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Video Game Play as Nightmare Protection:
A Replication and Extension
Jayne Gackenbach, Mycah Darlington, Mary-Lynn Ferguson, and Arielle Boyes
Grant MacEwan University
This inquiry is a replication and extension of a recent study with military
gamers examining the thesis that playing video games might act as a type of
nightmare protection. This hypothesis is based on the idea of a well-rehearsed
defense due to game play, a numbing against violence, and the idea that
memories in the 6 hours posttrauma are best interrupted with a visual
cognitive task, like video game play. This replication was done using
university students who had experienced a trauma in the past and had
reported a dream associated with that trauma along with a recent dream.
Controls were emotional reactivity and trauma history. We conclude that
male high-end gamers seemed to be less troubled by nightmares while female
high-end gamers were the most troubled by nightmares. So what differs
between these two types of gamers? Three suggestions are considered: game
genre, game sociability, and sex-role conflict. It seems that the nightmare
protection hypothesis of video game play should be qualified to apply to male
high-end gamers who play few casual games, play socially, and do not seem
to experience sex-role conflict due to type of game play.
Keywords: nightmares, video games, trauma, sex differences, dreams
Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032455.supp
In previous research, we postulated that video game play may act as a
protection against nightmares. This idea was based on the concept that defensive
rehearsal in at least combat-centric video game play, if done repeatedly over a long
period of time, would result in well-learned defensive responses. These responses
would generalize to other altered realities, in this case, dreams. This process is
similar to the imagery rehearsal technique for treating nightmares (Krakow &
Zadra, 2006). Other lines of support include the numbing toward violence
associated with serious combat-centric game play (Barlett, Anderson, & Swing,
2009) and Holmes, James, Kilford, and Deeprose’s (2010) argument that, for 6
hours posttrauma, engaging in a visuospatial cognitive task “will interfere with
visual flashback memory consolidation, and reduce later flashbacks” (p. 2). Video
Jayne Gackenbach, Mycah Darlington, Mary-Lynn Ferguson, and Arielle Boyes, Department of
Psychology, Grant MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jayne Gackenbach, Department of
Psychology, Grant MacEwan College, Room 6-323H, 10700-104 Avenue, Edmonton, AB, T5J 4S2,
Canada. E-mail: gackenbachj@macewan.ca
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Dreaming © 2013 American Psychological Association
2013, Vol. 23, No. 2, 97–111 1053-0797/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032455
