Gaming, Social Media and

Nightmares

Jayne Gackenbach, Keyfer Mathewson & Carson Flockhart

Grant MacEwan University

Paper presented at the 2013 meeting of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Virginia Beach, VA

Participants

• Research participant pool from western Canadian university (74%)– 2% course credit

• Online public access site (26%)• Gender

– Males = 175– Females = 507

Scales Administered(Used in this analysis)

• Demographics. (sex of subject)• Video Game History (frequency of gaming &

played the day before)• Electronic Media Use Questionnaire (social

media use frequency)• Typical Dream Questionnaire (average

nightmares per month)• Dream Collection and Self-Evaluation (rating

of dream as nightmare by dreamer)• Boundary Questionnaire

Dreams Coded

• Hall and VandeCastleo Reported in poster earlier

• Threat Simulationo Judges estimation of

objectiveness of threat

Results

• varimax rotated factor analyses on selected variables– Gaming– Social media use– nightmares

Conclusion

• Factor 1- nightmare protection for male gamers

• Factor 2 – women who use social media no association to nightmares

• Factor 3 – across sex; the lack of posting to Facebook very much is association with two self report measures of nightmares but judges did not see much threat (none or subjective)