I sometimes dreamed in Baldur's Gate II while I was playing the game. Isometric, swing-miss, swing-miss, swing-critical hit! and everything.

Brad Grenz

My only software dreams were work-related. As I was just starting out as a tech writer over a decade ago, I had to learn Ventura Publisher. I would have dreams that consisted of me working. I'd see the monitor in my dreams and manipulate text over and over.

As you might guess, I'd wake up feeling somewhat vexed with this vague feeling I'd worked all night long.

This study was interesting. It tells me that I was probably working hard to assimilate a lot of new concepts in a short time period when I was dreaming this stuff. After I got comfortable the work dreams disappeared.

I'm not sure that I can recall specific instances -- although when I first started playing the original Baldur's Gate, I had some isometric dreams, too :-) -- but I'm quite certain that I have dreamed about games before, too. It seems like it IS usually when I first start playing something new, now that I think about it. How interesting...

There are also 'party dreams' I've had about games. Back when I was a somewhat wilder youth I'd sometimes find myself dreaming on whatever party or bar I'd been at after I crashed for the night. I've noticed this occasionally happens with games too, new or old, if I've been playing them for a long time, and enjoyably, before sleep (which is my usual MO). Instead of chatting with faces I'd dream in text about a telnet session on a MUSH sometimes too.

Odd, in a way, but it makes sense. This stuff is just sitting in short term memory and when the dreamtime neurons start calisthenics that's what they've got at hand.

When I used to play EverQuest, after a long session I'd go to bed and dream of text scrolling in the chat window and the interface for the game staring me in the face...scary.

when i had gotten Homeworld:Cataclysm, i had encountered one of the missions i just could _NOT_ get past, regardless of what i had tried. it frustrated me to no end that i was constantly trying to figure out a way to win the scenario.

so....i'm asleep dreaming whatever, and somehow that cataclysm scenario is in my dream...and beat it....... it was just a very strange thing. i remember waking up, vaguely remembering the dream, and thinking..holy shit, i beat the scenario...wonder if that really works in the game? so i tried it, and it DID work.

this has happened to me several times with different games, but never in the detailed aspects like this one was- the dream's way of beating the scenario actually worked! (now if i could only remember HOW it was again, hrm...)

- mike - time to die -

I once dreamed I was making love to Carmen Electra on the beach, but when I woke up it turned out that Gord had snuck into my room in the night and gotten into bed with me.

So, I slapped him.

Panzer General was probably the game that gave me the most dreams. Spending all day invading Norway with +2 enemy xp/-2 friendly xp probably offended my subconcious.

When I was 7 I dreamed that I was in a Scooby-Doo episode. Daphne liked me. ;)

Zoiks! Like, where's a pizza when you need it?

"Daphne liked me. ;)"

I wonder if anyone's done any Scooby Doo "slash" fanfic...

Scooby / Shaggy
Velma / Daphne
Scooby / Scrappy

etc...

'I wonder if anyone's done any Scooby Doo "slash" fanfic...'

If its ever aired on television, there's slash for it.

The worst, of course, is Small Wonder related.

Yesterday evening, I double-clicked on my email pr0n spam and liked what I saw. I signed up for a $3.95 trial. For the next 5 hours, I watched young women interfere with themselves. In that time period, I interfered with myself oh, about 6 times. Then my girlfriend called at midnight to say she wanted to spend the night. After sex, she says she has to go home because she has to wake up early to chastise her roommate for not buying groceries, and so she leaves.

I go to sleep.

I dream that I'm a pr0n photographer and that I'm shooting three of the hottest girls from work. Then I put the camera away and become satisfyingly intimate with them in many, many ways.

That was one of the greatest !@#$ nights of my life.

That was sexy. You're sexy. What's your phone number?

Mike:
"this has happened to me several times with different games, but never in the detailed aspects like this one was- the dream's way of beating the scenario actually worked!"

This is a trick I've used for years, but usually when I have something I want to find in the house. I know I know where it is, but I can't remember... so what I do is think about the thing before I go to sleep, and 9 times out of 10, when I wake up, I'll remember. Worked for solving nasty calculus concept problems in college, too. It's like your brain has all the info you need, but you can't access it consciously somehow.

Weird, but it works. :)

I've done this a handful of times.

Most of them were Dungeon Keeper or GTA related.

I actually dreamed about GTA being in 3d back before Driver came out, and now GTA 3 is coming out.

Odd.

And that mistress from Dungeon Keeper, ayyiiieee-woooo... err....

Relating to Mark's first post... yeah, just a couple nights ago, I spent what seemed like the whole night dreaming about working. It was just me, doing my pointless retail job the whole time. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened... it was just work. When my alarm clock went off, it felt like I'd already been at work for 8 hours... and I had to get dressed and get ready for work. I was so close to calling in sick.

Most of my dreams lately have consisted of me being a criminal. A few months ago, the Dream-Me invented pill-form heroin and made a ton of money. *hopes to one day live that dream*

just kidding on that "living the dream" part, incase you hadn't noticed.

I prefer not to remember my dreams. They typically are something awful - falling to my death.

Or something frustating -- beginning to, but not actually consumating, having sex with an old girl friend I never banged but always wanted to. (Some people dream of catching a TD pass in a high school game against the arch rival. It bugs me that I never nailed this girl. I wonder what it would have been like? After we broke up she became a lesbian, which has since fueled further fantasies -- maybe I could have saved her! Or if that didn't work, maybe we could have had a threesome!)

Or something anxiety-filled -- a recurring dream I have every couple of years is that I didn't really fulfill my high school graduation requirements so I have to go back to high school for a semeester. Ugh.

Or something that will never happen -- I dreamed last night that I played guitar and jammed with Bruce Springsteen in a bar. It was cool, but then I woke up and it was, "Aw fuck, I'll never meet Springsteen, and if I do, I don't even play guitar."

I had a dream once about Mr. T killing me. I was having lots of A-Team themed dreams back then for some reason. These days I don't dream very often. Or if I do I'm not remembering them. Kind of a bummer. Generally speaking I enjoy dreaming.

Heroin in a pill? Hmm... That would cut down on scortching my spoons...

Mark,

It takes a very secure man to admit publicly that he turned a girl gay.

I admire your honesty.

Mr. T killing you? Ha ha, that's funny. I guess you weren't dialing 1-800-Collect.

Murph, if I recall the sequence right, she was gay, then she dated a guy for a long time, then she dated me, and then she switched teams again, this last time for good, I'm pretty sure.

You're saying you blew the save, Asher?

;)

"...pink triangle on her sleeve, let me know the truth, let me know the truth..."

I don't have too many game-related dreams but when I'm playing a game, my thoughts tend to manifest themselves in the form of that game's interface as I am drifting off to sleep. Of course it is a cliche that the Tetris player sees falling blocks when he closes his eyes (and it's true) but I also know that when I was playing Age of Empires 2 seriously, my thoughts would be somehow "infected" with it. As, before falling asleep, I drowsily reflected on real people and events in my life, I would actually envision them as characters in the game, and I would find myself click-dragging boxes around them, etc. It's rather difficult to explain, but it certainly happened.

I imagine this just means that my subconscious was dutifully trying to master the intricacies of Age of Empires 2, and that interfered with my reflections on other things.

My game dreams tend to center around FPS games. Mostly me looking around for ammo while some baddie tries to hunt me down. My "work" related dreams always seem to put me back in boot camp or in the Gulf War with me worried that if a Drill Instructor or Iraqi doesn't kill me then my wife will for re-upping.

Sometimes I'll also dream that I've spent the whole night trying, unsuccessfully, to get to sleep. On mornings after that I feel very, very cheated.

Oh, and there's already an Enterprise slash fic.