This document discusses the role of dreaming in AI-human interactions and the impacts of virtual reality technologies. It summarizes a presentation on how increased immersion in virtual worlds through activities like video game playing may influence dreaming. The author's lab studies gamers' dreams and has found some gamers incorporate gaming content and scenarios into their dreams. The lab's research also suggests gaming may increase lucid and bizarreness in dreams, and influence how threats are simulated. The conclusions question whether these changes reflect improved cognition or creativity from extensive virtual world exposure and immersion.
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Role of dreaming in AI-human interactions
1. Role of Dreaming in
AI-Human Interactions
Jayne Gackenbach
MacEwan University
Gackenbach, J.I. (2014, June). Role of Dreaming in AI-Human Interactions
(Presentation within symposium “Machine Dreaming “).Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Berkley,
CA. Abstract published in the International Journal of Dream Research,
http://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/issue/view/1703.
5. Not just children and pets are immersed in virtual worlds, as classes
change at any university or commuters ride the bus to work, most
peoples faces are glued to cell phone screens, texting, checking
Facebook status’s or baseball scores, or simply playing Angry Birds.
6. Reality: Virtual and Otherwise
• Waking reality is a
mental construction
• Dream and altered state
realities are alternative
constructions
• Virtual reality is a
mediated construction
7. Multiple Realities
• We regularly participate in them
• While experiencing them we don’t ask which is more
real
• VR enhances the “reality” of technologically mediated
simulations
10. What is virtual reality?
• A broad definition is the amalgamation of experiencing that you are
somewhere else (presence) while deadening the external stimuli
(immersion) and interacting with the virtual environment
(engagement). The term engagement exists within a wider context of
more general notions of immersion and a learner’s motivation to
engage is an essential precursor for any immersive learning activity.
(Mount, 2009) All three of these factors interact to create the illusory
experience of virtual reality.
• Presence is not new
• Literature
• Education
• Theatre
• Painting
12. Reality: Virtual or Real?
• VR was always the next thing on the technology and human use
horizon but while cumbersome helmets were available it was thought
that it took to omuch computing power to get true VR, NOT to be
confused with 3D in a cost effective manner – then came…….
14. Facebook Buys Oculus VR For $2 Billion
• According to a statement from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company
plans to expand Oculus beyond gaming:
• After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other
experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a
classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a
doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.
• Zuckerberg expanded on that in a conference call following the
announcement, saying he believes virtual reality will be the next big
computing platform after mobile devices like smartphones and
tablets.
15. Cross modal affects
• Game transfer phenomena
• “Video games have become a matter
of emotional touch, evoking not just
sensations but lasting emotive
imprints, which hold for the gamer
many of the same characteristics as
memorable real life experiences”
(Ortiz de Gortari, 2007).
16. When “Real” Seems Mediated: Inverse Presence
• Categories of this “illusion of mediation”:
• positive (when people perceive natural
beauty as mediated),
• negative (when people perceive a disaster,
crime, or other tragedy such as the events of
September 11, 2001, as mediated), and
• unusual (when close connections between
people’s “real life” activities and mediated
experiences lead them to confuse the
former with the latter).
17. Impacts on Other Realities
Video Games & Dreams Lab
at MacEwan University
19. Why Video Games?
• The most widely experienced VR that can be very
immersive/present is video game play
• video game players as those who are the most immersed in virtual
worlds for well over the 10,000 hours often cited to determine
expertise
• As wider applications of computer technology occur other
high end uses are now being investigated in our lab, i.e.,
social media use
20. Dream Effects
• Incorporation of gaming into dreams (continuity hypothesis)
• 182 last night dreams collected after a video game played the day
before
1. No game in dream (63%)
2. Game & Dream (37%)
a. In the dream the dream ego is in the game world – the dream
is the game (63% )
b. In the dream playing a video game is mentioned
c. In the dream games are mentioned
21. • Isn’t it all just incorporation?
• Yes gamers dream about games
• And no,
Why study gamers dreams?
Gamers dreams may show fundamental
differences in their dreams
22. Conclusions & Implications
• Increased Lucid/control dreams
• Is this indicative of at least improved metacognition or perhaps development of
consciousness?
• Is controlling a dream adaptive?
• Increased Bizarreness/creativity
• Do bizarreness differences reflect simple incorporation or
• Are gamers capable of improved “novel adaptive responses” as per the Global Workspace
theory?
• Aggression/Threat Simulation
• Does gaming have a protective function regarding nightmares? (This is reported on later in
the conference by Carson Flockhart and Ally Ditner.)
• Why does it seem to not be the case with female gamers? (This is reported on later in the
conference by Arielle Boyes.)
• What about social media and dreams?
• Preliminary findings indicate not the same as the impact of video game play
• As gaming and the Internet become world wide and China dominates both
• are their experiences the same or different than North Americans? (Ming-Ni Lee and Sarah
Gahr later in conference)
