14 DAY TRIAL // Playing video games may not necessarily be as bad a habit as parents would have their children believe. According to new data, it would appear that people who play games before bedtime are actually prone to developing exquisite awareness and control of their dreams. This could be a potent therapeutic tool, experts say, especially for people who want to fight nightmares, or to treat mental trauma. For these patients, going to sleep can sometimes be a traumatizing experience, as memories take on new dimensions in their dreams, LiveScience reports.
“If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice. Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams,” psychologist Jayne Gackenbach, who is based at the Grant MacEwan University, in Canada, says. The researcher adds that both dreams and video games are ultimately nothing more than alternate realities in themselves. While the former is created by our unconscious mind, the latter is cleverly designed by other people. In both, the final goal is to control the destiny of your character, or control your own actions.
People have reported being able to control what is happening to them in a dream, but they said that extensive practice and awareness were needed before they could achieve such a feat. Researchers behind the new investigation say that video games could be making things simpler in this regard. Gackenbach will be discussing her findings, which she qualifies as suggestive associations, rather than firm correlations, at a meeting in Boston. The Sixth Annual Games for Health Conference takes place there this week, she explains.
“If you look at the actual overall amount of aggression, gamers have less aggression in dreams. But when they're aggressive, oh boy, they go off the top,” the expert adds. It could be that the therapeutic value of games could be put to good use in the case of veterans returning from the front lines suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “I don't think anyone has looked at whether there's been a protective function. It makes a lot of sense, but it's a hypothesis,” Gackenbach adds, concluding that, “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. As with everything else, there's a balance.”