How you use your attention in waking life has definite effects in your dreaming life. The following is my distillation of some insights from anthroposophy in this regard, which I offer as one way of looking at this phenomenon, specifically around the issue of video games and dreaming. This post should provide an appropriate background if necessary.
If people are comfortable with the terms, we can talk about how the astral body (the subtle body that allows something outside to become something for us inwardly; i.e. the sense-body, which we share with animals) gains its content in large part by reflecting itself off of the etheric body (the less subtle body that keeps your body from becoming a corpse, which we share with the plant realm).
When you spend hours of time focusing your senses on particular stimuli (i.e. a video game) your are patterning your etheric body through physiological repetitions: the movements of your eyes, hands, breathing, etc., and more importantly in the endocrine responses and other physiological changes that go along with the particular game experience. Knowing why this is important needs a little background first.
When you go to sleep, and you are no longer imposing your astral body on your etheric (i.e. choosing where to direct your attention and what sensations you will seek and avoid) your etheric body starts to (more…)
