How a video game can invade your dreams

Tetris Effect is a new version of the classic puzzle game, coming exclusively to the PS4. But the Tetris Effect is also a known psychological phenomenon, one which influenced the design of the new game.
Subscribe to our KZbin channel! goo.gl/D8prdf
Like us on Facebook: bit.ly/PolygonFB
Follow us on Twitter: bit.ly/PolygonTwitter
Follow us on Instagram: bit.ly/PolygonInsta
And for more gaming and entertainment coverage, visit www.polygon.com

[@KEROPUNK]

First playthrough of Dark Souls I was stuck on Gravelord Nito, and I was playing for hours before I quit and went to bed. In my dreams I was still playing Dark Souls and made a holy weapon and beat Nito. When I woke up I immediately booted the game up and tried my strategy I had learned in my dreams and beat Nito with ease. Dreams are basically survival mechanisms. They allow us to simulate our environment so we gain experiences without actually doing anything. We don't do a lot of hunting/gathering these days so our dreams simulate other sort of problems our brains are trying to solve, like how to get that good good T-Spin ya know what im sayyiinnnnnnnnnnnn

[@polo69uwu]

I played skyrim for days straight and I couldn't sleep because i kept seeing Skyrim UI interfaces in my tired reality

[@nepunepu5894]

so do you isekai-ed?

[@chung0217]

I remember going for a cycle after spending three whole days inside playing Diablo non-stop. While I was on the road, I saw two cars, one red on the left of my vision, and one blue on the right of my vision. They caused my brain to recall the health and mana orbs on the sides of the screen in the game in a highly disorienting way. It dazed me, taking me out of reality for a split second, and I began to swerve before regaining control, but I nearly fell over. It was pretty dramatic.

[@simonederochefort5185]

HEY CLAYTON THIS VIDEO IS REALLY GOOD????????? WTF

[@otaconarcadia7372]

more clayton More ClaytoN MORE CLAYTON

[@bilalt.6849]

It sounds like you expected that every videos of him is bad 😅

[@lizalternate]

i've got this effect for solitaire, of all things. i can't stop playing solitaire, and all my nightmares have been replaced by sorting cards over each other. i guess it's a good thing haha

[@olojondro73]

Holy shit!!!! I started to get way into tetris like 2 months ago and for the first week all I could dream about was TETRIS BLOCKS WTF??? I didnt know it was a phenomenon with a name and everything until now!!! This is insane news for me I really thought I was going insane lmao

[@Resulka]

I get the Tetris effect a lot but not really Tetris but Sudoku. Completely unsolvable Sudoku.

[@alexeikovalev7801]

honestly? i absolutely love these videos narrated/done by clayton-- they are SO engaging and informative, and he has a wonderful narration style.

[@simonederochefort5185]

Clayton is sooooooo good at coming up with interesting visuals. The first time I watched this I had to pause it when I saw that he had put gameplay in Tetris blocks shapes so I could YELL AT HIM for being so good at his job.

[@majalaanemae3560]

Oh ya i play minecraft for five days and then i dream about it for weeks

[@mrf4ncyp4nts]

3:59 god where have i heard that sound effect before it's driving me mad

[@elemopinata]

Fuck now you've got me thinking about it too. Peggle?

[@weggles]

Civilization. when you unlock a tech?

[@prophoem9492]

@@weggles Oh my god it is!

[@vuuvovuuv]

@@weggles THANK YOU i was playing the demo so much this weekend and that was driving me crazy

[@alfalfamire]

Civilization when you're has finished making a unit it kind of locks unto the new unit and makes that sound.

[@giggleloop13]

So has anyone else had the Tetris Effect with other games? I used to always get it with Dr Mario (which is understandable, because it's a bit of a similar type of game), but also World 1.1 of Super Mario Bros. When I was anxious or couldn't sleep, I would close my eyes and picture myself playing through World 1.1 and it would quiet my brain enough to sleep.

[@Wolfgang8-Y]

I used to have a nonagrams game on my phone and I always woke up with rows and columns and numbers that didn't quite make sense in my head. Kind of annoying actually.

[@DireBeastRexYT]

When I used to raid every week in World of Warcraft during the rush to get ahead of the curve, I'd have dreams where I'd see my real waking world with the Warcraft UI over the top. I still get overlays in my dreams a lot especially if I've been hyperfocused on something like Ark: Survival Evolved or Cities: Skylines and I sometimes wake myself up frantically reaching for my mouse or keyboard if the dream turns sour. Flying across a rolling mountain landscape in the shape of a stormcrow is a lot more fun of a dream than doing a retail clerk shift in my sleep though, and I've had that happen before too :P

[@Darkel]

I trained for a space pirate trainer tournament for hours every day, and I started getting the effect. It wasn't in my dreams, but it affected every waking moment of my life. The sound effects, music, everything was hard wired into my brain. It's a VR game requiring spacial awareness, and sometimes while doing everyday actions I would hear the indicator sound that I'm about to be hit by a shot. A few times I actually leaned left or right instinctively to dodge the bullet.

[@CameronBryce]

I’ve never experienced it personally, but Ive heard other people say that it happens with DDR too.

[@mailliw94]

i get it simply from building lego. it doesn't have to be games and it doesn't have to be blocks. but blocklike memories are seemingly the easiest to say "oh yeah i had those!"

[@TigerBears11]

Well, that explains why I have regularly seen Destiny raid bosses in my dreams.

[@angelaquinton]

This video just sold me the game. Thank you!

[@vuuvovuuv]

i can't believe tetris is the game that finally makes me wanna give vr a try

[@shahman76]

Been there. Tetris. Who knew. But it was totally worth it. Now I have fight my wife for the vr headset.

[@whatzittuuyah7640]

I once fell asleep while playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and as I was slipping into that dream state I vividly dreamt that I was playing Yoshi's Island on the GBA. So vividly, in fact, that it took me _months_ to figure out which game I had actually been playing and which one was the dream.

[@kingchoadtastic]

So did ya'll listen to this weeks Wonderful?

[@BrentBlueAllen]

Being new to the PS4 after a long history of PC gaming, the sensation of my controller pulsing to the beat of the music was a super effective and welcome addition to the Tetris experience for me.

[@giggleloop13]

Somehow even though I love Tetris, I had managed to not see one second about this game until I watched this video. And then I immediately drove to the store & bought it. Thanks Clayton! Thanks Polygon! 👍

[@TheApokarips]

I had this bad with Fruit Ninja a while back. I would see fruit bouncing and slice them, and even make mistakes, which is kinda weird. You'd think I'd be able to play perfectly in my dreams.

[@SuperMusse123]

Me too!!

[@TheLink4391]

I got the Tetris effect when I used to play Minecraft a lot

[@countbrackmoor]

There was a point in my life where I was playing a lot of chess and the Tetris effect was happening like crazy. I would dream about moves constantly

[@woas_hellzone]

i get this with fire emblem's chapter maps, but also when fully awake and zoning out it also happens with any other simplistically styled video games im currently obsessed with

[@slomozovo]

This was great. I'm a huge Tetris fan and addict, I'm so hyped for a good new one.

[@lanaalways]

This video is Wonderful!

[@boudicathebrave]

A Wonderful tetris week

[@Professor_Utonium_]

As if Lumines and Puyo haven't already dug their way into my skullmeat already, now we have a Tetris game deliberately designed to do so.

[@EyeServnonbutKorrok]

Real time strategy games, like Age of Mythology, completely invade my dreams during the periods I play them. One time when I was a kid I even developed a strategy in the dream that I used to win a level in real life the next day.

[@johnlemon252]

I'd like to petition to rename the "Tetris Effect" to the "Being a Cashier Effect." Just to avoid confusing it with the game, naturally. Seriously though, I have literally come home from work and fallen asleep only to dream about scanning items. There is no respite.

[@erike5865]

I experienced this after binging on dwarf fortress. I saw ASCII behind my eyelids after playing for a long amount of time.

[@haphazardlark1502]

I can’t believe I misssd this video when it came out. I’ve been playing Tetris for a little bit before bed every night and it’s helped my insomnia. I have awful spacial skills and my mind usually races but it engages a part of my brain I don’t use much and quiets it down. I fell asleep mid game last night. I haven’t seen falling blocks in thst liminal space, but they have made cameos in dreams. But this got me thinking. When k played sims obsessively (any game I play I’m obsessive about for a while) I would envision my status bars, awake or asleep. It was actually unpleasant and I had to stop. Ark survival evolved was a delight but in my dreams I kept having dinosaur attacks because of how that immersive oh no run run run thing ingrained in my mind. World of Warcraft, I played to a deeply unhealthy amount, and even though I barely touch it anymore, when a dream is going south or even just getting a little weird, I’ll find myself hitting my stealth button on imaginary keyboards, or shapeshifting like my Druid. I roleplayed more than I actually played the game, and often my dreams will incorporate that too- I’ll break character. Go hold up, ooc real quick, let’s clarify what’s going on here. And the antagonists break character too. It doesn’t always work but it’s remarkably good at diffusing stress dreams that threaten to turn into nightmares. I also knit. A lot. Or I did before I blew out my arms overdoing it. (Are you sensing s pattern?) as I fell asleep I drifted into a world of moving fibers between my fingers, creating patterns, sometimes even clear enough that the more difficult and advanced stitches were showing up. And when I worked as a dog bather for a few years, working absurd hours, in that space before I fell asleep, what I “saw” (it’s an imperfect way of describing it since it was more of s multi sense thing) was the texture of fur. All kinds of different coats from different breeds. The texture of it under my fingers and the way it moved with the water flowing over it. Brains are wild, man.

[@ZenobyGoat]

It's basically winamp visualisations applied to tetris. You could do the same with other classics like pong or space invaders.

[@pcg13]

In college I regularly dreamed about Guitar Hero, sob. Good video, Clayton! This game looks really cool.

[@shanjcosplay7376]

Weirdly enough, I get Tetris Effect with Star Wars. It’s weird to think about/explain, but it’s basically a lot of floating through various maps in Star Wars games (KOTOR and SWTOR mostly), and some areas seen on screen. They vary based on what I’ve done that day (played/worked/etc), and there’s some correlation to my mental state as well. I’m normally a lucid dreamer, and I also have spent a lot of time looking at maps and cross sections. I think the weirdest experience I’ve had though was after a day playing Elite Dangerous, where in my mind I just sat in my ship and delivered cargo while I slept. I felt like I could feel the gravity changes, and I woke up a tad nauseous.

[@chrizchanang]

No lie. I used to play a lot of Tetris when I was younger. When I was a kid, I had recurring dreams of the game but the blocks were massive and I was at the bottom of them as they descended.

[@jodyjohnson265]

Every time after I play Tetris effect on my Xbox I start to daydream about tetraminos falling and completing lines

[@Fanaro]

These harvard professors should have played Go (baduk or weiqi) instead. The impact and visions are much stronger. I could easily see stones while daydreaming, with no sounds or funky images to the game.

[@paradoxacres1063]

*Awesome* video *:)*

[@klasky678tv4]

LOL, when I slept last night, I just saw falling Tetris blocks in my dream.

[@lakshyayt9905]

In my dreams I was playing pubg lol

[@katherinemaria1828]

After playing Borderlands three days straight I only had dreams about war and shootings. It was like experiencing Vietnam flashbacks and was kinda creepy. You know, blood and limbs flying here and there

[@enemycrumbles]

I legit get flashes of game mechanics and UI when I’m just about to fall asleep at night…

[@jessedavidwatson7502]

i got the tetris effect a lot with factorio when i used to play it all the time

[@mailliw94]

it's not just video games that make it happen. sometimes I straight up think or dream in Lego connections, if that makes sense. even thismorning as I was waking up, shifting my pillow around seemed formulaic and placed on an isometric grid like when playing minecraft. (or in my case Dragon Quest Builders) I'm so glad that phenomenon isn't just me.

[@tetrahedron4990]

I bought this game last night around 12am and I literally played until 6am. Like wtf happened to the time???

[@Jean.05]

I loved the Metamorphosis level. I have the theater version of it on my channel, I just uploaded it because I love that level so much because of the music

[@TheLandWin]

I'm on binge of Clayton videos because he has so many gd winners

[@MeggaMann_theBlueLion]

I think I cried in my sleep. I think I was sucking my thumb and saying”I’m not dirty. I’m not dirty”

[@felixc543]

I used to regularly have The Tetris Effect for Pokémon Go-it was pretty interesting

[@ahobbit1273]

Apparently Clayton listens to Wonderful!

[@inceptional]

I really wish this was on the other VR systems. I really want to try it on my Rift.

[@atomicnolxix]

That transition at the beginning 😍

[@mfsooko]

Hey guys, not sure if anyone has commented on this yet, but that MRI at about 2:40 has a massive lesion on it. Hopefully that got checked out.

[@kenshokram]

How long did this take to edit??? Holy hell, A+

[@EmilySnicket14]

I had dreams of the Windows 95 capture the flag game Hover! years after I had even played it. It's amazing how video game maps can incorporate into your long term memory almost as if they are real places you have been to.

[@lethaoink7628]

I’ve been doing math at school for 13 years, don’t see it in my dreams at all

[@5guysgamingXyzCA]

I cannot wait for this game

[@ash5547]

when i first got puyo puyo i dreamed about tetris for ages! also when i was obsessed with breath of the wild, i would be out in public and see odd things and think “is that a korok seed?”

[@legoduckie]

The Tetris Effect is probably why I just dreamed of pottery.

[@QuanHoang-up5xu]

Omg i have been dreaming about tetris for 2 weeks now because i have been replaying it for a month

[@gustavnyet2734]

The ultimate blok arranging game

[@catriona5268]

I played Minecraft every day for several months and eventually it entered my dreams. The world around me would be made of Minecraft blocks. At that point I realised that I was probably playing too much and just about stopped xD

[@aname6104]

I just had a weird fever dream about tetris

[@tatarsauce6314]

Tetris’ bizarre adventure

[@tetrahedron4990]

I've been getting Tetris effect with tekken. Combos.. so many combos...

[@tyrantworks9604]

God it hurt to watch that Tetris gameplay

[@beafbuger]

i had the tetris effect with candy crush

[@gunchaman6848]

I really like this game so much. And of course! This video too.

[@skeletonwithagun2119]

When I was deep in smash bros and elden ring I would see super accurate recreations of the games, not what I had done that day necessarily but what I was planning on doing, shit was wack

[@Dedhaven]

Play this while on shrooms or high

[@alexiskerst7747]

I played through Portal & Portal 2 for the first time in a single sitting one Saturday and when I finally got up I hallucinated portals on my walls for a period of time. It was great

[@triplebutt]

Great vid but you make it sound like that one mind control video game that took over the Enterprise in Star Trek

[@BeccaMoses]

there’s a very good song about Tetris brain

[@coreyjameshaims449]

Freakin love tetris, still boot up my old game boy cart on the regular. I need this on Vita - Sony, don't let me down! It was made to be played on the go!!!

[@superiorsoldier57]

I'm dissapointed you only talked about Tetris, man. I'm here because of a different game!

[@Capslok23342]

boys, i can load older saves of my own dreams.

[@burlierearth7]

I saw the brain and thought: Put the I block there and the L block there

[@HardlyOrange]

But have you ever seen your phone in your dreams?

[@mailliw94]

multiple times. im not sure why people think phones can't be in dreams. completely baseless hearsay.

[@1996Pinocchio]

What does a phone stand for in a dream?

[@crods19]

Man, whenever i see this game all I can think of is this would give me such a migraine.

[@dlaczego009]

I get the Tetris effect with chess whenever I play too much of it

[@aichaghanimi9970]

same

[@dv7ch8]

I dream of bloodborne monsters sometimes

[@Daggeira]

Lol. I sing basically all the time and have for twelve years, but I've only sung in my dreams on 3 occasions. I've had a TONNE of video game dreams though; even when I haven't gamed in months.

[@wonderfulone2902]

If you enjoyed it this much a recomend you take a look at a forgotten gem called child of eden!

[@dr4gondude339]

I have had plenty of time where I've been playing a game for hours and when I close my eyes I see elements from that game. The only time I've dreamed a game is when I was playing minecraft all the time. I had minecraft dreams.

[@briannab.2330]

I definitely play games in my dreams! Especially if I've played a bit too much that day... the most common game I see in my dreams is The Binding Of Isaac.

[@danalarson9533]

1:31 I am a big fan of this graphic.

[@gregd9887]

Puzzle fighter did this to me.

[@darrenstaciajohnson8593]

I absolutely drilled through loz twilight princess and throughout my gaming day in and day out i dreamed only of twilight princess.

[@connorbennett1131]

Experienced this last night but instead of Tetris it was monster hunter

[@ItzAl3x745]

I'm both happy that the game is so good, but sad because I don't have a PS4.

[@jassykat]

When i play a game a lot and then i go to sleep, i dream about playing the game xd

[@browk2512]

I fuckin love radiolab

[@thedemonspawn8289]

Tetris effect mass effect 5

[@FlowerLass_]

I have this but for chess and I thought I was going crazy

[@Lunablivion]

Been having it a lot thanks to KH3 lately lol

[@syntheticgerbil]

Remember when Polygon wasn't boring?

[@midnightcomes]

I used to get this with DDR!

[@Gomi422]

Same happened to me with Candy Crush lol

[@HIMMURF]

HOW COME I DON'T DREAM OF MY PHONE THEN, HUH, HOW ABOUT THAT

[@Jassywazzy1]

Hmm, maybe I’ll try this with The Sims PC game.

[@conin.v]

It is such a shame that this game is not available for PC.

[@starsilverinfinity]

*Soon everything you see will be slowly falling from the top of the screen*

[@pureOwarrior]

Does it have online mode?