Video game play as nightmare protection: A replication and extension.

Abstract

This inquiry is a replication and extension of a recent study with military gamers examining the thesis that playing video games might act as a type of nightmare protection. This hypothesis is based on the idea of a well-rehearsed defense due to game play, a numbing against violence, and the idea that memories in the 6 hours posttrauma are best interrupted with a visual cognitive task, like video game play. This replication was done using university students who had experienced a trauma in the past and had reported a dream associated with that trauma along with a recent dream. Controls were emotional reactivity and trauma history. We conclude that male high-end gamers seemed to be less troubled by nightmares while female high-end gamers were the most troubled by nightmares. So what differs between these two types of gamers? Three suggestions are considered: game genre, game sociability, and sex-role conflict. It seems that the nightmare protection hypothesis of video game play should be qualified to apply to male high-end gamers who play few casual games, play socially, and do not seem to experience sex-role conflict due to type of game play.

Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming

“…Many dream theorists have highlighted the experiential aspect of dreaming, such as Jung, Rogers, and Gendlin, as discussed in a recent article by Ellis (2014) . In her work, Ellis shows how re-entering and bodily experiencing a dream can enable the dreamwork to move forward, perhaps by empowering the dreamer to “manipulate their internal imagery system.” There are parallels here between this Focus-Oriented Dreamwork (FOD) and Gackenbach’s findings that high-end gamers seem to have a defense mechanism in their dreams whereby when they have dreams of being attacked they are able to respond in kind because they have rehearsed this behavior in waking life ( Gackenbach et al, 2011 , 2013 ). What FOD clients and high-end gamers have in common is that they have rehearsed their adaptive behaviors during wakefulness in lived, bodily, immersive experiences, which then translate into their dream behaviors.…”

Dream incorporation of video-game play as a function of interactivity and fidelity.

“…The long term effects of video gaming have been the focus of inquiry in a series of studies by Gackenbach and colleagues and are summarized in Gackenbach, Kuruvilla, Dopko and Le (2009). Thus far they have found that video gamers report more lucid and control dreams, thus presumably allowing for conflict resolution in the dream (Gackenbach, 2006;2009a). Additionally, it is possible that video games fulfill the threat simulation role of REM sleep (Gackenbach & Kuruvilla, 2008a).…”

Lucid dreaming incidence: A quality effects meta-analysis of 50 years of research

“…Additionally cultures where video-games are popular may also have higher reported lucid dreaming prevalence and frequency rates, as frequent video game play has been associated with lucid dreaming incidence (Gackenbach, 2006(Gackenbach, , 2009Gackenbach & Kuruvilla, 2008). Gackenbach & Hunt (2014) have proposed this may be due to significant parallels between game play and meditation and ultimately lucid dreaming.…”