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Video Games, Lucid Dreaming, Peek and Flow States - Research by Jayne Gackenbach, Phd

In Reference to:
Leveling Up

In the second part of my interview with Ken Wilber, I made some brief comments about the work of Jayne Gackenbach, Phd.
 
She has been doing significant research on video games, lucid dreaming and flow states for several years. In terms of the AQAL model, Gachenbach’s research brings a fundamental contribution for the understanding of the role of "States of Consciousness" in relation to the potentials of video games to catalyze human development.

According to Integral Psychology & Integral Spirituality, subtle body practices such as continuous and steady access to flow/peek inner states as well as lucid dreaming/Dream Yoga - seen from the perspective of  conscious developmental/psychological/spiritual practices - can bring significant enhancement to stabilizing State-Stages, which in turn contribute to both Horizontal and Vertical human development.

Here is Gackenbach’s bio, and some links related to her work:

Extracted from spiritwatch.com website:

"Dr. Gackenbach received her Ph.D. in 1978 in Experimental Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has 70+ professional publications and 17 book chapters primarily on dreams and higher states of consciousness. She co-edited “Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain: Perspectives on Lucid Dreaming” (1988) for Plenum Publishers; “Dream Imagery: A Call to Mental Arms” (1991) for Baywood Publishers. Her first authored book is “Control Your Dreams” (1989) for Harper-Collins. She was invited in 1992 to present her work on lucid dreaming to the Dalai Lama at a conference on sleeping, dreaming, and dying for the Mind and Life Institute.
In recent years Dr. Gackenbach’s interests have shifted to computer-mediated communications. In this regard she has edited a book from Academic Press (1998), “Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications”. She has also collaborated on a documentary film about the psychology of Internet use in conjunction with Access TV which is being broadcast most semesters in conjunction with CMNS 421 at Athabasca University.
 In addition to her scholarly interest in dreams, transpersonal psychology, computers and the internet Dr. Gackenbach has done work on Aboriginal perspectives on dreams and has taught for 10 years at several Native colleges in central Alberta".

Dr. Gackenbach can be reached at spiritwa@spiritwatch.ca.

Links to Gackenbach’s research:

Series of publications on Video Games:
http://www.spiritwatch.ca/Featured%20Research.htm

Publications on Cybersapce:
http://www.spiritwatch.ca/cyberspa.htm

Best wishes,
Moses

www.integraleye.com
www.pressplaytogrow.com

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Thanks for this Moses

I was particularly fascinated with this section of your discussion with Ken.  Makes total sense to me, considering the interactivity of video games, in which two frames of reference are held simultaneously--the character and the player--which is markedly different than simply watching a movie (suspension of disbelief) which would be much more analogous to a typical non-lucid dream.

Personally, i have always had an exceptionally difficult time recalling my dreams.  It seems the buffer between my waking states and my dream states is simply too thick, and very little of the Sandman's hallucinogenic dust seems to make it through.  But i often wake up with a general sense of the content of my dreams, even if i cannot access any specific visual or aural memories.  And as far as i can tell, video games definitely have a huge impact upon my dream life.

For example, i spent about six hours last night playing the new Fallout 3 game for the Xbox 360--an absolutely awesome game set in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Washington D.C. 300 years in the future--and while i cannot remember any particular details, i know my subtle body must have been at least slightly irradiated by the scorched wastelands of my dream realm.

It sure as hell feels like it, anyway....

--

Corey W deVos
(dj rekluse)

Managing Editor, Integral Naked
Writer, Content Producer, and Audio Manager, Integral Life
Managing Editor, KenWilber.com

"Include the Values, Negate the View!"

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Bioshock & lucid dreams

Hey Corey, I am glad you enjoyed that info. Yes, indeed. As you may know, there are many techniques and practices that can help you remember more of your dreams (including facilitating them to be lucid); have you ever tried any of them? Another thing that seems to help a lot is homeopathy, diet and energetic medicine, when they are well applied and be a good fit to your profile.

I was enrolled in a Lucid Dreaming class at JFK University while playing/researching Bioshock, and within 2 weeks I had a lucid dream based on Bioshock's environment, an event that is somewhat rare for me, since I just had a handful of lucid dreams in my life. The amount of focus and concentration required to play the game plus the encouragement from the class (and teacher's transmission) definetly had an impact for me to be awake in my own dream... 

Although the art of both games (great Fallout intro) is astounding, I wish there were more games with "less shadow elements" and more bright content so we can get more inspiration to have enlightening lucid and non-lucid dreams sometimes.. :- )  Hopefully it will be just a matter of time to see those more often!

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SPORE

Is not Spore such a game? I only have the creature creator at this point. This is my first video game experience since Pacman!

Also have either one of you read "Everything bad is good for you" by Steven Johnson, which has an interesting section on video games and how they facilitate higher learning and awareness.  He uses stages of development and hierarchies in his terminology, which we all dig, man!

Ciao,

Ev

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Dream suggestion

A month late on the post but FYI. In my experience I've found that my ability to recall dreams is directly related to how much time I spend thinking and engaging the dreams in the waking state, mostly through drawing and writing. You can start by simply spending time writing down whatever dreams you do remember. Oooo, it would be fun to put a soundtrack or mix together that captures the feeling of a particular dream--a music journal. Whatever gets you back in the subtle realm of symbols and feelings. I spent about a year working consistently with this and eventually was able to remember the entire nights worth of dreams, which really puts a spin on waking up. The downer is that once I stopped maintaining my day practice of drawing and writing, my awareness in the dream state faded too. Funny you have a video of Fallout 3, not because I'm a gamer, but because I get the apocalyptic theme in my dreams quite frequently and the image there put me right back in one of them.   

By the way, can't thank you enough for all the great writing and general contributions to the integral movement and I'm diggin the Rekluse tracks. Keep it coming!