(From abcnews.com) Sigmund Freud thought dreams were a window into our unfulfilled sexual desires. But the dreams of video game players suggest they have a more practical role: helping us to learn new skills.

"It really looks like if you're not dreaming about it, you're not getting better," says Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School, who carried out one of the video game studies.

The studies don't prove that dreaming about games makes players better. But they strongly suggest that dreaming and learning are intertwined.

That sleep can help with learning and memory is well established. What's more, the more people dream during the light sleep characterised by rapid eye movements (REM), the better they recall memories. But whether the specific content of dreams plays a role in this sleep-learning process wasn't clear.

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Tags: learning, cognition, research, psychology, gaming

Categories: News

(Darren Gladstone, PC World, Feb 9, 2009) "Organized and led my 50-member guild through three successful back-to-back Nexus runs." You don't see that written on anyone's résumé, but apparently some folks do list the level and class of their World of Warcraft characters. This might seem a little far-fetched, but associate professor--and director of MIT's Education Arcade Program--Eric Klopfer says that a number of recent studies have examined what practical skills a person can pick up by playing electronic games. Can you legitimately learn something from WoW besides efficient techniques for slinging fireballs at foes?

Klopfer points to Constance Steinkeuhler's work at UW Wisconsin. She is "showing that people are developing and applying all kinds of useful skills in World of Warcraft--data collection and analysis, collaboration, planning, resource management and even team management." Remove the "WoW" identification from the place of employment, and all of these accomplishments look fantastic on a résumé

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Tags: virtual worlds, gaming, resumes

Categories: News