a personality or anything, literally, she just had a blank look on her face and was just staring at me, almost like a hollow person, and for some reason I kissed her. When I turned around I saw a coke can on a table so I began levitating it with my hand, could feel my fingers prickling like they do when they go to sleep, very weird sensation, then I saw this old lady in a nightgown walked into the room, she appears in a lot of my dreams and is sometimes a ghost, for some reason I panicked and grabbed her and threw her out the window.

My focus on my dreams never lasts long, so I lose lucidity quiet fast, I think it turned into a regular dream a little after I started levitating the coke can, wish I could keep my focus for more than five minutes and stay lucid, but haven't had much luck.

[edit on 29-5-2010 by milkmustache]

reply to post by Aliensun


Some forms of meditation require an external focus.

Yantras and Mandalas are both examples of that. Some meditation requires candles or lights.

The imagery in a video game is light, geometric patterns of light. One might say they are like yantras or mandalas of light.

It seems to me that some people when gaming enter a higher state of conciousness.

They are not awake, dreaming or in deep sleep. The next state of consiousness said by some is "transcendental". I'm not saying games lead to even higher forms like cosmic consciousness, just an altered form thats not standard.

reply to post by Elijio


Want to explain that a little more, or maybe U2U me, about it. It seems very interesting.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


I was born with the ability to be "lucid" with in my dreams and noticed that things like movies & games DO induce lucid experiences often enough. I theorize this is due to the high emotional, mental, & physical stimulation that goes on that is often associated with belief systems ingrained from our day to day life. The integration of the acting out, releasing, and ultimately transmorphing of whatever the concepts playing out on screen are into something enjoyable/positive; tends to create a subconscious reaction(aka a dream) where we are more likely to encounter our mental constructs of the concepts associated with the game/movie. I think people commonly have dreams about movies, games, tv shows, etc they just seen.

For me personally, sometimes I use games intentionally to get my mind in a particular "mode" for dreaming as 98% of the time when I go to sleep; I'm experiencing some form of "Lucidity". I now use my dream-consciousness to achieve various things including helping others; and sometimes it's nice to be able to have the mental construct of running up walls like in Infamous, or have force powers like in Knights of the Old Republic, or wicked aiming skills like Modern Warfare on hand & ready for whatever one might encounter on the "astral plane".

Thanks for posting this article, I'm going to have to mirror it on my lucid dreaming website! www.whoslucidwhatnow.com

maybe my first response in the 4 yers i have been a member on this sight.
Forgive me for any miss spelling english is not my firts language.
I have been able to contol my dreams for as long as i can remember. It can be very confusing somtimes when i have a werry wivid dream. somtimes when i wake upp i have to snap back to reality. After i wake up i can miss the dream as i can control every situation that accures there. Far from the waken reality.
-Peace out from sweden.

Anything that encourages dreaming is top notch in my books. I think people are so lost in the fact that each of us possess one of the most amazing abilities...

The ability to create amazing virtual realities in the form of dreams... effortlessly.

Lucid dreaming, or being awake in a dream is how dreaming should be conducted imo as a standard.

We are consciousness, so why wouldn't we want to be conscious in our dreams. The potential for fun is unavoidable.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

A fellow Oblivion player! With the right mods that game is full of zen.

Hah I literally used the concept of crossing back & forth from "oblivion" bringing Daedric magic back as a symbol of mediumship for a bit while I got comfortable with the concept. Seeing how the concept of "Daedra" had the connotation of moving between dimensions where something would be considered "Dead", it made sense.

I also lucidly used Oblivion's style as a symbol of a particular energy for awhile that seemed kind of fantasy/medieval. In fact! I just had a dream last night that used Obilvion's acrobatic skill of running up a mountain as a symbol night before last! Gotta love synchronicity

reply to post by Fisherking


It seems like more and more of us who where born "lucid" in our dreams are starting to speak up. I know for me it wasn't all happy dream-making times even though I was conscious more often then not.

Not to mention people don't realize there's a difference between inducing your own dream in your own head that has no implications other then fantasy; and what it means to "sync up" with a part of the collective consciousness. Let alone know when someone is dealing with their own mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual issues.

"Lucid Dreaming" isn't an easy term to just define one way after all. I'm actually editing a video that I touch on that very thing right now that I will posting soon.

reply to post by tetrahedron
I'm a gamer big time and for the most part this report is very true. however, I NEVER have 3rd person dreams.

Great post, S+F.

An avid gamer myself online, and offline. I started heavily gameing after I lost my leg in 2000, during my recovery process, and it help me deal with the PTSD's that came with the terrifying accident I had.

What's great about my dreams too are that in 80% of them I have both of my legs and I am always running, It's just so amazing.

But switching from first to 3rd person happens to me many times in the same dream.

Also, as the OP pointed out, I too find sing my accident and subsequent gameing, and getting into anime such as Bleach and Death Note, I too often become the agressor in my nightmares.

Takeing on the role of the Samurai, or the "Hero Slaying the Dragon" instead of running from it.

Great article.