Recognizing video games as a dream sign?

[FortySixAndTwo]

Hi. This is my first post to Dreamviews though I've been a longtime lurker. Recently I've been having a frequent occurance of a particular dream sign, and I finally decided to register on this site to ask if anyone else has experienced a similar situation to the one I will describe. For the past few months I have been playing the zombie/survival game Dayz. It has not been in "excess" to any point where I feel it is taking over my life as I only play about 10 hours a week and most of it is on weekends. That being said, almost without fail I have at least one dream about Dayz every night. It may be with real life people I know and I am only in the "environment" of the game, and it may be that I feel I am in situations from the game but am acting them in "real life". I feel that I have a good understanding of how RC work and used them in one of the three recent lucid dreams I have had, but I am a bit stumped as to how to approach this dreamsign as it is a very broad dreamsign (since elements can include places in the game or general situations in the game like trying to fix a car or finding shelter). In dreams it is never as if I am sitting at the computer playing but living it, so I am uncertain if a nose pinch or finger count reality check while playing the game will be effective since it will "un-immerse" me from the game. Has anyone else successfully used a video game as a reality check? Does anyone have any tips as to how I might develop a RC from this broad dreamsign? Given the high frequency, I'd like to think that there is a great deal of promise in using this as a RC source. Thanks, 46&2

[Booney]

Thanks for joining us. I have been getting more game themed dreams as well lately. With me the trouble was that in real life I get very immersed into the game, I totally zone out of the real world. Which I figured is pretty much a state a bit like dreaming. So now when I start gaming for long periods of time, like an hour, I try to make sure to break away from the game from time to time. Do a RC during a loading screen or check the time every now and then, and take a moment to realize where I am and what I'm doing. It has now gotten to a point where in one dream I started questioning my surrounding because of the simmilarities with a gameworld. I didn't get lucid that night but my awareness is getting there.