Does Gaming Hinder LD?

I am someone who loves games, so much so that I play them all day most days. However, i find that it can be hard to keep awareness on lucid stuff while I'm using all of it to focus on the game. So, I'll run a little experiment. I encourage you to do the same if your habits happen to align with mine.

Prerequisites: Average 7+ hours of gaming per day
Procedure:

• Stop playing games for a week.
• Try to record your feelings every day at the same time to monitor any progress.
• You can post general thoughts about this in this thread.

Log Format - Let's format our logs so that we can easily pick them apart from the general thoughts in this thread.

• Please title your log posts as follows "Log # - Date - 'title for log'
• Log number refers to the day of the week long period
• Title for log can be whatever you want

For the content of the log, there's no format, just please be sure to include any notable thoughts related to the experiment such as your level of awareness, and perhaps the time of writing. Also, please include your dream for that night. It doesn't have to be an epic retelling. Just talk about your awareness level if you deem the contents of the dream not fit for sharing.

Some people like to date the night's dream as the day before, and some like to date their dreams as the day they wake up. It doesn't matter how you do it. On the first day, you won't have a dream to pull from.

So to sum up, Log title format, dream, then log sometime in the middle or latter half of the day.

EX*
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Log 2 - 4/21/20 - God this is hard
>Last night I was attacked by werewolves but I realized I was dreaming! I instantly woke up, though.
>5pm. I noticed that today my mind kept focusing on my hands. I don't know if it always did that, but I definitely wouldn't have known if I was playing Dauntless right now. Gonna see if they show up in my dreams tonight!
----------------------------
That's it. They don't have to be extensive chronicles of your life's history. They can be as simple as 3 lines. As long as you get the relevant data out, it can be as long or short as you want.

I will be waiting a little to do this since my birthday is mere days from me writing this and I couldn't possibly expect myself not to play.
(I'll start my run on 4/20/20 *flames*)
My hypothesis is that I will have so much free time that I'll have no choice but to be hyper aware the entire day, and thus, greatly increase my lucidity chances. How will I measure this? Great question!

From testing, I happen to know that my LDM (Lucid Dreams per Month) is roughly 2. Simple. This test will have proved successful if my LDM exceeds my average in the span of just a week, or if my count is low but the quality of the dream is much higher than what i can reasonably expect from a typical LD of mine. They are usually very blurry or very short, or both.

A combination of these two outcomes (LDM increase or Dream quality increase) is most favorable. I also may measure the amount of goals of PMT (Prospective Memory Training) I hit per day and see if it also increases due to my hypothesized heightened awareness.

I am no professional scientist. I'm just a guy who wants to LD lmao

**OPTIONAL**
We could all start on 4/20/20. Not only is it a sick day for meme reasons, but having everyone start on the same day would just be cool in my opinion. It would also give you a bit of time to prepare if you read this post before our experiment starts. For those of you joining the party fashionably late, you can *hopefully* find our results below.

Log 1 - 4/20/20 - Substitution - 6pm
I've realized that I've filled the void that gaming left with watching others play games instead, which doesn't help. I think the issue isn't games specifically, but the distraction they cause. Afterall, I really am just substituting one distraction for another; Playing games for - in this case - YouTube.

Log 2 - 4/21/20 - God this is hard - 6pm
Last night's dream was rather uneventful. It did not help that it was a failed WILD run. The time I set was too late in my cycle, and thusly, It became difficult to get back to sleep. Strangely enough, it was about a Minecraft mod idea. It wasn't that vivid though. I'd usually say that I was surprised that I even recalled the dream, but my recent consistent Dream Journaling has proven Useful.


My hypothesis was correct. Although I find it hard to be away from my console, it isn't the worst thing in the world. Anyways, I'm getting results, I think. My hypothesis was that I'd think about LD more as I now have this big void left by gaming. Yesterday I'd assumed that I would just replace it for YouTube. I totally did but even still, I find that my thoughts have been occupied by LD far more than any other day within the last 2 months. Will this increase my chances? Likely.
If I had to give an arbitrary number to help understand how much more I think about LD now, we'll say that on average it occupies 25% of my thoughts in day to day. Now it feels like 40%, where at least twice an hour i think about LD and whether or not I'm in a dream. I think it's progress. Either way, It's data.

> Notable increase in volume of thoughts relating to Lucid Dreaming.

Log 3 - 4/22/20 - 6pm
Last night's dream was uneventful. Also another failed WBTB attempt.

I've noticed that when I become hyper aware, it feels like my body is trying desperately to fight the awareness. For example, I'm observing my senses and instead of looking at something and trying to notice the details, I'm fighting the urge to just stare blindly. It's weird.

Log 4 - 4/23/20 - 6pm It's getting easier
last night was a nightmare. It was so hard to sleep because my bed was terrible, but I got a new one :)

My cravings to play have mostly subsided, but I still get them. In terms of thoughts, seems as though I've hit a new norm.


> No noticeable increase to awareness.
> Average gaming cravings.

Log 5 - 4/24/20 - 6pm

Dream was nonexistent due to sleep issue but they are now resolved! Here's to hoping tonight is a success.

I've started to get the urges again. My awareness has been dipping back to its usual level despite an absence of games,but this is likely due to there not being an absence of distractions. My laptop really is just a replacement, huh?

So I've come to the conclusion that it is not games that are the issue, but long term distractions. Being immersed in something makes is hard to step out and be aware. Gaming just happens to fall into this "Distraction" category. You all probably knew that and I guess I did too but it was fun to go without games for a bit. I said a week but I think I understand the problem now. Now, I just need to figure out how to fix it...

Possible remedies:

>Having a moment where I pause and become aware, essentially training my awareness in short bursts
>Pay close attention to the distraction itself

I don't know. Perhaps you could also try ADA and once it becomes natural, awareness while immersed won't be a problem. Either way, that's all the time i've got. I've got to get back to playing Animal Crossing New Horizons on my Nintendo Switch.

But in all seriousness, I'm doing research on Omnilucidity and how to obtain, so I gotta get back to it!

Good luck, oneironauts!