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Chess dreams?

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egoole

And that's how you know you've been playing too much chess lately - when you're playing the same game night after night in your dream like real life correspondence... 

varypeponi

Yes. I do both chess analyzing in my head before I sleep and chess dreaming. I was concerned but it seems like many people in the chess community do so. I played 13 rapid games of 30-minute time control in a day once, and as a result, I saw my first chess dream. I was lucid dreaming all night. I sleep next to a chessboard and that also affects my sleep thoughts. 

 

To be honest, I don't think I play the game itself. Once it is a dream, all I see is a fade chessboard, and I have the slighest of the impressions of what I'm really playing. I think though that my brain is used to calculate when it faces a chess game, and that's why I spend time calculating. 

 

Each game evolves, but I'm sure it never ends. Maybe because it is a draw but I can't remember. 

 

I remember one of my games, which entirely did consist of queenless late-middlegame. I was trying to improve my position using fade impressions of knights and a fianchetto bishop winning pawns, and I really suffered because my opponent played all the best moves. Or I thought so. I woke up many times that night to drink some water and relax because I was ready to cry, and I suffered, sighed, and murmured all night. Indeed that day I had a pretty traumatizing experience due to my mental disorder, or phobia, whatever, it's called gamophobia, and that's why this game was so painful to me. Dreams depict reality. I play chess and I suffer. Perfect combination.

 

About chess analyzing before sleep, I identify with your thoughts. I actually see tactics or mating patterns. The thing is I see a different thing repeated and repeated each time. If I see bank rank mate once, I'll see that for the rest of the time I try to sleep. Continuously. If I see the following day a tactic to win a bishop for example, I can't take it off my mind, and I'll see that for the rest of time I don't sleep. Again and again. My mind stucks and prevents me from sleeping.

 

I really want to consult an expert such as a therapist, just to learn if it's healthy, or I need any medication, or even abandon chess, which I won't, because I love it. But, it prevents me from sleeping well as I calculate and spend the same energy I would spend in a real match. My brain thinks even when it sleeps. And that tires me a lot. I would rather know if gms or psychos dream that too (I don't compare gms with psychopaths dont  worry)

Long story short, I don't think it's healthy for me. I don't know if it helps me improve. I think so but I can't really know. 

TzHaarChess

For the past few nights I have had different dreams and in one the black king was broken. The base of the king spontaneously broke. Then my next dream, which happened a few days later, three white pawns were weird. They didn't go straight up and snapped off the base when you touched them. Not really sure what to think of the dreams.