I can’t say I’m a hardcore gamer, but I like good games with an interesting story and unique atmosphere. So yes, I do spend weekends shooting monsters or solving puzzles.
When I look out of the window, wondering where the day has gone, I begin to suspect there is much more in common between games and dreams than meets the eye. I’ve spent the entire day at home, in front of my computer, and yet it feels like I was elsewhere. And although the virtual reality of a game does not feel as “real” as in a dream, the immersion and the emotional response are often extremely intense.
As a dream-explorer, I frequently visit dream-related forums and blogs and notice that people often use game-related terms to describe their dreaming experience. I also find it surprisingly convenient to use words such as ‘NPC’, ‘rendering’, ‘glitch’ etc. when I write in my journal.
Why does it feel so natural to discuss dreams and games in the same terms?
What Dreams And Game Have In Common?
- Control. Both dreams and games create a controllable virtual reality. However, in games we are constantly aware of our ability to control the environment and do so with more ease than even in lucid dreams. In dreams, on the other hand, we are not constrained by the possibilities of the game engine.
- Immersion. Dreams create a convincing model world that feels “real”, tricking our physical senses, while games mostly appeal to our emotions, imagination and empathy. We choose to let the game to capture our attention and immerse us into its universe. And although we are still aware of the world around us, it has to step aside as all our interactive abilities are commanded by the gameplay.
- Suspension of disbelief. While playing, we tend to suspend our disbelief and overlook the differences between the real world and the game universe. In dreams, where the bizarreness is much more prominent than in games, the suspension of disbelief is involuntary: our dreaming mind is unaware of the unusual, sometimes even in a lucid state.
In other words, games and dreams employ similar mechanisms to capture our attention for a long period of time. In games, it is a necessary part of gaming experience so that the gamer won’t stop playing. But why would dreams want us to play?
Games And Lucid Dreaming
Gamers often relate that in a threatening situation, when confronted by a monster in a nightmare, they become lucid realizing that they can fight back just as they do in games.
One gamer had a series of lucid dreams triggered by his experience in DOOM 3. During one of the missions a frightening woman’s voice was telling him that the reality is nothing but a dream. He continued to hear that voice in his own dreams for several nights, and each time he became lucid.
I also experienced a “game-induced” lucid dreaming once.
There is an NPC in Grand Theft Auto: San-Andreas. It’s a typical “crazy person” you can see in San-Fierro (one of the cities in the game) with a box on his had and a disturbing phrase “God is playing with us” on his T-shirt.
When I’ve met in a dream a similar person, I suddenly thought: “I’m in San-Fierro. But San-Fierro isn’t real, it’s a game. Is it a dream?”. Than I’ve made some reality checks and realized I was dreaming.
Games And Nightmares
It seems, that fear, a sense of threat is more likely to make us question reality. In this respect, any media may trigger lucidity, as long as it has strong enough emotional effect on us to do so.
However, unlike any other media, games give us the experience of control and the idea that we can overcome the threat. After all, even in the most frightening and difficult missions, the player is in the position of power. He always possess the right tool to resolve the situation, whether it is weapon or information, the clues to solve the puzzle. Games are made for the player to be able to win.
While looking into the topic, I stumbled upon an interesting research by Jayne Gakenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada.
She found, that gamers more often experience lucid dreaming and are better in controlling their dreams than non-gaming dreamers. They also have less nightmares and their overall dreaming experience is less aggressive. Even in nightmares gamers often begin to hunt their monsters, turning a bad dream into fun.
In other words, if dreams are a complex simulative mechanism that teaches us survival tactics in a safe playground, games provide the necessary preparation, conditioning us to “win the game”.
Perspectives
The attitude towards video games may be controversial and often negative. We still hear about games “killing your brain cells”, being a waste of time and preventing the player from facing the “real life”.
Nowadays, video games are not merely “kids’ toys”. It is a new form of art and entertainment that often combines skillful narration with artful cinematography, making the gaming experience not only entertaining but also aesthetic and often – inspirational.
The modern gamers, in whole, are no longer kids or teens, but adult people facing adult problems in the reality.
If gaming can help people to become aware of the importance of dreams, to induce lucidity and provide scenarios training people to overcome fear and solve problems, gaming may become a whole new lucid dreaming technique.
For dreamers, games can be a simulation, helping to develop additional lucidity triggers, achieve a better control of lucid dreams and teaching us to face the worst situations with a hero attitude, not only in dreams but also in the waking reality.
