It's not every day that one gets to promote a positive study about videogames, so it's with pleasure that I bring you this slice of happiness -- videogames may help some people to cope with nightmares.
Jayne Gackenbach has turned the "games desensitize people" argument on its head, theorizing that if games do indeed desensitize people to horrific images, they may be beneficial to those who suffer from harrowing dreams. The study was conducted with soldiers to see if they would sleep better after their stressful experiences.
"I would see many soldiers, in combat, with PSPs or anything we could hook up to 220v electricity," said the researcher. "When soldiers weren’t on patrol, we often had violent war games on our systems. It was weird. Like we didn’t get enough violence. They’re taking (Playstation 3′s, XBox 360′s and other consoles) into the field and playing them all the time, And it turns out, there may be a good reason to let them do that."
Of course, no study is gospel, but it's interesting to think about. Soldiers definitely game as much as anyone else, and it seems that playing simulated violence might prove cathartic after dealing with the real-world stuff. In any case, it's better than suggesting that games make people go out and do raping.
Can video games quell nightmares? [New Scientist, via HBG]
Contest:
10:30 PM on 03.08.2011 | 
I don't really think there's anything else that can be said here.
That said, I have lucid dreams almost nightly. Dunno if it has anything to do with games though.
I'm going to have to start fixating on the specter of the Red Rings of Death/Yellow Lights of Death/Blue Screen...of Doom or missing out on good pre-order bonuses(for variety's sake)if I want to get some good unsound fitful thrashing about in some night soon.
Will I have to significantly up my dosage of cuteness to counter-act the effects of the massive overdose of Survival Horror and horro-themed FPS over the years?! I guess that I'll be needing me some Okami-Den,Pokemon or Animal Crossing or Ilomilo or something in the near future..
So here's a few of her dreams&games tangents she'd go off on in class :p
From what some preliminary results were showing, there is a correlation between lucid dreaming and hours spent gaming. She said more often than not, gamers are more likely to have lucid dreams than non-gamers.
On the flip-side, and this was just a hypothesis of hers, which I think is more or less true, is that gamers dream LESS than non-gamers. Her theory was that, if dreams are "simulations" to prepare us for real life events, then games help to fill that allotted "simulation time". Hence why many of us gamers in the class when surveyed, "How frequently do you dream?" answered less frequently than non-gamers.
i strongly believe that video games are beneficial, but we cant just accept what we want and disregard everything else because its not what we want to hear.
case in point: studies are bullshit.
Also, I've been playing lots of Wolverine: Origins since then.
Yea that damn train got into my head too. What a pain.
That's interesting, I game heavily but I also have strong lucid dreams every night, I even start hallucinating before i've even fallen asleep and still keep control. Though i'm not sure whether this is game related as none of my dream signs are, maybe it's because I've worked at establishing heavy control over my dreams. My brother on the other hand suffers from night terrors and since he started playing games more heavily they have more or less stopped happening, though he tells me now he always has the same recurring dream most nights, interesting stuff!
That is fucking brilliant, take their BS and use it against, seriously, somebody give this man an award.
brb playing more violent video games
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Monsters-Children-Make-Believe-Violence/dp/0465036953