What is a Fortnite Online Game exactly??

If like me you’ve got kids and like me they are at an age where they appear to live their lives online playing games, then its more than likely you already have an idea what Fortnite is! I know my son, when asked to do anything these days, usually replies at the moment with; ‘I’m in a battle and there’s only a few left to go’. Personally I know what that means as I have had a go at the multi player online platform that is Fortnite and not done too badly. My son will argue that I was ‘shocking’ and ‘should leave the playing of Fortnite to him’.

If you’ve not caught on yet, Fortnite is an online game where players either work alone or in teams to eliminate their opponents. All of this takes place on an island (the game world) which has various towns and locations that players can visit in order to collect essential items they need for their mission. The game is not just about shooting the enemy with various guns though, its also about collecting materials in order to build various structures. Structures which can be used in defence during battles or offence too. Now as the match progresses a storm surrounds the island, get caught in the storm and your character will die. The storm eye is where the action takes place and it continually shrinks as the players reduce and time ticks by. That forces the players all into one space where they have to fight for survival.

Its actually quite enjoyable if you like a little gaming, but also one of the most popular (if not the most popular) online game of the moment. As the game continually evolves offering new challenges and rewards it keeps the gamers interested and coming back for more over and over again. Throw in that friends can play together, audibly chat and direct their efforts; then you have a really immersive experience for the serious players.

To put it simply it’s a huge online, multi-player, multi-platform, cross-platform gaming world that has caught the attention of many gamers out there and certainly the kids too.  Okay that might not sound simple to some, but that’s as relatively simple as I can get!

If they are not playing, then they’re watching on You Tube…

The next bit is something that took me a little by surprise, but thinking back should have been expected really. As many parents may equally know our children also spend an awful lot time watching various videos on You Tube. Not surprising at all really is that there are a huge amount of You Tube videos and even channels dedicated to Fortnite too. Why? Simple money! You Tubers can make quite a bit of money through their channels by uploading many videos of you guessed it, Fortnite games they’ve played in. Some, which are even considered some of the best Fortnite players in the world do rather well too. One particular Fortnite gamer and You Tuber, known as ‘Ninja’ is pretty much regarded in star status according to my son and friends.

Ironic really, as parents and I remember my own telling me similar back in the day, we often say that playing video games all day will get you nowhere! Not true, these days video games are making more than the film industry and You Tubers and users of other video streaming platforms like Twitch are making a bucket load of money too. Kind of wish I had spent more time playing on my PS4 now!

However the point here is that the virtual environment and its immersive pull has generated an interest that has people playing the game online, watching various online videos of it and talking about it a lot too!

What has this got to do with the paranormal exactly???

Ah yes the paranormal, so far I have spoken a lot about gaming and You Tube, not my usual areas right? Well actually I have come to believe that this could have more to do with the paranormal than we realise. I recently attended an SPR Study Day on Lucid Dreaming and one thing that came was a relationship between gamers and their ability to access lucid dreams more easily perhaps. This wasn’t one of the main lectures, but a side discussion I had.

Oddly this particular concept got me thinking a little and I wondered if it might be true. No longer a true gamer anymore, I doubted I could test the idea on myself. However once I stopped thinking about it the answer presented itself. After a long day and night of playing nothing, but Fortnite and being reluctantly sent to bed by his Dad, my son headed off for Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. Sure enough as I sat in my office, oddly working on the write up for the Lucid Dreaming SPR Study Day for the Paranormal Review magazine, I could vaguely hear my son calling out. As I didn’t wish him to wake his sisters I headed in to his room to see what all the commotion was about. My son was asleep and clearly dreaming, if only I had a dream machine to gather data, although perhaps ethics may come into play then. Rather than waking him I decided to observe.

Over the course of the next few minutes, possibly less, he spoke in his sleep several times and what he said was related directly to this Fortnite game. My son woke up and surprising wasn’t alarmed by my presence, which must have seemed a little odd to be fair. I asked him where he had been and his first reaction was related to Fortnite, but then quickly corrected to ‘in bed’.

Okay so there’s no ghosts or spirits in this post, but think about it for a second, we are talking about another virtual world that’s immersing thousands of players the world over constantly around the clock. The Fortnite world is there all day and all night, just like our own and is accessible through multiple devices in our homes and whilst mobile too. That’s right folks it on your mobile phones and tablets too. Now there maybe some out there that may worry about this news, but its not new believe me. There are now loads of online games running off various servers the world over constantly giving access to gamers. Access to a virtual world they can visit and explore.

Now I am no expert in lucid dreaming, but if gamers like my son are dreaming about this environment and acting out their missions from the game, could these environments be accessible by multiple visitors too. So, in his dream Fortnite world could he meet friends also dreaming about Fortnite. Lucid dreaming does suggest that there are instances where dreamers meet and share information, so it could be possible.

Testing Fortnite gamers consciousness with RNG’s…

An RNG is a Random Number Generator and they have been used in many experiments the world over to show proposed shifts in consciousness, especially during dramatic events where large groups of people become focussed on a singular event. If memory serves me well, Dean Radin has mentioned it in his book Entangled Minds. One example being the tragic events that transpired during 9/11. In fact during that event the data shows a shift of consciousness prior to the event.

Going back to our online game with multiple players the world over we suddenly have a world that has consciousness firmly focussed upon it in huge numbers now. What’s particularly interesting is like the film ‘The Matrix’ we (or at least the Fortnite programmers) can control what happens next. Hence a huge dramatic event that could show a shift in consciousness could be engineered into the game. In fact the producers of Fortnite already do this as the game evolves using seasons and changes to keep the gamers interested. A more recent addition being the fact a meteor hit the island and changed the layout of the map, it also added some extra bits too. My son was talking about this before it happened because obviously certain news is released in order to increase the hype so to speak.

The question now becomes; if these gamers are that immersed that they are playing for hours and hours a day, then when they sleep they may be having lucid dreams in relation to the game, how can we use that to better understand consciousness? If these virtual gaming worlds that are continually running are generating dream worlds that the gamers are also tapping into then could we not reverse the effect to help with other attributes like learning or even healing?

Personally I would love to setup an experiment to see if there was a dramatic change in a large online game like Fortnite, would the RNG’s around the globe pick it up? I believe it would, based on the focus and involvement I have seen from these gamers.

Hacking life and mindfulness with technology…

Finally, I just wanted to briefly touch on something I always have had trouble with, that’s meditation. I have tried literally loads of different methods to try and meditate, but my mind is always too busy. Some of the advice I have had over the years is conflicting too; discard your thoughts and empty your mind; or don’t discard your thoughts just put them aside until later. Personally discarding thoughts or putting them aside isn’t something I am great at and most of the time I am probably thinking about multiple things at once. It’s a curse and a gift, but mostly a pain!

However what if technology like virtual reality could help trick my mind into believing it was somewhere it wasn’t and in turn help it calm down into a meditative state. Now that might be life hack I would be interested in. Often when it comes to the more spiritual approaches to life technology is advised to be turned off and I totally get that, I’ve done that believe me. There’s nothing quite like a weekend ‘off grid’ to allow you to focus on getting stuff done. However we live in an age where technology is also a part of our lives to the extent that our children struggle to turn off and to be fair even us too. Most jobs will include technology or being connected somehow, mine for example involves a lot of communication by email, organising and prioritising. Being productive is key and technology allows me to keep track of all that.

So, we shouldn’t simply look at the usual aspects of psi or hauntings, we should expand this into a wealth of possibilities and include technology as it evolves too. After all technology has been inspired and invented by us, which means it could actually be our way of recreating aspects of what we have already. A couple of probable examples; Jungs Collective Consciousness – the social media cloud. These days we upload, share and tag our entire lives via social media. Simply put our life memories and thoughts are out there and accessible for all to see.  Perhaps this is why information can be accessed telepathically too.

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