Gaming Gives you Superpowers.

[cheezMcNASTY]

Well... sort of.

If you've ever been in the middle of a dream when you suddenly realized you were dreaming and could actually control what happened, you've experienced a lucid dream. The ability to get into the driver's seat of a dream -- to battle monsters, or hang out with celebrities, or (most importantly) have sex with anyone you can imagine -- is an incredibly popular hobby on the Internet, with whole communities set up to advise each other about how to do it. Well, the answer may be easier than they think: play lots of video games.

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"It's called a loophole, bitches."
Video game players report having more lucid dreams than other people, according to a study. The lead researcher, Jayne Gackenbach, has been doing dream research for over a decade and has been able to reproduce the results time and time again -- gamers just have a knack for wresting control of their unconscious mind, which is good news for any gamers who find that they're not getting laid very often in the real world. Or maybe it's terrible news. You decide.
Gackenbach's hypothesis is simply that video games train the mind to take control of a fantasy situation. So when you are asleep and enter a dream state, your brain immediately thinks "Video game!" and you find yourself able to take control of the dreamscape.

"PRESS A, PRESS A, PRESS A, MOTHERFUCKER, PRESS A!"
That's not all, though -- according to the research, frequent gamers actually have the ability to ward off nightmares. Apparently, the essence of a scary dream is the dreamer's inability to respond to threatening situations like zombie hordes or disappearing pants. But gamers are able to "fight back" in their dreams, which lowers the general threat level. Gamers' nightmares tend to be more violent, but less frightening.
So the good news for gamers is that you don't need to pay a dime to live a new fantasy adventure every night. The bad news is that we're thinking we're about five years away from game publishers figuring out how to charge you for that ****.

Source: http://www.cracked.com/article_20190_the-5-weirdest-things-that-influence-your-dreams.html

 

[ScareCrowReturn]

I didnt read it. Can you wrap it up for me in a short sentence? Im sorry, I cant be bothered reading alot at the moment,,

 

[Zarkes]

You seem to have posted the same info twice. I can't lucid dream but I always have dreams where I'm in a videogame only it is real life not graphics and the laws that govern that game govern reality in the dream. Me and my friend always play halo together and I have dreams of us hanging out in a bunker and getting attacked by red team.

 

[Quistrix]

I once had a dream that I owned a pet miniature cow. Then for some random reason there were two paddling pools in this dream, one for girls and one for boys. My pet miniature cow and I rebelled against society and played in the boy's paddling pool while my overly-effeminate male friend was like "wut you doing in here lol". All I can remember happening next was everyone else being all "wtf" over the cow.

I was 7. That wasn't a lucid dream, that was my brain.

Don't do lucid dreams. I have neither the patience nor the necessary imagination. I'm not uncreative, my brain just does this...thing. For example: If I imagine someone on a swing; going back and forth, in my head, I can't make them stop. I continue to see the image of them swinging even if I move on. It's strange and this is why lucid dreaming for me is a bad idea. Shame really, all those years of relentlessly playing video games would come in handy. Ah well.

 

[Gikoku]

I must be one of the weird ones then since I've been getting lucid dreams often since I was a kid, and didn't game a lot until I hit adulthood. It's always ****ed up dreams too that never make any sense, with everybody having orgies, giant babies attacking cities, cartoon characters running wild, planets falling from the skies, me with random superpowers, and yet manages to always feel perfectly normal. Then I wake up with a raging boner and the cycle repeats itself.

 

[Quistrix]

Maybe I'm one of the weird ones then since I've been getting lucid dreams often since I was a kid, and didn't game a lot until I hit adulthood. It's always f***** up dreams too that never make any sense, with everybody having orgies, giant babies attacking cities, cartoon characters running wild, planets falling from the skies, me with random superpowers, and yet manages to always feel perfectly normal. Then I wake up with a raging boner and the cycle repeats itself.

 

[Necromancer]

For example: If I imagine someone on a swing; going back and forth, in my head, I can't make them stop.

I GET THAT TOO!!!

For some reason, I never thought to explain that kind of thing to one of my closer friends like I usually do. The only example of that that I can think of is that (this was a really long time ago, and it wasn't a dream) I was once imagining myself in the passenger seat of a car that was falling into a pothole, and as I imagined the car getting back out and driving down the road, I couldn't stop it from falling into more potholes. That stuff's really strange. When you related that to lucid dreaming though, did you mean that this strange inability to control certain thoughts is connected to not being able to control lucid dreams? If so, that might make some sense...

Lucid dreaming is strange for me. Sometimes (this actually happened to me just a few nights ago), I realize I'm in a dream, but I can't control the dream. I mean, I can control my own actions unlike when I'm in a normal dream, but I can do very little out of the ordinary. In my dream the other night, I attempted to fly, but I could only float a little bit off of the ground, and not very high, and not for very long. Also, in the dream, it didn't even cross my mind to go have sex with some super hot girl, which I would totally go do if I was in my right mind inside of a dream. One of the strangest parts of this is that I've been able to fly and fondle some pretty awesome boobs in the same lucid dream before, so I know that there are some dreams that I can control. And in case you're wondering why it stopped at boobie fondling, well, I woke up. Bummer, right?

 

[Quistrix]

When you related that to lucid dreaming though, did you mean that this strange inability to control certain thoughts is connected to not being able to control lucid dreams? If so, that might make some sense...

Pretty much. The idea that I could pop on a swing and not be able to make myself stop swinging back and forth is kinda lame.

 

[HobbeBrain]

I have lucid dreamed (dreamt?) a mere twice

One time was when I was having a dream where me and the chick who plays Jess in New Girl were gettin' it on but she was just giving a "helping hand" (if you know what I mean) and I thought "Damn, this is a dream b*tch, you could at least put your mouth HEY WAIT A SECOND"

And lo and behold I could control everyone and everything and, well, I don't really need to say the first thing I did because you can probably all guess that.





(Answer: played Monopoly)

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

I have lucid dreamed (dreamt?) a mere twice

One time was when I was having a dream where me and the chick who plays Jess in New Girl were gettin' it on but she was just giving a "helping hand" (if you know what I mean) and I thought "Damn, this is a dream b*tch, you could at least put your mouth HEY WAIT A SECOND"

And lo and behold I could control everyone and everything and, well, I don't really need to say the first thing I did because you can probably all guess that.

Did you Miss Deschanel and yourself play monopoly together?

Shame on you for not knowing Zooey Deschanel by name.

 

[TRA Rotid]

I swear there was a topic about this already.

 

[HobbeBrain]

Did you Miss Deschanel and yourself play monopoly together?

Shame on you for not knowing Zooey Deschanel by name.

Zooey Deschanel!! That's the one!!

And yes, yes I did indeed play monopoly with her.

 

[Tyloric]

I can recall only one instance where I actually realized I was dreaming and was severely disappointed to find out that I could not in fact control it.

****ing bullshit.

 

[TRA Rotid]

I lucid dream all the time. Wait, I think I did just tonight.

Anyway, the other day I was having a nightmare (whether it was some weird deja vu effect or) I had actually seen before, but I knew what was going to happen. I also knew it was a dream and could control myself, though I still couldn't stop things from happening. So in the end it was more like "crap, have to sit this one through I guess."

 

[HobbeBrain]

I can recall only one instance where I actually realized I was dreaming and was severely disappointed to find out that I could not in fact control it.

f****** bullshit.

Are you sure you KNEW you were dreaming or kind of had an inkling? I read up on this because I've had similar experiences, apparently there's 'Semi-lucidity' where you are on the edge of a lucid dream but not quite there. There is a MASSIVE difference though, a lucid dream is much, much more vivid than a standard dream.

In a standard dream it looks like you're watching what's happening on a flat screen, right?

When you lucid dream it is in a weird way like being awake, you can feel the sensation of movement, etc. Apparently some lucid dreamers have had 'false awakenings' where the dream is so vivid that they think they've woken up, but actually they haven't.

Anyway, if this happens apparently it helps to do stuff like clap your hands and shout "I'M LUCID!" and stuff.

 

[Tyloric]

It only happened the once, years ago. I've never been one to remember my dreams, I just have the sense that I had just been dreaming.