Video Game Play Effects on Dreams: Self-Evaluation and Content Analysis

College undergraduates who are high-end video game players reported dreams that were content-analyzed using the Hall and Van de Castle system. Their dreams were compared with dreams from a similar population collected by interview. Some findings replicated across the two samples, while others differed. A second analysis examined the relationship between electronic media use the day before the dream and historical media use with two types of dream variables: Hall and Van de Castle sum scores and self-evaluations. Seven of nine factors combined media use with dream content. The findings suggest that general electronic media use and video game play in particular affect information processing and storage, as reflected in dreams.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Recent dreams were collected over a year’s period from college undergraduates. In addition to providing self-evaluations of the dreams, participants were also asked to answer a variety of media use questions. These were both in terms of their media use the day before the dream and in terms of their historical media use with the most interactive and absorbing media available today, video games. High-end gamers’ dreams were content-analyzed using the Hall and Van de Castle system. These were compared to dreams from a similar population that were collected by interview but were not necessarily recent. There was some replication and some differences in these two different dream samples from individuals with the same gamer history. The second analysis examined day before electronic media use more specifically by loading all the gamer history and media use information with two types of dream variables: sum scores from the Hall and Van de Castle scale and self-evaluations of the dream. Seven of nine factors loaded some combination of media and dream content. This study further supports the idea that general electronic media use and game play in particular are affecting how we process and store information by demonstrating changes at the source of such processes, in dreams.