Looks like playing games before going to bed, can give you a level of awareness while you sleep and then control your dream, giving the ability when fighting nightmares or even mental traumas.
What?, no seriously......what ?
Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada has shown that dreams and videogames represent alternate realities, the first one are a biological function from the human mind while video games are an achievement driven by computers and gaming consoles, artificial.
"spending hours a day in a virtual reality, gamers are used to controlling their game environments so that can translate into dreams" Jayne Gackenbach said in her study.
In the 80's, Mrs. Gackenbach was studying Lucid Dreams, which is the phenomena of people being aware when they are in a sleep, later then this focus was shifted to video games when, in one christmas her son repeatedly kissed a new Nintendo gaming console on the way home from a "Toys r Us" store. Something that makes perfect sense to any gamer seemed strange to an outsider, and so she shifted her studies to incorporate gaming, perhaps as a way to cope with her son kissing cardboard boxes.
Daydreaming?
There are some parallels between Lucid Dreamers and Videogamers, first that their spatial skills are better than non-gamers and both groups where prone for not showing motion sickness, second that both groups have high levels of concentration, honed through lucidity-training activities like meditation; same results where showed when participants of the study where playing against virtual enemies to reach the next level in a video game.
A first study suggests that people playing frequently video games are more likely to report Lucid Dreams ( observers that dream they can see outside their bodies) and Dream Control that allowed people to actively influence or change their dream world ( like in the video games).
The second study found out that gamers often have Lucid Dreams prior playing videogames, and they have the ability to view within the body and outside the body ( first person and third person-View).
I am the DREAM WARRIOR!!!!
Well, is a good thing to know that gamer have some degree of control on their dreams, but how this finding can benefit us in a way ( if there is a benefit at all worthy to study or apply?)
The Psychologist Atni Revonsuo proposed a theory named " Threat Simulation" that basically suggests that dreams might mimic threatening situations from real life, except in the safe environment of dream world. Such nightmares would help organism hone their avoidance skills in a protective environment, and ideally prepare it for real-life situation.
Based on this, Gackenbach tested this theory in a research made with 35 males and 63 females, used and independent assessments that can coded threat levels in after-dreams reports, She found that gamers experienced less or even reversed threat simulation, meaning that a scary nightmare turned to something "Fun" for the gamer.
These results inspired Mrs Gackenbach to pursue a new study with Athabasca university in Canada. If the act of gaming can act as a semi-protective function against nightmares, maybe it could help war veterans who experience post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD). One of the symptoms of of these disorder is nightmares ( almost 96% or PSTD patients experience this) and only 3 to 5 % of civilians report the same level of nightmares.
Maybe Videogames can help to minor or even cure Nightmare- PTSD related.
If you know any military or veterans interested in the Athabasca University study on the military and gaming, you can email jayneg@athabascau.com to find out how you can participate in this research.
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