Quote Originally Posted by Amethyst Star View Post
Lucid dreaming is "taught," either by focused conscious effort or through personal experience, in the same way learning that a stove-top is hot (you can either hear about it from someone, or burn yourself).

My theory on dreams has to deal with importance.
This seems fairly congruent with what I've heard while talking to many "natural" lucid dreamers. An often recurring theme is that they used to be plagued by terrible nightmares - something which I'm sure was a very important issue to them at the time - and it was through these experiences that they learned to consistently recognize the dream state.

Although, on the other hand...
Quote Originally Posted by Amethyst Star View Post
Someone who is naturally talented with math isn't going to suddenly start spouting off the quadratic equation without some instruction.
It has happened.

Anyway, it's undoubtedly a combination of both, but it seems likely that "nurture" is a bigger factor.