Dream Like Video Games - and an Introduction

Introduce Yourself
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Hi everyone - first post - so happy I found this community and Andrews teachings/books it has really become the hub of my study and practice.

I notice that there are some posts to do with good movies to watch like Inception, Eternal Sunshine etc…

I would like to share a post on some dreamlike video games that I can say have definitely seeded some pretty cool dreams for me along with levels of lucidity from fully lucid to witnessing awareness. There has been some discussion on how gamers can tend to have a higher rate of lucid dreams so I think this is an appropriate contribution.

Video games are at such a high quality now with such good voice acting and stories that I find that the time I have in front of the TV is often better spent immersing myself in a game than passively watching a show.

Here are a few games that I would suggest that have dreamlike qualities. Sidenote - I now see death in a video game more like getting kicked out of a recurring dream - I just go back in (fall back asleep) and try again… I also relate to the characters as my ‘avatars’ to the experience and try to immerse myself in the whole scene when possible - slowing down and looking around.

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The Last Guardian.
tlg

An ancient abandoned city, a boy, and an injured mystical animal. This is a very beautiful heartfelt game that makes me think of a shamanic journey like what Robert Moss talks about in his books. The architecture and scale of the city is amazing and I’ve definitely had some dreams colored by this game.
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Steep
steep

Ski, Snowboard, Glide, Fly. The Swiss alps, Alaska, Japan - huge mountain scenes you can go forever and explore - open world so little contraint on where you are heading, amazing control and physics. I’ve had several lucid dreams snowbording down expansive slopes that are directly related to playing this game. Protip - with PS5 you can turn the game music off and stream your own dreamy music to overlay the experience.
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Ratchet and Clank.
rac

I had the coolest lucid dream seeded by this game. I was in a giant space outpost colony type ship situated inside a huge crator on some planet somewhere. It started out that I crawled through some venting / utility halls to get to a port outside the ship - then used a hose with some green liquid in it to wash off a bunch of lizard alien guys with laser guns from the outside of the ship - it went from there.
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Journey

journey

Another beautiful heartful game that really is a journey - easy to play and short, so very accessable to people who don’t have a lot of gaming experience - it’s one of the first games I played when I started to game a few years ago.

Anyone else have any dream quality games that they can suggest?

Thanks! Adrien

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Welcome! Glad you found your way here! :slightly_smiling_face:

I don’t play many video games any more but I wanted to pop in and mention the first semi-lucid dream I ever had was spurred by playing EVE Online very late one night.

I didn’t fully realize I was dreaming but I was actively controlling my dreambody which had turned into a spaceship. I was hovering off the floor and flying around my parents house. It was probably the first thing that really made me take interest in dreaming.

I agree with you 100% about games having an impact on dreaming. I tried quickly to search for studies on it and was disappointed that there have not been many besides the what is linked below:

  1. Physical Interaction in Games and Lucid Dreaming:
    • A study published in the journal ‘Sleep’ found that more time spent playing physically interactive games (e.g., Wii Fitness) was significantly associated with more frequent lucid and control dreaming. This association was observed in gamers who played at least once a week and remembered their dreams at least once a week [❞].
    • The same study suggested that physically interactive games might promote a higher level of “presence and flow”, states conducive to lucid dreaming. Puzzle games, which increase logical thinking, might also be conducive to frequent lucid dreaming [❞].
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Likewise, great post.

The only games I play these days is risk and chess, to try to keep my mind sharp.

In elementary school, this was my favorite game, back then these were considerd to be the best graphics of the time, it felt like you were playing in a movie:

The scene here at the 4min mark is pretty good:

The game I think was a pretty big success, so much so they eneded up remaking it a few years later:

p1

p2

I wonder what the snake symbolizes in buddhism?

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liked your post!
Although I play since years occasionally, I never had dream lucidity triggered by prior game play, but maybe it was the wrong games :slight_smile:
When Doom came out back in the days, my mates in student housing and I setup a LAN and played day and night. I still remember several non-lucid dreams of me running down dark corridors…

I was actually looking at Journey a while ago, too.

So, when you play, do you stop and smell the roses from time to time, reminding yourself that you are in a game (dream)?

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Hey! I definitley take more time to look around at the scenery, the artistry and imagination in these games is top notch.

For sure I try to relate to the game like its an object of the mind like a dream - images like this flash up in liminal states, but of course the game is much more stable.

I try to pan out of the action whenever possible and broaden my awareness of it so as not to focus on the character giving me the sense of a lucid witnessing dream where you dont identify with anything particular.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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