Do you hallucinate when playing videogames?

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So apparently, according to this study, your perception of reality will be altered after playing videogames for more than a few hours.

Do you believe that to be true or is it false?

In my 35+ years of gaming I don't ever recall something like that happening to me. I wouldn't say that it's not possible for someone else to expeirence it though but I would imagine that there may be other factors at work and that it is nothing that the average gamer may expierence.

another day another bs study

Heck no! Videogames are not hallucinogens,unless you've heard of the legendary "Polybius"

Lol no... That's stupid. If you are hallucinating when playing games you should see a doctor

Very false...

BS article.

What the ****? I'm more of an expert than they are; I can almost guarantee I've played more video games than the "experts" in this article. And, no, I've never hallucinated shit after playing a game for several hours. If someone hallucinates when or after playing a game, that means they have something wrong with them beyond the game.

I dunno. After many rounds of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater I used to start looking at the real world in terms of things I could or couldn't grind my board across even though I've never been on a skateboard in my entire life.

DUN DUN DUN!

Nope i've never had any hallucinations playing for hours... worst that happens is my eyes get tired. Sometimes if i play a repetitive game too much i can start to daydream and drift off for a few moments but thats it.

@nicecall: That's probably the product of bad game design more than playing a game too long :p

During my summer holidays in high school I used to game from 8pm-4am on a regular basis and never hallucinated.

Now i aam in college and still doing fine.

I've seen things kinda differently after playing certain games (Advance Wars, for instance) for long enough stretches. However, that's called the Tetris Effect, which is only temporary and far from the hallucinating the article describes.

I don't buy for a second that the video games themselves are causing hallucinations, at least not for people who don't already have a mental condition of some sort.

@1PMrFister: Lol the Tetris Effect. That's happened to me more than a few times, but I think that's a sign of really good game design more than too much playing. When a game infects your thoughts and captivates you. I know that feel.

No but when Gran Turismo 2 came out I played none stop to the point I was taking the racing line when walking to the kitchen to make a coffee.

"What do you do for recreation, Jeffrey?"

"Oh, the usual: bowl, drive around... the occasional acid flashback"

In addition to some games, I've experienced it after playing chess, coding and working with spreadsheets.

Anything that combines constant repetitive visual stimulus with mental concentration seems to produce the effect. Problem with studies like this and GTP in general is that they're focused on videogames instead of looking at the many other activities capable of producing the same phenomena...so it makes games look dangerous...again. Nobody's gonna make Excel look dangerous, because that might actually do something useful like get some of us a day off every now and then.

There have been studies done that suggest over a third of the population experiences hallucinations. Now we can conclude that either a 1/3 of us have issues or that a 1/3 of us don't actually know what a hallucination is. I'm guessing the latter. And there's no way for a researcher to check if their subject is actually hallucinating and answering the survey properly. There's a disconnect between the colloquial usage of the term and the clinical definition, but that doesn't seemed to be factored into anyone's study.

Maybe I do, because after playing many hours of GTA I can get in the car and I have a strong urge to plow through people's yards and jump ramps, run red lights and drive super fast.

I don't think so. I've heard sounds from video games when not playing them though, but that's mainly back when I played Pokemon for ridiculous stretches of time. And that's something completely different that doesn't just apply to video games. I forget if there's a term for it. I do have video game dreams from time to time as well.

@ZZoMBiE13: That's what I expected this article to be about. THPS, Portal, Assassin' Creed(the parkour, not the assassinations...) and so on affecting how you perceive real life geometry and such. What they're describing, though... I have a hard time believing that so many gamers claim to have experienced such a thing.

Alternately, I have had times(most vividly I remembered shortly after Batman: Arkham City released) when I wanted so badly to get back into a game it made focussing on my job mildly difficult, but never anything like seeing a random person on the street and thinking I saw a thug from the game or anything...

Yeah...no, I don't think so. Though after playing a horror game for a long time makes me kinda paranoid even in broad daylight...kinda paranoid...

Well, the other week I was playing Dead Rising 3 and then at about 1 in the morning my Dog started at me wanting to go out, so I took him and while I wouldn't say I hallucinated was getting very jumpy over every slight noise, and when I saw a group walking towards me, and my first thought was Zombies which made me nervous, but TBH, even if my mind wasn't still running on zombie mode, I'd have still be cautious of a group coming towards me at 1am. My own fault for taking my dog to an area with poor street lighting.

The only other thing I can think of is that A few times after playing Assassin's Creed games I've looked at my local church to see if I could find the optimal route to climb up it, never actually been tempted to try though.

That's one of the dumbest fucking things I've ever read.

I doubt very seriously that there is a stitch of actual science going on with that study. It sounds like a load of hogwash to me.

Gamers tend to group themselves with like-minded peers, as nerds are wont to do. I am no different. And I've never seen or heard of this phenomenon. And I've been gaming as long as gaming has been a thing. That isn't a pithy remark either, my roots go all the way back to a PONG console. The only thing I didn't have was a Magnavox Odyssey. And that's only because it came out the year I was born.

There's nothing that destructive about a game that you really want to finish. How many people do everything they can, year after year, to watch the Super Bowl? Or Wrestlemania? Or whatever their favorite show on television happens to be? Heck back in the 90s I had a standing arrangement with my boss; I'll work any day you want, as long as you want, just let me off Wednesday evening so I can watch Star Trek with my friends. And in WWF's attitude era I would always offer to take someone's shift on Super Bowl night to assure I was owed a favor come Wrestlemania time. Being eager to return to a game that has really excited you is really no different than that.

Ehmmm false

And if it were true i would seriously need to go see a doctor or stop playing videogames if a game would alter my perception of reality for any amount of time.

But i will not be surprised that some people who already have mental issues would also be prone to this.

Not really hallucination, but after I finished AC 2 and Brotherhood, I became really interested in parkour. I also started imagining how Ezio would climb buildings around me :P Also, when I was on a TF2 marathon, I wanted to cloak and backstab everyone in sight.

maybe if your smoking the devils fart

See, I don't hallucinate either, but when I play a game like Assassin's Creed for a couple of hours and then leave my home to go outside, I can't help but look at buildings and go "How in the world do I climb that?" Of course, doing something like that can get you into A LOT of trouble. Plus, people would be worried about my mental stability if I even decide to attempt that. So I'm glad that I don't let the line blur between the two.

No like most people I do not hallucinate. This study was conducted using information they gathered from online forums. There was no background research done the people to determine if there was a psychological cause and they merely chalked it up to video games. There is no real correlation, atleast as of yet, that has sciences actual seal of approval.

Same here like when I play too much Fire Emblem I dream that everything is grid based and can only move a certain number of spaces a turn.

But that is just the Tetris Effect.

No way

I think everyone has experienced that after AC. The game pretty much trains you to see crenellations, molding, etc as climbing points and it doesn't use discolored objects or anything like that to denote what the player can climb on. It's so natural in actually using real architectural features that there's very little difference in looking at a wall you can climb in AC and a wall in real life. I've never heard of anyone experiencing this after playing Tomb Raider or Uncharted.

I don't believe it. But sometimes when I play for too long my head starts to hurt.

This is the first time I ever heard of such a claim. As for me, never.

After a heavy Fire Emblem session I'll sometimes stop what I'm doing because I'm convinced that I've come to the end of my blue movement range (I can even see the squares :) )

Neither have I man. But then again, there are unfortunate souls that are stupid enough to steal cars and kill cops, then blame Grand Theft Auto for all that. Now that's hallucination for you!