Video games DO affect your ability to LD

[TicTacoToe]

So, I've been a gamer for years and I have also been trying to have lucid for years. I realise now that the reason it took me so long to have my first LD and, eventually my second, was because I play games so often. I believe it has something to do with the level of immersion in the game that you are playing. For example, if I play a video game in first person for an hour every day, eventually, it becomes normal for my brain to be immersed in this virtual reality. When I'm gaming, I don't need to question reality, I know that what I'm doing in the game isn't real life, you can just look outside the monitor, but in a dream, my brain is still thinking that the dream is reality, it thinks that it can simply look outside the monitor. So, I never do reality checks in dreams because my brain thinks that the dream is reality, no questions asked. Does that sound about right to you guys? Cheers

[Kuyarei]

Maybe that's the case. I've been a gamer for many years and my peak of lucid dreams was back in a year that i didn't spend playing games as much as i used to. And games make it harder for me to be aware, unfortunately when i get gaming-dreams it feels like i can never see it as a dream because of the immersion. I could be wrong but it does have an effect as far as i'm involved.

[BlairBros]

I feel like I am effected by this as well, it seems to me that when I play a lot of games not only do they infiltrate my dreams content wise but also zombiefy me similar to how they would while awake. Seems like a habit I need to break out of.

[Daniele]

It's not only video games. Any activity that absorbs all of your attention and makes you oblivious to the world around you will take away the awareness you need to become lucid in dreams. Remember that whatever you practice regularly is reinforcing the neural networks that support it. Consider anything you habitually do as brain training. I know the zombies travelling with me on the bus everyday who are staring into their phones are not lucid dreamers.

[Kuyarei]

It's not only video games. Any activity that absorbs all of your attention and makes you oblivious to the world around you will take away the awareness you need to become lucid in dreams. Remember that whatever you practice regularly is reinforcing the neural networks that support it. Consider anything you habitually do as brain training. I know the zombies travelling with me on the bus everyday who are staring into their phones are not lucid dreamers. If that's the case, then by quitting my gaming addiction i would eventually recover my brain into normal since now it's conditioned to be too immersed into the games and whatnot. I have been trying to quit my addiction for a while so i'll just do it now anyway.

[Daniele]

This is a really interesting discussion, in that what you all are saying totally contradicts the research of Jayne Gackenback, which suggested that heavy gamers were significantly more likely to have lucid dreams than the general population and to exercise more control in dreams (of the ego dream character, rather than other dream characters or the environment. It's worth googling around for more on that. I've also seen some posts by people saying that they started having lucid dreams after playing VR games for a while. There are other posts about this topic where gamers have said that it helps them get lucid because they tend to dream about the games they play. This can act as a dream sign if they've intended to recognise it before sleep. I would expect them to have better control in general as a result of their gaming. It could also enhance their ability to focus and notice details and develop their spatial and vestibular skills. For the same reasons athletes have been found to be more frequent lucid dreamers. So there could be advantages in training certain parts of the brain but it has to be combined with metacognition or else you could become so immersed in the dream-game that you are unaware you're dreaming. It could be that many gamers falsely believe they lucid dreamed because they dreamed they were in a game and exerting control. If that's the case, then by quitting my gaming addiction i would eventually recover my brain into normal since now it's conditioned to be too immersed into the games and whatnot. I have been trying to quit my addiction for a while so i'll just do it now anyway. You could try using your game-dreams as a dream sign first if they are regular while practicing awareness. Maybe there are advantages you've gained that you can make use of if combined with general awareness. All of my lucid dreams to date have occurred due to awareness alone without doing a reality check. I think this is because of awareness practice during the day carrying over into sleep.

[TravisE]

I do believe that zoning out or going into “autopilot mode” is essentially the opposite of being lucid. Learning to remain self-aware and avoid zoning out even while doing activities like playing games can be challenging, but I think it's a very helpful skill when it comes to becoming lucid in dreams, where we pretty much tend to be in the same “zombie mode”. It's better to try to spend as much of the day (and even the night while in bed!) as possible remembering our place in reality and the fact that no matter what we think is going on there is always a possibility that we could already be dreaming at literally any moment.

[Thinkintuit]

This is a really interesting discussion, in that what you all are saying totally contradicts the research of Jayne Gackenback, which suggested that heavy gamers were significantly more likely to have lucid dreams than the general population and to exercise more control in dreams (of the ego dream character, rather than other dream characters or the environment. It's worth googling around for more on that. I've also seen some posts by people saying that they started having lucid dreams after playing VR games for a while.

[Sensei]

As far as I have seen, there is always a correlation between video games and lucidity, depending on how you approach both of them. I always use everything that I am doing as an incubation for dreaming and think of how how what I am doing effects lding. Video games are a positive. I recommend a different mindset rather than trying to change your overall awareness during video games. If your mindset has changed, the moment to moment will normally change.