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scar3crow

Doom Used in Study of Dreams and Learning

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im more interested in the fact that they chose good old doom for this research than a more, say, "modern" FPS, like halo or half-life.
good find.

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This is pretty cool. I would have totally been into participating in this study. I had a dream about Doom a couple nights ago.

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I have dreams about Doom all the time. I should really write down what the levels in my dream looked like, or do a quick sketch when I wake up, but I never do..... :(

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At least once a month, threads about Doom dreams come up. This is the only reason I find this interesting.

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Those with little experience of Doom activated brain areas that control their hands both while playing the game and while sleeping.


See? Impse's not just a Doomworld thing.

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i do believe thier theories that dreaming about something will make you better at it. in fact i think if you think about something in your head over and over you can get better at it.

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What if it's not the dream itself that causes the improvement here? I'm not doubting that memories are getting filed away while you sleep, but dreams are so illogical and chaotic, I hardly see them as being useful to "practice" skills or anything like that. I wonder if it's possible that it's the memory processing creating the dreams, not the other way around? Like, if there's another part of the brain working on sorting through the memories of playing Doom and organizing them, and the fact that those memories are active is what inspires the dreams to be about Doom?

Though to be fair, I'm only suggesting an alternative explanation here in defense of my own pet dream theory. I've always believed that dreams might not have any significance at all. Basically, my theory is that REM sleep may have a point, but dreaming is simply a byproduct of a mostly active brain in free thought. I basically came up with it after thinking about how my mind tends to wander before I went to sleep - I realized that if you were to shut down the logic center and whatnot, combined with a wandering mind (which is a natural byproduct of a lack of external inputs), you'd basically get dreams.

Eh, it's a very unscientific theory, I realize, but I like it because it's simple.

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I have dreams about making maps for Doom, and i am getting better at making maps. I am currently working on a megawad so i am getting dreams about all stuff related to mapping, like using Doom Builder, testing the map, uploading it to /idgames archive(This one was in my dream, my wad got 4 stars and i've read review of it in /newstuff chronicles).

And well, i tend to forget my dreams, but i still can remeber some chunks from them.

And it's good that they used Doom.

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I actually had a lucid dream involving DOOM not too long ago that led to my strategy for HR Map24. It took me 50 some-odd minutes and I forgot to set the lost soul limit to "on," but I beat the damn thing. I guess it all makes sense, now.

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That's what I was wondering. I can't really think of any "Doom experts" outside of the Doom community, except those who had some direct influence on the game at some point or another.

I share a similar belief to geekmarine, where dreams are not the cause, but rather the effect of memory reorganization/processing, mostly because of the fact that dreams are illogical otherwise. If you look at it from this point of view, dreams make much more sense. It explains why your dreams can suddenly shift from one scene to a completely different one (like wandering thoughts), and why they are only based on things you've personally experienced at some point in your life (even if you can't recall that memory at will). I've done several dream recall experiments where I would write down everything about the dream I had, and actually sifted through my memories to piece together how the dream was formed. Almost 100% of the time I did this, I was able to figure out where exactly I experienced the settings, characters, and objects in my dream. My memory tends to be pretty good; I can recall fragments as far back as 2 or 3 years of age.

So, that said, I don't think there is any logical reason why dreams would otherwise exist. I mean no "purpose" or "meaning". It's just a pattern of memory fragments that your brain creates a visual scenario from. This doesn't mean dreams are useless. Not only are they quite entertaining at times, I think they are a good way of understanding your subconscious (like what's important to you) or exploring "lost" memories.

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EarthQuake said:

That's what I was wondering. I can't really think of any "Doom experts" outside of the Doom community, except those who had some direct influence on the game at some point or another.

I share a similar belief to geekmarine, where dreams are not the cause, but rather the effect of memory reorganization/processing, mostly because of the fact that dreams are illogical otherwise. If you look at it from this point of view, dreams make much more sense. It explains why your dreams can suddenly shift from one scene to a completely different one (like wandering thoughts), and why they are only based on things you've personally experienced at some point in your life (even if you can't recall that memory at will). I've done several dream recall experiments where I would write down everything about the dream I had, and actually sifted through my memories to piece together how the dream was formed. Almost 100% of the time I did this, I was able to figure out where exactly I experienced the settings, characters, and objects in my dream. My memory tends to be pretty good; I can recall fragments as far back as 2 or 3 years of age.

So, that said, I don't think there is any logical reason why dreams would otherwise exist. I mean no "purpose" or "meaning". It's just a pattern of memory fragments that your brain creates a visual scenario from. This doesn't mean dreams are useless. Not only are they quite entertaining at times, I think they are a good way of understanding your subconscious (like what's important to you) or exploring "lost" memories.


I heard one theory that held if we didn't dream we'd go insane, since dreams are our brains sorting out all our "data" or something. Can't remember where I read this, I think it may have been new scientists.

Also haven't you ever noticed how after a good sleep you usually find the problem to something? Let's say, and I'll use doom editing as a cheesy example, you're stuck on a piece of level design and don't know where to take a map? I always find that after a sleep I "discover" what needs to be done and can then continue. Dreaming has a part to play in this I think, and I don't think it's purely for any entertainment value.

Having said that I went to a Lucid Dreaming lecture and course a few years ago which was very fun, and it showed you techniques to recognize when you are dreaming and thus how to control your dreams and use them as a "virtual reality" inside your own head. Very cool!

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Maybe it's simply the fact that those most likely to dream about Doom are those that are going to get better at the game anyway, because they are the most interested in it?

To be honest I have never dreamed about anything Doom related, or at least have no memories of doing so. :(

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fraggle said:
The article mentions that they used "Doom experts". Does that include anyone from here?

Not many people from Brazil come to Doomworld, perhaps due to those controversies with Daniel and DU0, but I've seen a bunch of Brazilians on ZDaemon and I recall at least one Brazilian DOOM website.

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myk said:

Not many people from Brazil come to Doomworld, perhaps due to those controversies with Daniel and DU0, but I've seen a bunch of Brazilians on ZDaemon and I recall at least one Brazilian DOOM website.

I know of BrDoom. It seems to be active enough that they keep news up to date and the forums are populated.

It's a shame the community is fragmented into groups, even if those groups are just based on language. Some of the talent of mappers there and on iddqd.ru appears quite impressive.

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Isn't Falci one of the founders of BrDoom? He's a good guy. Pretty talented with graphics too.

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That is definitely interesting. Anything related to dreams (and Doom!) generally is. From when I was younger to a few years ago, I would often have Doom dreams (many of which were/are the inspiration for my maps) which would mix Doom with all kinds of other things from RL..

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myk said:

Not many people from Brazil come to Doomworld, perhaps due to those controversies with Daniel and DU0, but I've seen a bunch of Brazilians on ZDaemon and I recall at least one Brazilian DOOM website.


lol how did my nick end up here? o.o

anyway, I couldn't find info on those supposed "doom experts" they talk about in the article. must be like when the media called Harris and Klebold professional doom players;


And since I'm already here anyway, the guy who *founded* BrDOOM was Logan MTM. Falci prefers to hang around here, I believe, as I've never seen him there.

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I read this article at work and was going to post about it here but I couldn't find the on-line version and I couldn't be bothered re-typing it. :P

So, yeah, good find and like others, it was the fact that they used Doom rather than a newer game that intrigued me too.

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Bucket said:

I always wanted to participate in a study of learning.


Is there a university near where you are? There's always studies going on on big campuses.

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Fascinating. I've had Doom dreams on a sporadic basis, and they are often pixel-perfect to the original graphics. Seems to me the level design in dreams is a bit cooler, though. :P

If a study like this ever comes around here, I am definitely signing up.

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