
Tetris effect - vuknje
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
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michael_nielsen
I'd be interested to know whether this guy gets the Tetris effect:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo> According to the video
description, he's the best Tetris player in the world, and I can believe it:
the end of the video is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

~~~
qwzybug
I was totally agreeing with your description of the end of the video, and then
I actually got to the end of the video. Absolutely mind-boggling.

~~~
michael_nielsen
I've shown the video to a few people, and they sometimes completely miss
what's going on at the end. When I tell them, I usually have to pick their
jaws up off the ground.

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thingie
The only similar effect that I've ever experienced was that after few hours of
continuous playing of Frozen Bubble, I saw _everything_ insanely blocky. Even
quite round shapes were looking like blocks. But that was over within few
minutes.

I play tetris a lot, but when doing so, I don't think about it. Tetris is a
game that you can play without actually thinking about it. I play ltris, and
if I play another variant that has different colors for different shapes, or
some other minor difference, I'm completely screwed. In fact, I play tetris in
order to be able to think about something else, it employs my hands and I can
clearly think about something I want. The game itself is just a complete
routine.

(And by the way, I can play tetris completely in my head, without a computer.
Just close eyes and imagine playing it. And it actually feels like playing
tetris. Shapes randomly appearing at the top, that I try to place as I would
in the real game, then they make rows, disappear, and after some time, it gets
so fast that it overwhelms me and I lose :-))

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rafd
I experience this with RockBand and Starcraft, but has anyone had this
experience with _math_?

During exam time I'd often experience hallucinations of equations, but even
crazier were the dreams: sometimes I couldn't wake up unless I performed a
mathematical operation on some regular object, ie. "what's the Laplace
Transform of this blue chesterfield?"

~~~
cperciva
_has anyone had this experience with math_

Yes, and also computing. Among other things, I've had a dream where I was
trying to open files and had to win a race against someone who was replacing
them with evil symlinks; several dreams about copy-on-write B+Trees; and a
dream where I was a mutex and was trying to keep threads straight except that
I got confused when I was locked recursively.

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ttol
Amazing! Now there's a name for this experience. I was a server admin for
Tetrinet2 and naturally had all my friends playing for hours at a time. We all
talked about how we'd dream falling blocks, the background music, etc.

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vollmond
Once, when leaving my girlfriend's apartment after a marathon Halo 2 session,
I heard a sound in the distance. Wanting to see what happened, I tried to
"zoom in." My right thumb even moved to where "B" would have been if I were
holding an Xbox controller.

edit: I've also, of course, tried to Ctrl-Z when writing on paper... many
times...

~~~
Ardit20
I've expected to use a find function in a paper text book. Also, when
revising, thinking ohh it fine do not need to note down citation, will just
Ctrl - F.

Very annoying when you realise you actually have to go through a lot of
skimming instead :(

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moolave
I was wondering if there was a cell phone effect wherein you thought you heard
a cell phone ringtone while listening to music.

~~~
PidGin128
Replace music with lawnmower, and I share your experience. Until the mower if
off I think a mobile is ringing constantly.

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huhtenberg
I'm guessing the habit of strafing into a room after playing Doom a bit too
much is of the same nature :)

~~~
roc
While driving home after a marathon LAN session of DESCENT, I was cut off in
traffic. My first instinct was to bank smart missiles of the nearby burger
king. My hand even grasped toward the turn signal controls to fire.

I guess that's where my mind decided the smart missile controls would be.

I remember it very clearly, as I've always been slightly unnerved that not
only was it a reflex thought, but that I'd actually moved to act on it.

~~~
pinchyfingers
Grand Theft Auto has created a similar experience for me. Every once in a
while, I will legitimately feel the instinct to force my vehicle in between
other cars or knock them out of the way. After a split second I realize that
it's insane, but the feeling is still deeply ingrained in my perception of
traffic negotiation.

~~~
igravious
I have no idea why you got down-voted for this. I've had this after marathon
GTA sessions. I imagine it's disturbingly common. The desire fades after a
while. I think you're post is in keeping with the theme of the discussion.

All in all, maybe marathon or prolonged gaming sessions aren't the healthiest
thing in the world, mentally and physically. Say all you want about hand-eye
coordination and I'm no Gaming or Net Nanny or anything but ...

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awongh
I've started to have dreams about refactoring code... where to encapsulate
imperative parts into functions, what functions to make into objects....

~~~
evandavid
I asked my girlfriend to refactor the dishwasher the other day.

~~~
sesqu
What was wrong with it?

~~~
evandavid
The dishes needed rearranged in order to fit more in there. The original
arrangement was never intended to be more than a prototype. I swear.

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Prolorn
After a Mass Effect marathon, I started instinctively reaching for "quicksave"
before making decisions or initiating dialogue. If only...

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dkersten
I used to call it the "falling sand effect" cause it happened to me after
playinmg those flash falling sand games...

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JangoSteve
I never knew there was a name for this. I experience this both with writing
code, and for running a company in general. Sometimes I see myself making
strategic business decisions as I drift asleep or in the morning just before
waking up.

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philh
>They might also see images of falling Tetris shapes at the edges of their
visual fields or when they close their eyes.

I get an effect similar to this after playing airsoft, except it looks like
BBs flying towards me.

What I find interesting is that it's not all-that common while playing to see
BBs flying towards me. It happens several times a game, but only for seconds
at a time. So if this is the same effect (not just a different one with
similar symptoms), it's not caused simply by an overload or repetition of a
particular stimulus.

(It's not just me: my friend said he gets the same effect. But I haven't asked
around, so I couldn't say if it's widespread.)

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ScotterC
I got this quite a bit from halo 2... It's what convinced me to stop playing
competitively. Not worth dreaming about everything in FPS form. It gets weird.

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treblig
This absolutely happened to me in high school when playing Tetris on my
graphing calculator. I'd see the shapes falling as I fell asleep at night. I
always thought it was because I felt only semi-conscious for stats class in
the morning, and I was returning to that "half awake" state while falling
asleep.

Cool to find out it's a real phenomenon.

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xsmasher
I always considered that the "Syphon Filter Effect" in honor of this TV spot:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrBM-265ns>

I don't think that commercial would get OK'd today. A video game that makes
you hallucinate shooting innocent bystanders? It's so pre-columbine.

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pinchyfingers
I spent a week in middle school at a barbershop quartet camp. For several days
afterwards I heard dominant seventh chords whenever I heard white noise. I
especially remember listening to the air coming in through the crack in the
car door on the ride home and hearing chord progressions for the entire two
hour trip.

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dzlobin
During my undergrad WoW days, I'd get this quite a bit.

I got it when I cooked professionally, and would dream about cooking on the
line at work.

These days I dream about coding a lot, and occasionally of dealing w startup
logistics, which is always funny.

Its a good sign of when I need a day with just a bit less of whatever has been
occupying my mind all night

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gojomo
After a day in the ocean, you will often feel the motion of the water as you
fall asleep.

~~~
pinchyfingers
Also with roller coasters.

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ilovecomputers
Funny, during work I was listening to a segment in a Radiolab episode about
sleep: <http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/05/25>

it's the last segment.

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jewbacca
I've had this happen to me with Tetris and not batted an eye. When it happened
with Nethack, though... I freaked out and didn't play again for a year. That
shit was scary.

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epochwolf
This happened to me when I played too much D&D one summer. I saw everything in
dice rolls for about a week after I took a prolonged break from it.

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stretchwithme
oh god. i guess there's a bejeweled effect too and another for brain age two's
game

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tehjamez
I used to experience this, but I called it the "WOW is making me fucked up"
effect.

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parbo
This happened to me the summer of 1993, but in my case it was Mine Sweeper.

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DaemonXI
After playing a lot of DDR, I saw arrows as moving up my field of vision.

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jrockway
The definitely happens to me if I play too much Geometry Wars.

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sublimit
After FPS marathons, I get visions of running through tunnels before falling
sleep.

