So I was thinking the other day about lucid dreaming, and something struck me as rather odd.

When I was a baby (according to my mom) I used to suffer from night terrors. I have no memory of any such incidences, even though I have many memories of being an infant.

Sleep paralysis is something natural that happens every time we go to sleep and dream. As much of an experienced LDer as I am, I still have episodes of frightening SP occurring on a somewhat regular basis.

So first I start wondering if infant night terrors have to do with sleep paralysis? I imagine such an experience would be extremely frightening for a baby. Wouldn't it make sense for the body to naturally create some sort of defense mechanism to protect an infant/child against such experiences with SP?

Then I start thinking about people we label as "natural" lders...and others who have to work really hard to develop this skill...and something sort of clunks into place.

Why would our mind "hide" something like lucid dreaming from us? From any of us? True our minds repress memories which are extremely painful, but why repress lucid dreaming, when it is so wonderful?

I think that maybe everyone is born as a natural lucid dreamer, and many of us experience frightening incidents as infants (such as sleep paralysis) which cause us to become more separated and dissociated from consciousness during sleep as a defense mechanism. Therefore, we literally have to relearn this ability that we are all born with, but have repressed for so long.

To me I can't find much other justification for why some people are naturals and others are not. I only became a "natural" at the age of 18, but in reality we're all naturals...some of us just maybe do a better job of forgetting this innate ability than others?

I wonder if they could do tests on babies to see if they lucid dream? ...though that kinda sounds mean, doesn't it? lol

It's just a theory, so for all I know, there might be scientific evidence to the contrary, I'm just putting it out there and am interested to hear what other people think.