Playing Too Many Games Can Make You Hallucinate

So you probably wouldn’t be surprised if someone told you that it can mess with someone’s head to play video games all night or for two days straight: but what if someone told you that 12% of people who did that would suffer auto hallucinations so vivid they feared they were going insane? 

Well, someone IS telling you that, and that someone is Nottingham Trent University’s International Gaming Research Unit.  They recently did a study on 1,244 gamers, which was published in International Journal of Cyber Behaviour, Psychology and Learning, that discovered that roughly 12% of those studied (155 people) heard video-game sounds long after the games have been turned off.  These sounds can be anything from explosions to character’s voices, bullets, or even death screams—anything that was actually happening in the game.  One player even reported hearing the word “death” whispered in his ear for a few days after one session. 

“This research supports findings of previous studies into game transfer phenomena, which show that video game playing can induce pseudo hallucinatory-like experiences.” Angelica Ortiz De gortari, one of the researchers, said. “These experiences can sometimes result in illogical thoughts and behaviours.”

It’s worth pointing out that audio hallucination’s aren’t the only way video games can mess with your head.  The Tetris Effect, for example, is a symptom of playing too many pattern games—resulting in seeing those patterns in your head and when you close your eyes pretty constantly.  Previous studies done by the people at the Nottingham Trent University Gaming Research Unit also found that visual hallucinations of life bars and menu screens aren’t uncommon in some cases.

So unless you really want your life to be like Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I suggest taking a break from video games before they start leaking into your real life.