Hi,

I'm new to this board. I've been lucid dreaming most of my life. Sometime shortly before I became a teenager I learned how to control my dream environments (I was having a dream I was in a bank robbery. I realized I was dreaming and I made the gun that one of the bank robber was holding turn into a poisonous snake which promptly bit him). I've been able to manipulate my dream environment to quite an extent for years now (either the external environment or my physical form-shape shifting if you will)

I'm curious, how many lucid dreamers have always had this ability and how many learned to do it?