Gackenbach, J.I., Hall, C. & Ellerman, E. (2011, June). Video Game Play as Nightmare Protection: A Preliminary Inquiry on Military Gamers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, The Netherlands.

1. Video Game Play as Nightmare Protection: A
Preliminary Inquiry with Military Gamers
Jayne Gackenbach*, Evelyn Ellerman,
& Christie Hall,
*MacEwan University & Athabasca University
We’d like to extend our appreciation to Kris La Marca, John Bown, Katherine
Wisniewski, and Mary-Lynn Ferguson for their help with this project.
Games I’m
playing
Gackenbach, J.I., Hall, C. & Ellerman, E. (2011, June). Video Game
Play as Nightmare Protection: A Preliminary Inquiry on Military
Gamers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International
Association for the Study of Dreams, The Netherlands.

2. • Media saturated society
Why study gamers dreams?
Video game play represents the most immersive and interactive media
experience widely available

3. • Isn’t it all just incorporation?
– Yes gamers dream about games
– And no,
Why study gamers dreams?
Gamers dreams may show fundamental
structural differences in their dreams

4. • Play video games on average several times a week
• Typical playing session more than 1 or 2 hours
• Played 50 or more video games over your lifetime
• Been playing video games since early grade school
Type of Game Preferred only considered in latest studies,
seemed to make no difference 5 years ago – recent study
published in Mindfulness found an association between 1st
person shooter game preference and mindfulness
Gamer Generally Defined in Research Program

5. Dream Dimensions:
Gamers show
• More Lucid and Control Dreams
• More Bizarreness and Creativity
• Less Nightmares (Threat
Simulation)

6. Dreams of Gamers in the Military
• 377 individuals entered
the survey
• First set of questions
were screening: (Yes)
– Play video games
– In the military (1/3 lost)
– 18 years or older
– High School education
• Reply No to these
questions (in last 6
months):
– been diagnosed with a
mental disorder
– tried to commit suicide
– perform risky behaviors
without particular concern for
your mortality
– addicted to alcohol or drugs

7. Demographics (98 got through screening)
• 92% male
• Average age 32 years
• 80% some post
secondary education
• 53% single
• 75% Caucasian
• 59% US military
• 76% enlisted
• 70% on active duty
• 60% Army
• 64% had been deployed

8. Video Game Group Definition Based on Frequency of Play
(High=daily/weekly; Low=monthly/yearly/rarely)
All questions significantly different
as a function of gamer group
video game
groups* N Mean/label
Std.
Dev.
How long is your typical playing
session?
High 64 4.03/2-4 hours 1.140
Low 21 2.90/1-2 hours .831
How many different video games
in any format have you played to
date?
High 64 3.97/50-100 games 1.380
Low 22 2.86/20-50 games 1.457
How old were you when you
played your first video game?
High 64 7.95/grade 4-6 1.463
Low 22 6.95/grade 7-9 2.360
* all significantly different – all in healthy use range based on Surgeon Generals Report on
gaming in the military

9. Current Favorite Game Genre
Genre High End Gamers Low End Gamers
FPS 23/39% 10/48%
MMORPG 19/32% 0/0%
Other “hard core” Genre
(i.e., strategy, simulation,
adventure, fighting)
15/25% 4/19%
Driving/Sport 2/3% 1/5%
Casual 0/0% 6/29%
96% 67%

10. Just Played a Video Game Prior to Filling Out the Survey
Were you playing a video game
in the six hours prior to filling
out this questionnaire?
High
Gamers
Low
Gamers
Yes 33 1
No 30 19
Games Playing Most:
World Of Warcraft
tourchlight
Red Dead Redemption
Prototype
Perpetuum
Modern Warfare 2
mass effect
Madden 2011
Games Playing Second Most:
The Arena
Starfleet Commander
Star Trek Online
Red Dead Redemtion
NCAA Football 2011
marvel ultimate alliance 2
Mafia Wars
Ink Ball
Halo 3
fear 2
Combat Arms
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Baseball 2k10
Arma2 OA
All points bulletin
Age of Conan
ACE2 Modern Warfare Mod
Across genre
67% of games
were of
war/battle
type

11. Soldiers Comment About Games
Played while Deployed
• comment on an article he had read about our
research:
– I would see many Soldiers, in combat, with PSPs or anything we could
hook up to 220v electricity. When Soldiers weren't on patrol, we often
had violent war games on our systems. It was weird. Like we didn't get
enough violence.

12. Combat Centric Titles Preferred
• Indeed in a media story about gaming on the frontlines,
• “combat centric titles” might be associated with wanting to be
in the military
• “The average military member will never actually live out that
exciting, epic firefight, the moment of a decisive battle, the
heat of combat, or the thrill of knowing you just outwitted your
mortal enemy and crushed them beneath your strategic might
and skill, so gaming definitely offers a way of living out that
fantasy. Call it a strange form of escapism?” (Ashcraft, 2011).

13. Other Gamer Group Differences
Demographic Variable High Low x2
Sex
1. Male
2. Female
63
0
17
5
P < .0001
Education
1. High school
2. Some post secondary
other than college/univ
3. Some college/bachelors
degree
4. Advanced Degree
13
14
33
4
1
2
10
9
P<.001
Marital Status ns
Race/ethnic background ns
Military Demographic High Low X2
Country of military service
a. United States
b. Canada
c. Other
39
12
12
13
8
1
ns
Military pay grade
a. Enlisted
b. Officer
c. Other
d. Does not apply
64
8
2
13
8
1
p<.04
Service component ns
Branch of service ns
Occupational category while in
the military
ns
58% 86%
59%86%

14. Military Deployment/Combat
• There were no gamer group differences in
– Were you, or are you, deployed while serving in the military?
– Any combat experience
– Witnessed others being wounded or killed
– Discharged a weapon
– Felt in great danger of being wounded
– Was wounded
– Felt in great danger of being killed

15. Review and Theoretical Conceptualization
of the Nightmare Literature
• Levin and Nielsen (2007; 2009) point out in their model that
nightmares occur due to:
– affect load, that is situational events like interpersonal
conflict, trauma, etc. (both long term and recent)
– affect distress, dispositional traits which may be genetic or
due to life history like attachments issues or unresolved
trauma
– interact to result in the experience of a nightmare.

16. To determine if gaming effects nightmares
have to control for affect load and distress
• Covariates for those that reported dreams
– Affect Distress: Emotional Reactivity and Numbing Scale
(ERNS) (Gamer group differences)
• 5 subscale scores (positive, sad*, general, anger*, fear*)
• * low gamers were higher on these scales than high gamers
– Affect Load (no Gamer group differences)
• Sum of Traumas from lifetime (averaged 2 to 3 out of 9)
• Sum of combat experiences (averaged 2 yes’s out of the 6)
• Deployment (1 ½ deployments across life span)

17. Dream Content Analysis
• Threat Simulation
(Revonsuo & Valli, 2000)
• War Content (Wilmer,
1996)

18. Statistical Analysis
• Gamer Group (high/low) x Dream Type
(recent/military) ANCOVA’s with 5
emotionality (ERNS) subscales and 3 trauma
experience covariates on:
– Threat Simulation Scales
– War dream content Subscales

19. Nature of Threat
(1= no harm, 2= nonagg harm, 3= agg
harm)
Military Dream
Recent Dream
High Low
Same
interaction for
Severity of
Threat
(1=none, 2=trivial,
3=social/psychological,
4=life threatening)
No difference
in number of
threats

20. high threat, military dream, low gamer
• I couldn't find my rifle and something was
chasing me. I searched the entire forest until I
did find my weapon. As i turned around to
shoot what was hunting me - the trigger felt
like it was a 1,000 lbs trigger pull. The rounds I
was shooting were delayed and where not
hitting where I was aiming. (Subject #21)

21. high threat, military dream, high gamer
• i was told by my old Sargent to load up on the humvv in my gunners
spot. he said we were going to roll out to fight some were in
Baghdad. we drove down to the combat area where there was a
brutal fight me and quite a few men against the insergants. i
remember shooting and seeing men fall on both sides. i saw the
faces of the dead eyes wide and staring at the sky soulless faces of
friends. i walked dazed back to the humvv and woke up subject
#115

22. In reaction to
threat, does
self
participate?
No
yes
Military Dream
Recent Dream
High Low

23. Wilmer’s War Content
• describes the dreams of
[316] Vietnam veterans
about war
• Categories
– Actual war dreams
– Plausible war dreams
– Ordinary Nightmares
• Coding Motif’s
• Under attack, War/battle, The
dead, Firefights, Killing women
and children*, Killing enemy,
Killing Buddies, Captured,
Somewhere in war/battle, Being
wounded, Chase and running,
Home, Being killed, Animals,
Decapitation, Looming danger,
Shot down, Atrocities/ mutilation,
Return to war/battle

24. Sum of all Coding War Motifs
Military Dream
Recent Dream
High Low

25. High War Content; Military Dream, Low Gamer
• I was in a near a huge concrete bunker (like one I had seen in
Iraq) and someone began firing a rifle at me from above. I
couldn't see exactly where it was coming from, so I ran for
cover. It followed me, though, and I was afraid it was going to
catch up with me and kill me. But I felt like I was being slowed
down, like I couldn't run as fast as I should have been able to.
As I tried to find cover, I don't think I got hit, but it was very
close a few times. Then I woke up. (Subject #76)

26. Types of Nightmares
• “Actual” catastrophic dreams: Characteristically these are
terrifying vivid nightmares of the actual event
• “Variable” catastrophic dreams: Are plausible sequences of
war event that could realistically have happened, but as far as
we know did not actually happened
• ‘hallucinatory” catastrophic dreams: Are ordinary nightmares,
but there is a constant relation to specific impactful event
(e.g. War)

27. Category x dream type and x gamer group
Dream
category
Count and
Column
Percentage
Recent Military
High
Gamer
Group
Low Gamer
Group
Wilmer
Viet Nam
Vets
Actual
Count 0 4 3 1 189
Column % .0% 12.5% 6.1% 5.6% 53%
Plausible
Count 19 23 27 15 76
Column % 55.9% 71.9% 55.1% 83.3% 21%
Ordinary
Nightmares
Count 15 5 19 2 94
Column % 44.1% 15.6% 38.8% 11.1% 26%
Wilmer: With therapy nightmare dream types moved from Actual to Ordinary

28. Clinical Implication of Dream Type
• Along with Hartmann (1984), Wilmer holds
that movement away from a literal replay of
the dream, indicates healing, and integration
with other autobiographical memories.

29. Plausible, Low Gamer, Military Dream
• My military dream occurs when im on
deployment. i am securing an airport trying to
get forgien nationalist out when a group of
militia comes up and wants to get in. When
they figure out they cant get by they get mad
and be head a civilian and all i can do is watch.
(Subject #210)

30. Impactful Dreams Questionnaire (IDQ)
• SELF REPORT Ratings of Military Dreams
– spreading warmth (High>Low)
– movements vigorous and energetic (High>Low)
– movements well balanced and graceful (High>Low)
– sudden shift in visual perception (High>Low)
• AND: repeatedly avoid harm (Low>High)

31. Is this typical?
• I am currently in Iraq. I just read an article on
video games and dream. I'm a huge
videogamer, and I've always wondered why I
never have nightmares... they all ways seem
so fun to me!

32. But then there is this……
• My name is ……, 30 army vet who has served
in Iraq, I’m an avid gamer, meditate heavily
and have experienced vivid dreaming most of
my life, I do suffer mild PTSD and wonder if I
can contribute in any way with this study.

33. Take Away Points
• Gaming may act as an inoculation against some of
the negative experiences of nightmares
– This could be a result of habituation or numbing due to
exposure to violence in games
• Nightmares can re-traumatize the dreamer thus
minimizing their effect is important.
• Dreams reflect a unconscious level so waking ego
defence of Macho posturing does not intrude