By controlling the events within a video game reality, gamers are practicing for controlling other alternate realities – like dreams. Psychologist and lucid dream researcher, Jayne Gackenbach, conducts studies on the positive effects of video games on the ability to lucid dream.

Several intriguing parallels between lucid dreams and video games first emerged when Gackenbach examined past research on games. Both lucid dreamers and gamers seemed to have better spatial skills and were less prone to motion sickness.

The two groups have also demonstrated a high level of focus or concentration, whether honed through lucidity-training activities, such as meditation, or through hours spent fighting virtual enemies to reach the next level in a game.

The first study suggested that people who frequently played video games were more likely to report lucid dreams, observer dreams where they viewed themselves from outside their bodies, and dream control that allowed people to actively influence or change their dream worlds – qualities suggestive of watching or controlling the action of a video-game character.

A second study tried to narrow down the uncertainties by examining dreams that participants experienced from the night before, and focused more on gamers. It found that lucid dreams were common, but that the gamers never had dream control over anything beyond their dream selves.

The gamers also frequently flipped between a first person view from within the body and a third person view of themselves from outside, except never with the calm detachment of a distant witness.

Tim Schafer’s game game Psychonauts put players into a psi-training school for the purposes of developing telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, and teleportation (and much, much more). In the game, the player enters the psyches of other characters to help them overcome fears, traumas, and nightmares. If you’re into gaming and dreaming this gem is an excellent trainer.