How Video Games Affect Lucid Dreaming

Did you know video games can give you superpowers? Okay, not really. But they can improve your lucid dreaming powers. It's got to be close. You can literally do anything you want inside your head. Anything.

For those who don't know what lucid dreaming is, it's basically when you're dreaming and you can consciously control what happens. Usually, said person wakes up inside the dream and goes, "Whoa" and probably takes a dump in his pants from the literal holy crap moment. The entire thing is pretty cool.

Once you realize you're dreaming, you can proceed to sprout wings and fly, dance with some monkeys, or bang pretty much anyone you want. Lucid dreams can be so vivid that the person having them can hardly tell if they're dreaming or not. Because of this, many practice doing a reality check everytime they think they're dreaming. This usually consists of trying to do something impossible, like breathing while your nose is plugged and your mouth is closed, or walking through a wall, or 'poofing' a magical girl monkey into existence. It's honestly really, really cool, and it seems video games help you achieve this.

It's widely known that what you do during the day can affect the dreams you have the following night, and so people who play video games often before going to sleep, are more proficient at controlling them, which in turn leads to lucid dreaming.

A lot of popular video games like 'Halo' and 'Call of Duty' are similar to dreams in the way you control an avatar in a separate world. The video games are almost like practice, so that the skills you gain translate right into dreamland. You're also able to control yourself more proficiently, and your dreams themselves are more like a video game. Unfortunately, this doesn't allow for all the cool powers of lucid dreaming, since the dreams themselves become more video game like, the only person you can control, is yourself. So no 'poofing' up magical monkey girls.

However, just being able to control your own movements gives you an edge with fighting nightmares, and even decreases the frequency of having bad dreams. Also, gamers who end up in a nightmare said that they don't usually feel scared or afraid, but they decided to fight, instead of running away, viewing the entire thing like another round of 'Call of Duty'. Except, you know, minus the annoying screaming ten-year-olds.

Jane Gackenbach, a psychologist at the Grand McKewen University in Canada and the founder of this phenomenon, believes that this is a major find to help people who have recurrent nightmares and even war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. So, if you have recurrent nightmares or PTSD, or you just think running around in a video game-like dream sounds fun, then play some more video games. Even if you're not interested in this, play some more video games anyways. Video games are great.

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