1. Gaming Allows Expression of Archetypes Jayne Gackenbach MacEwan University Paper presented at 2016 International Association for the Study of Dreams, Netherlands

2. Hero’s Journey in Myth and Gaming

4. Lost Common Ground

5. Hero’s Journey in Myth and Gaming Top 10 video game hero’s

6. Gamers and the Vision Quest

7. Korean Bangs Social/mythological Gaming

8. Two LANS in My Home Town My basement

9. Games Competition Getting Larger in Western Individualistic Societies The International, an annual Dota 2 tournament at the KeyArena in Seattle, Washington

10. The Hero Archetype has become almost a stereotype in gaming

11. Thus let’s reconsider, what is an Archetype? Harry Hunt argues in “A collective unconscious reconsidered: Jung’s archetypal imagination in the light of contemporary psychology and social science” which appeared in 2012 in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, that three promising approaches exist for this revisioning: 1.Cognitive psychology of metaphor & synaesthesia 2.Spirituality as a type of symbolic intelligence 3.Individual differences in absorption and openness to numinous experience

12. Hard Core Gamer Defined in our Lab Plays video games on average several times a week Typical playing session is more than 2 hours Played 50 or more video games over your lifetime Been playing video games since grade three or earlier As has been found in various research studies those who play video games are especially high in absorption. I would also argue that they have a fascination for the numinous, if not how they would language it.

13. How is all this related to dreams? Taking either the continuity hypothesis – dreams reflect waking life Or some version of access to deep unconscious processes – Evolutionary processes – Collective unconscious – archetypes – Digital realms Gaming is reflected in dreams and may, as suggested by the Scientific American article, help make ‘better’ dreams

14. Dreaming of Gaming 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 *Oct. 2011 issue of International Dream Research Journal

15. Evolutionary Perspective Nightmare protection hypothesis – Males or masculine women – Action FPS perspective – Rehearse fighting back thus experience and view same in dreams differently – Either less aggression than others or the aggression is fun, as is scary!

16. Myth as Dream Bizarreness What we now call “bizarreness” was central to traditional “dream centered” tribal societies (Hunt, 1989).

17. Significant Differences from Male Norms More dead or imaginary characters appearing in dream reports (21% vs 0%). Why be human in a game? They have fewer powers than other types of creatures.

18. Dead or Imaginary Characters Subject 001- Dream 11 “I dreamt I was a character is Underworld 2, it was a werewolf character and then I became a 3rd person. It was the two main characters, it was the vampire girl and a hybrid werewolf character”

19. Gaming and Dream Bizarreness Dream content analysis for bizarreness was conducted using the system developed by Revonsuo and Salmivalli (1995). distinguishes between types of bizarreness. In two studies hard core gamers more bizarre dreams Lucid-Gaming Bizarreness Associations But not always

20. Digital Realities? We have approached gaming and dreams as experiences of alternative realities Digital physics allows a different perspective This is the idea that reality is digital, as in the Matrix – so if one assumes that then practice in being in digal realities in gaming would allow apprehending the larger/digital reality

21. Breaking the Frame Digital Physics Reality is a simulation like VR Reconciles gap between Newtonian and Quantum physics (especially the double slit experiment) Thomas Campbell

22. Game Transfer Phenomena Game Transfer Phenomena involve the transfer of video game experiences into the real world. These experiences can be triggered by the association between real life stimuli and video game elements, resulting in the subsequent alteration of mental process, sensory perception, impulses or reflexes, automatic behaviours, and/or players’ actions based on the content of video games.

23. Game Transfer Phenomena: Examples based on real gamers experiences shared with Ortiz de Gortari in her research

24. Gamer’s Dream experiences are examples of breaking the frame in sleep More lucid at time but more reliably more control over dream content More bizarreness Point of view

25. In a book I’m currently editing “Boundaries of Self & Reality Online: Implications of Digitally Constructed Realities” and in it Michael Heim argues: Everytime we go in and out of VR we are ‘waking up’ to reality in the same sense as we do in lucid dreams Its similar to when putting our heads under water and up again – we ‘wake up’ to these profoundly different realities They are deeply perceptual shifts, not just cognitive overlay – VR drives that home – Especially immersive VR and to a lesser extent gaming VR

26. Highland, a long time gamer and meditation adept, notes in “Video Game Play and Consciousness” These according to Hunt are the essence of the Archetypal experience of the collective unconscious in dreams.

27. Which returns us to the dream shared on the first day of this conference