Signs of Addiction

[Saskwach]

So you've been playing a game for far too long. You realise this and you finally manage to wrest yourself from your crack of choice. Everything is right again. But everything is not right. The game begins intruding on your real life. You begin thinking of eating mushrooms to become big, look for likely spots of cover, and wonder where WASD got to.
What are your signs of gaming addiction or gaming withdrawal and what games brought them on?
I've posted this before but one of them was having a GH dream in which a long note continued while short notes popped up. Frightening.
After a Splinter Cell streak, the lights suddenly turned off for half a second with no explanation. I literally scanned the room for Sam Fisher.
The one that convinced me to begin the Seven Steps at number 1 happened while reading a post on this forum and after playing a remade version of Space Hulk. Halfway through the first sentence I thought to myself "Where is this getting all his action points from?" How the hell action points=words got into my head is any psychiatrist's guess.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

Who hasn't had Tetris Vision (or the "Tetris Effect")?

When I'm really into the current game I'm playing or am playing it a lot I usually have that kind of thing. I'll see something and it will remind me of something in a game, it's usually a passive conscious thought, but not always.

Usually when I have dreams related to games it's when I'm heavily playing it over the last few days, but usually they're about strategy games. I have dreams about scenarios, sometimes ones that can be done, other times these hopeless hypothetical scenarios. I'm not in the game, there aren't flying mutant sea horses in the game that weren't there before, it just is the game, but it's in a dream. They usually aren't all that remarkable, but a strange subject to dream on.

Occasionally it has gone a bit further. Last year while I was playing a lot of Battlefield 2142, I was a passenger in a car and a ways down the road there was a dark basketball. The first thing that entered my mind was "Oh crap, Motion Mine!". It didn't remain in my mind for more than a second before the reality of the situation was in, but I thought it was strange and kind of amusing that such a thing came to my mind. Not that it was a basketball, or a bowling ball, but that it was a tracking explosive from a video game set in the future.

It's a funny thing, how regular activities can influence how you work.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0001F172-55DA-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21

And the post after mine reminded me of another, more recent, while I was playing Call of Duty 4.

As I walked into a room another person who was fiddling with a pen clicked the bottom part to make the pointer come out, and I heard the click very well. My eyes suddenly widened because, just for that split second, I thought it was the click of a Claymore and that I was about to get it. Like the Motion Mine it passed quickly, but it was funny to me.

And apparently games have made me paranoid about mines.

 

[Haliwali]

I have a few, some mine some other's.
Ever been climbing a ladder, stop, and check for a claymore?
Ever dream you're playing a videogame?
Ever think, "If I punch this person in the face/jack their car/steal their wallet can I get away from the guards? Will it affect my influence with another faction?

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Everytime I hear music now, I start thinking in audiosurf.

The scary thing is I don't really mind.

 

[SuperSteef]

Anytime I hear a song I've played on RockBand or any GH, I can close my eyes and see the notes streaming down. My dad looked at me funny when he was giving me a ride somewhere and I started doing the fingering for Metallica - One in the car.

Another one that I've had is when I've played far too much Counter-Strike. You get tired and you fall into that half-sleep where you are still awake and partially aware of your surroundings but you drift into a dream. I dreamt I was a CT attacking Office and, when a Terrorist jump out and shot, I actually tried to dodge it while sitting in the passenger seat on another trip somewhere with my dad.

Needless to say, my dad thinks I'm insane.

 

[Mr_Cynical]

Bioshock gave me really wierd dreams....i kept imagining splicers coming after me at home, work, the pub etc. and no matter how well i fortified the place the buggers kept getting in.. i suppose that what happens when your girlfriend bugs the hell out of you to play bioshock every damn night...

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Going down the hill on my bike, glanced down to check my velocity... Need to stop playing EvE. Rainbow six has left me with a surprising knowledge of firearms (which would be nearly all lies, most likely ). Stalker had me talking russian for weeks (just the "put your gun away" phrase. I've forgetten how it goes now.)

 

[Jagdedge]

I have dreams about endless combos that I could do with Captain Falcon that are actually impossible in the game. I also had an odd dream last night about Devil May Cry combos. Urgh, went on the entire night and I woke up with a headache.

 

[Cooper42]

I tend to look up a lot more when I'm walking. Especially in urban areas.

Snipers.

 

[OneHP]

After I've been playing TF2 for a while. If I come off and I'm walking about my house and someone asks me something, my thumb moves inwards just before I answer as that's where my voice comms button is on my mouse.

 

[WingedFortress]

I think the amount of money I spend on my games are a big enough sign of addiction. Hell, I quit smoking to open up a little more cash flow for my gaming habit.

And videogames enter almost every part of my real life. All the songs I listen to are inevitably turned to note charts in my head, I imagine my own vision as an awesome HUD(normally on long boring walks), and sometimes I cant help looking at something and thinking "man! now those are some graphics".

 

[sammyfreak]

Trying to find the ventrilo "push-to-talk" button has happened a few times when im talking on the phone.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I spent years turning on light switches without entering rooms because of Resident Evil. I still think "You know, if this were a game there would be a zombie around that corner" when I'm walking around and when I'm on a survey I frequently point out that whatever building I'm measuring would be a perfect location for a zombie movie.

The last time I almost lost it was on the abandoned second floor of a big retail building which had been all chopped up with offices and only the emergency lighting worked. Apparently homeless people had been living there for years and it was all destroyed and nasty plus none of the lights worked in the office area. As I was walking around with my flashlight I kept jumping thinking I was about to have my brains eaten...

 

[Scolar Visari]

I now have a habit of poking my head around a corner before actually going around it. People look at me like I'm crazy.

 

[Larenxis]

Tetris is about the only game I'm 'addicted' to. I'll be watching tv, and I start playing it without really thinking. On the hardest level of course.

After playing racing games for too long, when I close my eyes I'll envision the horizon, and scenery rushing by. I get REALLY messed up after playing flying games.

 

[monodiabloloco]

I now have a habit of poking my head around a corner before actually going around it. People look at me like I'm crazy.

I've been doing that for years too! I now also have my fiance looking up all the time after telling her it was the one rule of life/fps/movies/war/etc that most people forget.
Due to life experience and way too many games, I also now stop when entering a building and scan the whole room.
After playing GTA, I am nearly incapable of driving due to the urge to floor it and take out as many as I can.