Awareness during gaming

Now I know you should do everything in moderation and sometimes take a step back from what you're doing to stay aware of your surroundings.
But sometimes you just get so caught up in something that it just doesn't happen.

Like I recently started playing Skyrim again and I like to roleplay the character during the game. And now in my dreams I start finding myself in the world of Skyrim more and more.
The problem is that during waking life I would take some breaks remember what I was doing where and when. But those reality checks and moments of awareness take place away from the game.
And in the dreams I act as in the game, completely lost of my surroundings. So do any of you have had this issue before with any other activity?
Maybe I should try and be more aware of my surroundings during playing. But then again that takes away from the experience.

Maybe I should let my character do in-game reality check, haha.

Actually, I think it might work well if you do that last part. If you're your character in your dreams, then let your character be a lucid dreamer in waking life!

I think I'll try to incorporate some kind of RC when saving. Its the perfect moment between the game and real world.

I used to have this same problem when I would play games a lot! One thing that I loved to do was to meditate on my awareness while I was playing the game. I could still pretend I was the character, I was just passing more attention to all of the little details in the game, relaxing, clearing my mind, and pretending that I was dreaming right then. I really enjoyed it, and it was great practice for meditation since I used to play games so much. :cheeky:

Being an avid gamer myself, I understand that this can be difficult. I know how it goes where you are involved in a game for hours on end, oblivious to your reality. (And of course, video games often work their way into dreams as day residue) The best I can say is try to make the game experience alert you in some way to reality check.

In a case like Skyrim where you have some control over your character, you could possibly name them 'Reality Check' or something if that doesn't bother you. I played Skyrim a lot when I first began lucid dreaming and I used the spells to visualize dream control (shooting fire/lighting out of my hands... :evil:)

With some games you might have more difficulty modifying your play to be constructive to lucid dreaming. In my case, I'm addicted to Kerbal Space Program. I put my lucid dreaming emblem on a custom flag. (The emblem is meant to look like the letters LD to remind me about lucid dreaming and therefore reality check.)


http://i.imgur.com/ijIErxL.png?1

I like how you both turned it around by making it a tool. Good pointers, definitely going to try and use them!

Last night I actually got a bit of a lucid moment of clarity, wanted to use a shout but then long lost aquaintances popped up in the dream distracting me.

This is a problem for me too. I mostly play CS:GO nowadays which requires full focus. However, I suppose awareness can actually benefit you in that game, since positioning, stealth and good aim are everything.
Also, it may actually transfer to my LD's since most of them are already so similar to video games. I'll definitely use the tips in this thread!

I have the exact same problem, its the worst when I play League of Legends.
I can do something similar to roleplaying when I play something like a visual novel, but thats more like putting myself in the place of the character and having twisted fantasies.

I have Skyrim too and play video games now and then. In my case doing so has a negative effect on lucid dreaming. I'll go to sleep and the hypnogogia will be scenes from the game I played that day rather than something more desirable. Also, playing a video game hinders awareness and lucidity. The longer I play the worse it gets. The effect even lasts temporarily after I'm done playing unfortunately. I'm trying to limit gaming as I don't want my mind to be numbed in this way.

Woah. I actually have this problem a lot as well. o____o I think most of my dreams have some element of video games in them. Just last night I dreamt I was in a game for part of the dream actually.

I should probably employ more awareness when I'm playing games as well. e_____e

I actually tried this with Destiny because the graphics were so cool and I decided to just walk around and be aware of everything and I actually almost had a lucid dream from it!!