Video Gamers Can Control Dreams, Study Suggests

Playing video games before bedtime may give people an unusual level of awareness and control in their sweet dreams, 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 sweet 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.

Can Our Dreams Predict the Future?

Question: I've had dreams that came true. Example: I ride a motorcycle. I dreamt that I saw a sign that said 10 mph curve. Two weeks later I went through that curve I dreamt about. The reason the dream is important to me is because I was riding too fast to make the curve. I remembered the sign before the curve and did a hard braking job and just made the turn. It took me 30 minutes to recover from the experience. I don't always have dreams that are like that one, but I do have dreams that come true. My question is "What does dreaming have to do with what we are doing at any point in time?"

Trying to determine which dreams are about the future and which ones are not can make you pull your hair out in frustration! Stanley Krippner, who devoted much of his carrier to paranormal dreams wrote a book about it aptly called Song Of The Siren.

He feels that there is a great potential in the dream and psychic ability, but also finds the search quite elusive. His teacher and co-researcher for over a decade, Montague Ullman, agrees and his book Dream Telepathy is well worth reading for anyone interested.

Carl Jung was also interested in psi phenomena but came to a different conclusion about dreams that speaks to your question about what dreaming is doing at any point in time. He felt that dreams predict the future in a more general sense -- warning us when an attitude has gotten too far out of hand.

Thus the dream will play out variations of what will happen if the attitude is not changed. That a particular occurrence or event happens is more the natural outcome of the attitude at play rather than a seeing into the future in the sense we normally call precognitive.

This seems to fit with newer theories about dreams being a place of rehearsal. In a sense, we are rehearsing the future and some of these plays are going to be accurate.

To test yourself, Linda Magallon suggests we create a dream journal and be very careful about dating each dream. This way when something does occur, we can go back and have an objective record, at least for ourselves.

Are Dream Symbols Archetypical or Personal?

Question: Any suggestions on determining if dream symbols are Archetypical or personal? (I have some knowledge of Jungian thought.)

For example:
A dream about a monkey or a bear may come from the collective in that the symbol is universal and archetypical. On the other hand it may relate personally to a bear or a monkey I saw on TV or at the zoo.

An excellent and complex question which goes to the heart of Jung's contribution to our culture. I will briefly touch upon my opinions here, and then offer some resource for further investigation.

Generally speaking, all images are both personal *and* archetypal, at the same time. If we talk about how the bear image unfolds one's personal history and meaning, we are focusing on the personal. If we talk about how the bear transforms our consciousness and that of culture or humankind, we are at the archetypal level. But just because archetypal patterns can be found doesn't mean the image is archetypal for just a dreamer.

The key question to differentiating personal from archetypal sweet dream imagery is the *experience*: Is the experience of the image numinous, i.e. full of awe, wonder, and sense of the Wholly Other? In studying archetypes we often do so by reading about them, and thus get the intellectual or abstract aspects of how they universally unfold, how they structurally pattern behavior and how they are related to one another in the process of Individuation.

In popular culture we say so often, "Oh, it was so archetypal!" meaning that it was humorously filled with all the expected trappings. It is true that we can be "possessed" by an archetype and act them out unconsciously.

But make no mistake, archetypal encounters as Jung speaks of them are overwhelming, life-transforming, often horrible and always unexpected. If we are prepared and ready to fully change our lives they can be wonderful and miraculous, but how often are we so prepared?

Cultural pattern sweet dreams, or "Big Dreams" are said to be archetypal because they effect not just the individual, but the whole culture. As we have little respect or regard for these or any other kind of dreams in our culture, we no longer hear about them and generally don't recognize them.

If we talk about the personal in terms of "personal complexes" Jung said that the archetypes express themselves *through* the complexes. In other words, it is at those spots were we have troubles and issues that we unconsciously act out an archetypal role, where we are possessed by something non-personal and only later regret our actions. In this sense, the personal and the archetypal will be mixed.

The dream bear image can be both the bear of my family dynamics as well as the Great Bear, and with both negative and positive aspects in play. To the degree we ignore the dream bear, we act it out. To the degree we explore the dream bear, we differentiate ourselves from the image and at the same time approach the positive side of the Archetypal Bear (Polar Bear? ho, ho!).

With dreams there is an added complication. There is a barrier between the waking and dreaming environment. It is so strong that some people never recall dreams. Others, especially those that Ernest Hartmann refers to as thin-boundary people, have continual nightmares.

Are we having more archetypal dreams than we know? The bear that now seems rather tame at the breakfast table nearly scared me to death in my dream. But unless that powerful part of the experience is retained (or more accurately, retains me) it would be more appropriate to say that I had a *potentially* archetypal encounter, or my dreaming self had an archetypal encounter.

The focus for Jung is not on whether one had or didn't have an archetypal encounter, but rather what one does with that encounter. Were we ready for the encounter to significantly change our life or do we need development in one of our personality functions first?

I should mention here that these questions of how to take the dream image (as personal or archetypal) are within the whole philosophy and practice of Jungian Analysis. Just how much of this is applicable outside the analytically relationship is questionable, though Jung is popular among people interested in self awareness and growth without therapists.

Within the analysis, there is said to be a general pattern of when and how to relate to dream imagery. At first, the Shadow and personal ego issues are addressed. Then the Anima/Animus archetypes are addressed, and finally the way it all comes together through the Self in the process of individuation. But age, transference, life conditions and other factors also determine the approach to dream imagery.

In summary, it is the intensity of experience of the dreamer that determines the difference between personal and archetypal imagery. It may be a more sophisticated position to see the personal and archetypal as a spectrum.

George Devereux, a psychologist who studied Native Americans & their dreams in the 1950's revealed two cultural levels in dream symbols that stand between the personal and archetypal. The first was the traditional culture, and all the meanings that culture gave to dream symbols. Horse dream, wolf dream, etc. The next was the newer culture's images, such as the replacement of horses by cars. And so the dream bear may *appear* to look like the Alaskan Brown Bear I saw on the T.V. last night, but may be operating at several levels in my dream.

At which level should the dreamer take the dream image that seems to have both personal and archetypal elements? The final decision for this rests with you, the dreamer. If you are in therapy, discuss this with your therapist. My suggestion is to ask the question of the dreaming self. Write the question down before going to bed (What is a better path for me, to take the dream bear as personal or archetypal? or I'm going to take this symbol as personal, where will that lead me?) and view the next dream you recall as the answer.

Sweet Dreaming & Dream Consciousness

Although science has proven that we all dream every night, many people often remember no dreams at all, and even when they do, it is almost exclusively upon awakening, after the fact.

Sweet dreams are uniquely different. One realizes that one is dreaming while the dream is still happening. The scene often suddenly expands in richness and color as the dreamer becomes aware that the world being experienced, although appearing very believable, is actually a dream and that his or her physical body is elsewhere safe asleep in bed. With this new understanding, the sweet dreamer is free to explore remarkable worlds limited only by imagination, and now not just as an actor, but also to some degree as a producer and director.

Sweet dreaming was brought into the academic and public spotlights around the world once it's scientific validity was separately proven by researchers at Stanford University, California (where it has also been proven to be a learnable skill), and at Liverpool University, England. Proof was achieved by performing, during REM sleep, a series of extreme left-right eye signals which were agreed upon prior to sleep. Though most of the body's muscles are de-activated during REM sleep, the eye muscles are not, and repeated experiments at Stanford, the Sacré-Coeur Hospital Dream and Nightmare Laboratory and elsewhere have proven that the eyes (and to some extent other physiological responses) can be brought under conscious control by a dreamer who realizes that she or he is dreaming.

All of a sudden I can recall dreams... why?

Question: I very seldom have dream recall. My brother has been in a non responsive coma since July 2nd. I have had no dreams that I recall until 2 weeks before Xmas. Now I've had three that I recall. All having to do with him walking normally, or singing -- got any ideas about why I should suddenly be recalling these now?

It is very difficult to feel helpless, and even more frightening and frustrating when those we love have problems beyond our control. Though I wish that dreams could tell us about future outcomes in these matters, this path is very tricky and elusive. While only the dreamer can be the final authority on the meaning of his or her dream, we can talk about meanings in general.

If this were my dream.... In my dream there are themes of hope and recovery. It's not clear to me if this is something attached to future reality or giving me hope in the present, but it calls me to focus on the relationship I had with my brother, the everyday aspects of walking and singing, of generally being together. I might even look up friends of my brother, extending the metaphor of finding ways of being with him.