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When I play too much tetris I start thinking about the blocks all the time and find it maddening. I wonder if these guys can ever stop thinking about the block

When I play too much tetris I start thinking about the blocks all the time and find it maddening. I wonder if these guys can ever stop thinking about the blocks or if it just becomes so hard-wired in their brain that they lose consciousness of it.

vl 14y ago
When I was playing Doom as a kid, I typically played in the evening. Next morning after the night of sleep I felt like I was playing all night, at the moment I woke up I could swear I was just shooting at monsters a moment ago.
chrishiggins 14y ago
There is a well documented thing called the Tetris Effect, where you see the blocks in dreams or when your eyes close. There's been some neuro research on it. When I asked these guys about it, they said they got past it after a while. They all say, yes, I have experienced Tetris Effect stuff, but at some point the brain seems to filter it out. My impression is that these players are spending a lot of their conscious energy on the next-piece box, constructing the stack, and just staying calm. I think the majority of what they're doing is near instinct at this point, since they play so much, they just kinda "know" the right move for any given situation. Or at least, most of them. A max out game is a combination of random luck and extreme skill/practice. The documentary "Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters" (steaming free on Hulu) has more on all of this. Disclosure: I wrote parts of that film. Ben Mullen is one of the main subjects of the film.
- wikwocket 14y ago
  I think this extends to any video game or virtual world you spend a lot of time in. There have been periods in my life when I dreamed about healing party members, and when I catch myself instinctively checking nearby rooftops for snipers. Either that, or I have officially lost it. (Or both; they are not mutually exclusive...)
  - vadman 14y ago
    I didn't check the roof for snipers, but I had nightmares of heavy cavalry charging at me in the open field while I was one of the poor underequipped peasants. That's what Total War games can do to you :) BTW - a heavy cavalry charge is very scary, I don't recommend standing in its way.
- mistercow 14y ago
  >When I asked these guys about it, they said they got past it after a while. They all say, yes, I have experienced Tetris Effect stuff, but at some point the brain seems to filter it out. That corresponds with my experience with the Tetris Effect from other games. I used to play a ton of DDR, and initially experienced the same phenomenon (as I've mentioned in a past comment, I took the SAT the day after buying and playing it all night, resulting in the fascinating experience of seeing DDR arrows superimposed over an SAT scantron). I was pretty heavily addicted to the game for a long time, but eventually the phantom arrows simply went away.
- capisce 14y ago
  There's even a song and music video about it (albeit in german): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWQGNSqZ8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWQGNSqZ8o
mattmaroon 14y ago
I have the same problem with Mario Kart!
BSousa 14y ago
I can't say much about Tetris Effect, but I think this happens in various fields. - When I studied Descriptive Geometry I started seems projections everywhere I looked. - When I was doing research and development on procedural buildings, shapes appeared whenever I looked at real buildings. - When I was studying graph theory (and I basically drawn everything to help me remember) I could see blobs appearing on the tv screen for random shapes.
ineedtosleep 14y ago
A slightly more modern anecdote: I've played most of Konami's music arcade and console games regularly (e.g. Beatmania IIDX, Drummania) ever since I started middle school. The learning curve was relatively huge for me and it took a while to have build up enough dexterity and speed for the hardest difficulties. Fast forwarding to the present time, it's hard for me to consciously _think_ about the notes anymore. Doing so just causes my accuracy to drop drastically and/or cause me to lose all focus.

vl 14y ago

When I was playing Doom as a kid, I typically played in the evening. Next morning after the night of sleep I felt like I was playing all night, at the moment I woke up I could swear I was just shooting at monsters a moment ago.

chrishiggins 14y ago

There is a well documented thing called the Tetris Effect, where you see the blocks in dreams or when your eyes close. There's been some neuro research on it. When I asked these guys about it, they said they got past it after a while. They all say, yes, I have experienced Tetris Effect stuff, but at some point the brain seems to filter it out. My impression is that these players are spending a lot of their conscious energy on the next-piece box, constructing the stack, and just staying calm. I think the majority of what they're doing is near instinct at this point, since they play so much, they just kinda "know" the right move for any given situation. Or at least, most of them. A max out game is a combination of random luck and extreme skill/practice. The documentary "Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters" (steaming free on Hulu) has more on all of this. Disclosure: I wrote parts of that film. Ben Mullen is one of the main subjects of the film.

wikwocket 14y ago
I think this extends to any video game or virtual world you spend a lot of time in. There have been periods in my life when I dreamed about healing party members, and when I catch myself instinctively checking nearby rooftops for snipers. Either that, or I have officially lost it. (Or both; they are not mutually exclusive...)
- vadman 14y ago
  I didn't check the roof for snipers, but I had nightmares of heavy cavalry charging at me in the open field while I was one of the poor underequipped peasants. That's what Total War games can do to you :) BTW - a heavy cavalry charge is very scary, I don't recommend standing in its way.
mistercow 14y ago
>When I asked these guys about it, they said they got past it after a while. They all say, yes, I have experienced Tetris Effect stuff, but at some point the brain seems to filter it out. That corresponds with my experience with the Tetris Effect from other games. I used to play a ton of DDR, and initially experienced the same phenomenon (as I've mentioned in a past comment, I took the SAT the day after buying and playing it all night, resulting in the fascinating experience of seeing DDR arrows superimposed over an SAT scantron). I was pretty heavily addicted to the game for a long time, but eventually the phantom arrows simply went away.
capisce 14y ago
There's even a song and music video about it (albeit in german): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWQGNSqZ8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWQGNSqZ8o

mattmaroon 14y ago

I have the same problem with Mario Kart!

BSousa 14y ago

I can't say much about Tetris Effect, but I think this happens in various fields. - When I studied Descriptive Geometry I started seems projections everywhere I looked. - When I was doing research and development on procedural buildings, shapes appeared whenever I looked at real buildings. - When I was studying graph theory (and I basically drawn everything to help me remember) I could see blobs appearing on the tv screen for random shapes.

ineedtosleep 14y ago

A slightly more modern anecdote: I've played most of Konami's music arcade and console games regularly (e.g. Beatmania IIDX, Drummania) ever since I started middle school. The learning curve was relatively huge for me and it took a while to have build up enough dexterity and speed for the hardest difficulties. Fast forwarding to the present time, it's hard for me to consciously _think_ about the notes anymore. Doing so just causes my accuracy to drop drastically and/or cause me to lose all focus.