1. Dream Control
The Myth: Video games are pure escapism for people whose real lives are too boring and unfulfilled.
The Reality: Um, but what about the fact that video games basically allow you to unlock parts of your brain that non-gamers can't, to the extent that they allow you to have greater control over your dreams? We're all aware of lucid dreaming and how you can painstaking train yourself to have a degree of control in your dreams, but what about if video games could do all the heavy lifting for you? Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University, suggests that video games better prepare players for dealing with traumatic nightmares, allowing them a greater ability to shift the dream away from terror. Her experiment found that gamers had less "threat indicators" in dreams, and often seemed to become the threatening object themselves, a total reversal of the typical nightmare scenario. So, what games are you going to be playing tonight? Let us know in the comments below.