Thread: Everyone Lucid Dreams..?

I can't speak from personal experience since I learned lucid dreaming just a few years ago, but I know a lot of people who lucid dream learned to do it at a young age to combat nightmares (have a nightmare, realize it's a dream, wake yourself up). So they may not be excited because they don't know it as a world of endless possibilities like we do, but instead just see it as simply a way to escape these bad dreams. Or because it's so closely related to nightmares for them, that it has a bit of a negative association with it.

With the obvious exception of my visits to places like this, I have never, not even once, had anyone tell me that they are a lucid dreamer on there own without prompting from me. Given the many thousands of people I've met, across all walks of life, in my time, I've come to believe that LD'ing is not a very common activity. In fact, I would say that it is pretty rare. This can be illustrated by looking at DreamViews itself: even though it is by far the premier lucid dreaming forum site, it has only about 90,000 members; I would guess that Kim Kardashian has far more followers all by herself! So yeah, not everyone practices lucid dreaming, indeed, we represent a very exclusive club!

That said:

I have also come to suspect that everyone has at least one LD in their lifetime, either by accident or in the form of a defensive response to nightmares, as Spellbee noted above. So everyone may have a LD or two in their lifetime, but that is very different from practicing LD'ing and having them, on purpose, on a regular basis.

Here's another oddity I've noticed over the years: after I mention that I have LD's, people seem to have one of two reactions: either they stare at me blankly for a moment, maybe ask a couple of polite questions, and then quickly change the subject, or else they announce that "Oh, yeah, I do that too... all the time." I used to get excited when they said the latter, but not so much anymore, because I've found that, with just a little chat about the subject, I would invariably discover that the folks who claim to be regular LD'ers really never did it at all (it isn't hard to tell); they were just lying, either to impress or not feel left out, I suppose. I have no idea why people do this, but they do. I think this may be the reason why I pretty much never offer on my own to people that I practice LD'ing (I usually do so reluctantly, probably because the subject of what I do with my life came up).

tl;dr: Though everyone likely experiences lucidity once or twice in life, the practice of regular, intentional LD'ing is indeed a rarity... and maybe take those who claim to be LD'ers after they hear you are one with a grain of salt...

Originally Posted by Sageous

With the obvious exception of my visits to places like this, I have never, not even once, had anyone tell me that they are a lucid dreamer on there own without prompting from me. Given the many thousands of people I've met, across all walks of life, in my time, I've come to believe that LD'ing is not a very common activity. In fact, I would say that it is pretty rare. This can be illustrated by looking at DreamViews itself: even though it is by far the premier lucid dreaming forum site, it has only about 90,000 members; I would guess that Kim Kardashian has far more followers all by herself! So yeah, not everyone practices lucid dreaming, indeed, we represent a very exclusive club!

That said:

I have also come to suspect that everyone has at least one LD in their lifetime, either by accident or in the form of a defensive response to nightmares, as Spellbee noted above. So everyone may have a LD or two in their lifetime, but that is very different from practicing LD'ing and having them, on purpose, on a regular basis.

Here's another oddity I've noticed over the years: after I mention that I have LD's, people seem to have one of two reactions: either they stare at me blankly for a moment, maybe ask a couple of polite questions, and then quickly change the subject, or else they announce that "Oh, yeah, I do that too... all the time." I used to get excited when they said the latter, but not so much anymore, because I've found that, with just a little chat about the subject, I would invariably discover that the folks who claim to be regular LD'ers really never did it at all (it isn't hard to tell); they were just lying, either to impress or not feel left out, I suppose. I have no idea why people do this, but they do. I think this may be the reason why I pretty much never offer on my own to people that I practice LD'ing (I usually do so reluctantly, probably because the subject of what I do with my life came up).

tl;dr: Though everyone likely experiences lucidity once or twice in life, the practice of regular, intentional LD'ing is indeed a rarity... and maybe take those who claim to be LD'ers after they hear you are one with a grain of salt...

I've also noticed that,amongst the people who claim to Lucid Dream. Even had a friend who said they never had a Lucid Dream,I explained it,than when we met a girl who,as you said "all the time" lucid dreamed, he claimed he Lucid dreamed based off of what I told him,and after closely listening to her,I could tell that she didn't lucid dream. Both making me question people who say that they do,and as you said,stop initiating the topic,or atleast the fact that I do. I wonder if there's a for sure question you can ask someone,to tell if they LD.

I'd like to add to what spellbee and sageous mentioned. For some people LD is a natural response to nightmares and nothing more and sometimes people claim to be lucid dreamers so as not to feel left out or to impress. However, I came across some people who claimed they are lucid dreamers taking the meaning of "lucid" literally in that they have vivid or very realistic dreams not taking into account their awareness within those dreams. I'd say people pursuing lucid dreaming is rare overall. For example, even someone like me who uses lucidity as a medium to hangout with departed significant other in somewhat tangible form has trouble lucid dreaming "all the time" because of trouble sleeping. So even among lucid dreamers there are people who don't get to lucid dream as regularly as they would like.

Originally Posted by lucidbunnie

I'd like to add to what spellbee and sageous mentioned. For some people LD is a natural response to nightmares and nothing more and sometimes people claim to be lucid dreamers so as not to feel left out or to impress. However, I came across some people who claimed they are lucid dreams taking the meaning of "lucid" literally in that they have vivid or very realistic dreams not taking into account their awareness within those dreams. I'd say people pursuing lucid dreaming is rare overall. For example, even someone like me who uses lucidity as a medium to hangout with departed significant other in somewhat tangible form has trouble lucid dreaming "all the time" because of trouble sleeping. So even among lucid dreamers there are people who don't get to lucid dream as regularly as they would like.

Yes,I've also noticed that,the more intelligent people I've asked,take it more literal,and I agree,I consider myself a lucid dreamer,yet don't lucid as much as I'd like,because I generally have trouble even falling asleep.

From my own experience I have only met one other lucid dreamer (who ended up joining this site ��)
That has been frankly a little sad. I've been lucid dreaming for nearly 50 years and to me it's a wonderful thing I'd like to share, but until DV have had scant opportunity to.

As has been mentioned, many claim to have had an LD, often in response to nightmares. But it rarely goes deeper....
Others claim to not dream at all.
And everything inbetween - it's a spectrum!

Poor deam recall, I believe, claims many LDs, forever lost in the mists of forgetting. Most people are busy and stressed - no wonder they don't have good recall.
Many people, it seems, go about their lives in a fog - not being mindful in the day won't magically transform into lucidity at night.

I think other people simply don't like looking inwards for whatever reason. As I'm sure you can imagine it may be seen as self indulgent, wet or woolly, hippy new-agey, liberal, middle-class, feminine etc etc etc.

Others i think don't like talking to others about their dreams, perhaps out of fear of inadvertently revealing too much about their subconscious - it's a bit like being naked perhaps.

I did a bit of work on personality types and lucidity... not sure if the links in my signature still work - but this thread is a good reminder to revisit that stuff.

Originally Posted by slimslowslider

From my own experience I have only met one other lucid dreamer (who ended up joining this site ��)
That has been frankly a little sad. I've been lucid dreaming for nearly 50 years and to me it's a wonderful thing I'd like to share, but until DV have had scant opportunity to.

As has been mentioned, many claim to have had an LD, often in response to nightmares. But it rarely goes deeper....
Others claim to not dream at all.
And everything inbetween - it's a spectrum!

Poor deam recall, I believe, claims many LDs, forever lost in the mists of forgetting. Most people are busy and stressed - no wonder they don't have good recall.
Many people, it seems, go about their lives in a fog - not being mindful in the day won't magically transform into lucidity at night.

I think other people simply don't like looking inwards for whatever reason. As I'm sure you can imagine it may be seen as self indulgent, wet or woolly, hippy new-agey, liberal, middle-class, feminine etc etc etc.

Others i think don't like talking to others about their dreams, perhaps out of fear of inadvertently revealing too much about their subconscious - it's a bit like being naked perhaps.

I did a bit of work on personality types and lucidity... not sure if the links in my signature still work - but this thread is a good reminder to revisit that stuff.

Indeed. Society is pretty outward focused,and tunnel vision on media. Along with living a "successful" life through a 9-5 which only distracts from time and attention that could be used to become more self aware of their mind and body. And the drugs/alcohol/etc don't help any. But its been this way for a while. Those who want knowledge,seek knowledge. But I could be over glorifying LD here and letting it seep into my other forms of connecting with the universe,or self, since for some,even experienced dreamers,LD is just a hobby.

Unfortunately the link did not work.

Originally Posted by iThousandSunny

Unfortunately the link did not work.

thanks it was from 10 years ago - so maybe those threads don't exist anymore - or I need to re-link.

EDIT - should work now - though the threads and links within might need updating