Observations placeholder
Playing computer games
Identifier
001239
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Is this befuddling or is it suppressing the learning function? – I wasn’t entirely sure and I suspect it depends on the game. Either way it seems to work!
A description of the experience
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.184919-Poll-Have-you-ever-had-gaming-induced-hallucinations-Like-the-Tetris-Effect?page=1
The "Tetris Effect", for those who don't know, is a fairly well-documented phenomenon in which people who've been playing a lot of Tetris tend to see little falling Tetrominoes in their peripheral vision, even when they're not playing the game.
I've never played Tetris enough for that to happen to me, but I've had some similar cases (for the sake of this post, I'm including cases where I found my way of looking at things warped or affected by the games I played, even if it wasn't an actual hallucination per se):
-Deadly Rooms of Death is a top-down puzzle game in which each character moves in discrete steps from one square to another. After playing DRoD for some hours, I thought I saw little objects moving in discrete steps in my peripheral vision.
-After pounding through some Morrowind, when I focused my vision on something interesting or gold-colored I found myself expecting to see its name, weight and value hovering over it.
-After playing a lot of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (wooo), walking around I could only see all the places I could do grinds, wall-rides, etc. (but a conspicuous lack of half-pipes)
-After several days of Halo, when I first got it, I started looking at the world in terms of what I could hide behind while my shield recharged.
I think I've had more that I don't remember. Life is fun. :D How about you?
The source of the experience
Ordinary personConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
Symbols
Science Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
BefuddlingExposure to LF domestic magnetic fields
Suppressions
Reverse REMSuppression of learning