I used to, when I first played a horror game, I tried it and pissed my pants, a year later, I was running out of games to play so I decided to give it another shot, and I guess I kinda got over the whole scary horror game thing. I still hate horror movies tho
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Horror stuff has always been completely ineffectual for me. Jump scares are cheap and lazy, and nothing else gets to me anyways. I enjoy horror movies for their creative ways of causing mayhem, and for their unique opportunities at presenting chaos. Cabin in the Woods was a great example of both of those things.
But horror movies/games/etc. don't have any real-world bleed through for me. I think it really just because I don't care. I don't get worried for my safety when I walk around bad neighborhoods at night, I don't worry about animals when I walk alone through the woods, I just don't worry in general. Worrying is about as effective as yelling at the rain.
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You gradually become desensitized. However, if you really want to play/watch, just keep in mind no real-world danger is being presented.
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i don't think i have ever had nightmares because of games/movies however a cousin of mine enjoyed playing scary games even through she had some "terrible" nightmares (she screamed in her bed at night while fast asleep...) If i remember corretly i got her through that was by playing in the morning. Once night arrived she had "forgotten" most of it. I'm not sure it would work for you. BTw it's a pity you haven't finished dead space, i enjoyed it a lot!
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I usually don't play horror games, I guess I just don't find it very enjoyable. I can handle things like DOOM, F.E.A.R. and similar games that have a somewhat scary setting, but aren't primarily based on you being "hunted". Games like Amnesia or recently Outlast just aren't my cup of tea. Similar with movies - I can handle pretty much anything, but it's definitely not my favourite.
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See, I can't handle anything scary because when I was 6 and naive about the world, my brother forced me to watch Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies. I became so scared of pretty much anything at that point, even one time when he was playing a game and had to fight giant ants that did karate.
I WAS SCARED OF KARATE ANTS.
So long story short you aren't the only one.
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Not when you're a scary-things-traumatized 6 year old.
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I can definitely relate. I don't play many horror games (I just stay away from them) but with movies I get that. I can watch gore movies with like killers and stuff. It'll still spook me and make me kinda wary at night and with shady looking places.... but supernatural stuff I just REFUSE to watch. Killers, I can logically deduce that since there was no one in my room when I left it, there probably won't be anyone in there when I come back. Not so with supernatural stuff. They're just unpredictable so my imagination goes wild. I get scared to step out of bed because something might grab my ankles. I get scared to walk around the house in the dark or go into the bathroom. The effects of the movie lasts long after it's over.
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I'm completely indifferent to "fake" horror, as in games, movies, haunted themed rides (like for instance, where you're in a hay cart and some dude in a mask chases it with a chainsaw with no blades lol), etc. I've been like that since I was a kid; freaking impossible to scare with things like that. I watched every horror movie, went on all sorts of "scary" rides, played every game... nothing. Not even a flinch as a child.
However, I'm a bit agoraphobic and find open spaces/being away from home terrifying. Seems stupid as hell after the kinds of things I've seen in movies and such. Also funny - I often have more pleasant dreams after playing horror games. I've actually been able to use it as a sort of cure to my night terrors.
edit: Just looked up 5 Nights at Freddy's. That looks awesome. Maybe it'll actually put me on edge for once (only other thing to do that was the beginning half of Amnesia).
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IDK what horror games you're playing, but it could be that you are combating the "horrors" in the games in a way you cannot seem to in your dreams, so in your mind, whatever was after you (or whatever) is either dead or gone now. Then again, I suppose it just could be taking your mind off of something conceived by you and real to you in your dream, with something you know to be fictional.
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Yeah, I've always wondered what that was about. Most of my nightmares are about being chased by a faceless man that I can't escape or forced to watch said faceless man harming people I care about (ties into my real life fear of abduction/being attacked by people), or occasionally being mauled by oversized dogs (I'm terrified of dogs in real life as well, though the dream ones are impossible sizes). Maybe I find some relief in being able to escape or destroy the game monsters since I'm defenseless in the nightmares and can't "win" like in the game.
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As a matter of fact, you aren't defenseless in nightmares. You must always remember that what you can and cannot do in your dreams is completely up to you, as the dream is all yours.
And arguably, all our nightmares are representations of real-life-problems, and running away from problems rarely solves them, right? :)
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The problem is making my dream self aware it's in a dream. It's all very vivid, and dream logic takes over and claims faceless people are entirely logical. lol Occasionally I can force myself to realize it doesn't make sense and will it away, or at the very least, forcibly wake up. But that most definitely is something to always keep in mind, particularly with severe, frequent nightmares. :)
Oh, mine most definitely are representations of real problems/fears. A lot of people's nightmares are obscure, strange things symbolizing a real issue, but mine are fairly straightforward most of the time (and even when they aren't, it's usually only a matter of minutes once I wake up that I figure out the symbolism and connection to whatever's stuck in my subconscious).
I have to admit there was something fascinating about analyzing it and how the brain processes thoughts in your sleep. Still, glad I looked into "fixing" it, so to speak. Much more peaceful without those nightmares rearing their ugly heads so often. :p
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Well, about dream awareness, you might want to look into Lucid Dreaming. There are techniques which will over time help you recognize you're dreaming. Most people with frequent night terrors become natural lucid dreamers though, which would explain that you sometimes do notice it's a dream.
(Don't be put off by some people who claim LD destroys your sense of reality or leads to mystic experiences, that's both bullshit)
That's useful, I guess. What I remember from my nightmares, they were somewhat cryptic, but these days, there are basically none^^
Maybe you should treat your nightmares like horror movies? :D
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It's actually pretty awesome when I'm aware I'm dreaming. Instead of sitting idly by as if I'm in a movie, I can take command of the entire dream world. Then it's like being in the most amazing playground to ever exist. The impossible is possible; for instance: flight. Holy crap do I love flight dreams where I'm aware I'm dreaming. Still feel the breeze, smell the wind... but now I can go wherever I want (and it's often down the river that cuts through my town in real life - my dreams are so detailed, I can feel the water droplets spraying up if I dip too low). Maybe that sounds crazy, but I'm fully aware it's a dream and don't have any problems discerning fiction from reality (that last bit may be why I have such a hard time getting immersed into horror movies and games despite my love of them - it's not real and thus not threatening).
Actually, nowadays I do sort of treat nightmares like that, and normal dreams as normal movies. They're usually very detailed and even have a pretty thought out plot, so I take them and write short stories from them. Some are horror of course, but I also put down the amazing, fun ones. Anything that left an impact winds up on paper eventually. :)
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I had a hard time reading the text block, but part of the horror genre I believe is letting your imagination get the better of you. When you play amnesia, when the monster goes after you, as I understand it, you never get a good look at the thing, but if you manage to look at the model through glitch or hack, it kind of looks goofy. It is not that the monster itself that is scary, just your mind fills in the blanks with whatever it can.
I think the only horror games I've played were the Silent Hill 1 and 2 (which I stopped because I cannot handle "tank" controls), Resident Evil 1 (which I tolerated the tank controls, until I got to the trapped shotgun which my freind couldn't explain why Berry wasn't saving me), Dead Space 1 (idk if the control lag was intentional or not, it just pissed me off), and FEAR 1 and 2 (FEAR 1 I really enjoyed, FEAR 2 I had too much trouble with the little guys that run around on the floor and walls really quick. I suppose Dead Island could sort of count as horror, but not too much.
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That's why I liked Amnesia. I know it gets ragged on a lot lately, but I thought it dealt with scaring the player wonderfully. For about the first half, I was able to easily immerse myself into the game world (something I have a difficult time doing normally) and kept myself on edge, not wanting to open doors. Amnesia was at its best when it kept the monsters in the corner of your eye, just out of sight, but still close enough to make you feel like you need to get out of there.
After a while, I'd seen them too much, and it became "go sit in the corner until it goes away." The amazing atmosphere lost effect by then since the unknown thing wasn't an unknown anymore (and now too predictable) and thus left me with no reason to feel I need to slink silently in the shadows... plus like you said, when you actually looked at it, it wasn't as scary as your imagination probably painted it. I forget exactly where the immersion really broke for me, but eventually I only bothered to finish it to see how it wrapped the story up, and it turned back into a normal game, not a horror experience (and I was finally so close to getting scared of something! :( ). Sad that happened, but I still praise it highly since I'm so impossible to frighten, and it still managed to massively outclass every other horror game or movie for me.
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If it helps, I was able to complete every Dead Space... but not getting anywhere near 5 Nights at Freddy's. That game is the stuff of nightmares, saw some videos and already having the symptoms you speak of.
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I have a VERY low tolerance for the imagery in a lot of horror games. I can take Don't Starve, but The Binding of Isaac is one step too far. It's too bad. There's a few games I'd really like to play, but the trailers are enough to give me nightmares-Alice the Madness Returns for example.
Then again, I've never been able to watch horror movies (excepting the really old ones back before showing the gore became all the rage). I watched a Nightmare on Elm Street movie when I was a kid and spent months sleeping in my parent's floor. I haven't been able to watch them since.
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If it's any consolation, I'm all but impossible to scare and still found a lot of the imagery in The Binding of Isaac really unsettling. For a while I actually didn't want to play it either, not because of fear, but because it's also got a certain layer of shock value... or something. I'm not really sure how to describe what it was about the some of the concepts and just things in that game that were upsetting.
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I suppose I'm the other way around, I have an incredibly high tolerance for horror. I play a TON of them and the only ones to this day that triggered some sort of uncomfortable reaction/emotion out of me were Silent Hill 2 and Amnesia. I blame my mum for letting me watch horror movies with her ever since I was 7 years old xD
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Not scared, but if I play a certain type of game (esp some that are first person perspective) for a couple hours or more, and get super immersed into it, when I come out of it, I end up being a little paranoid for an hour to several hours, depending on the game and how immersed I got. I always listen closely to my surroundings in games to pick up on cues of nearby enemies. So I find myself being extra alert when I exit the game and more sensitive to subtle things in my surroundings. If I played long enough and got really into the game, I actually will start looking at stuff and evaluating how good a weapon it would make. XD
I get paranoid if I watch certain types of documentary marathons. When Discovery and History Channels used to play good stuff, sometimes they'd do a day or two of things like earthquakes,volcanoes or asteroids. I used to live in Seattle and Mt. Rainier is visible on clear days (though, Seattle the city itself is safe from major damage, would just been ash to worry about). THAT was always fun. Go around for up to a week, with that looming cloud of paranoia of "what if....".
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there are alot of posts like this ive found but none really like what i, i guess experience. Its a little hard to explain but bare with me here. I like most/am interested horror games and been wanting to dive into some horror movies but I cant handle them at all I mean I have the whole after awhile put down the controller thing and ive started games and just put them down never played them again after getting scared but its never really been the fear of the game itself its always been my own imagination i cant really i guess control it in and out of the game i personally find alot of horror games very interesting like Silent Hill, Amnesia (sorta) and Dead Space played them never finished them but its not because of me getting scared of what happened ingame its my mind replaying scenes lately ive watched videos for a new horror game "Five Nights At Freddies" more atmospheric with jump scares only when you fail but after i watch videos of other people playing it im anxious for the next while ex: being in a dark room my mind will replay jump scare or just momments that made me scared, just seeing a dark hallway in my peripheral vision gives me the thought of in the game when you flicker the lights to check the hallway and one of the automatons are there.
Hopefully I explained this this well enough am I the only one like this? I mean I like horror games but just cant handle them i guess after i put down the controller or the video ends. im also someone with not much to think about and i think it could just be since watching that video or playing that game was something recent thing that happened it gives me something to think about.
Ill reply to stuff you guys post tomorrow im hopeful to see things you guys have to say about this topic
Edit: Im aware of my horrible grammar and run on sentences something i have yet to fix.
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