Electronic media and lucid-control dreams: Morning after reports.

Abstract

Lucid dreams, as well as control dreams, have recently been reported as associated with video game play (Gackenbach, 2006). In this study, dreams were collected from the morning after a night of rested sleep as well as electronic media use from the day before the dream. In a factor analysis, lucid and control dreams were associated with all electronic media use but most strongly with video game play. Lucid dreams, dreams where the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is ongoing, as well as control dreams, steering the action of the dream, have recently been reported as associated with video game play (Gacken- bach, 2006). Several lines of evidence would predict the video game play- lucidity- control association. Variables that have also been shown to be associated with video game play and lucid dreaming include spatial skills, such as field independence; the ability to use body references to place self in a visual field for lucid dreamers (Gackenbach, Heilman, Boyt, & LaBerge, 1985); visuospatial information process- ing for video game players (Sternberg & Preiss, 2005); and also a lack of motion sickness vulnerability for lucid dreamers (Gackenbach, Snyder, Rokes, & Sachau, 1986) and for gamers (Preston, 1998). Finally, meditation, as a type of focused attention, has been shown to be associated with lucid dreaming (Gackenbach & Bosveld, 1989; Mason, Alexander, Travis, Gackenbach, & Orme-Johnson, 1995), and focused attention is a center piece of serious game play (Maynard, Subrah- manyam, & Greenfield, 2005). Video gaming is simply the higher immersive form of electronically mediated communication and, thus, was the focus of the initial inquiries into this association. However, today's youth, indeed many of us, are immersed in these virtual realities. They range from only auditory, like a cell phone or MP3 player, to auditory and visual, like TV and DVD, and the most immersive, in terms of not only auditory and visual input but also interactivity, computer/Internet use and video game play. Indeed, the home media ecology has exploded from several basic products; TV,