Many people view lucid dreamers as fortunate individuals who, being aware that they are dreaming, have god-like powers over their dreamworld and everything in it. They believe that having the ability to turn “lost” sleep time into “productive” fantasy time is a gift that is only bestowed on a small number of people. But is it really? Is lucid dreaming as rare as we think it is or is it a common occurrence?
It is estimated that approx. 55% of people have had at least one lucid dream, making lucid dreaming fairly common.
But, only 19% – 37% of people have one or more lucid dreams per month. Meaning, consistent lucid dreaming is not as common but it is not rare either.
However, anyone can be trained to make lucid dreaming common for them.
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Experiencing a lucid dream is more common than you may think
Since the late 1980s when Stephen LaBerge, the father of lucid dreaming research, engaged in the first scientific study of lucid dreaming, a lot of data on the subject has been collected.
We now know that approximately 55% of the population have experienced at least one lucid dream in their lifetime. 55% is quite a large number accounting for more than half of the population.
In America alone this accounts for 164.1 million people.
With 55% of the population having had at least one lucid dream, this makes lucid dreaming common.
With lucid dreaming being such a common occurrence it may surprise you to learn that, prior to the scientific studies conducted by Stephen LaBerge’s Lucidity Institute, scientists seriously doubted that lucid dreaming was even a real phenomenon.
Luckily though, the work LaBerge did and the evidence he collected was so compelling that scientists had to eventually concede that lucid dreaming is indeed a very real phenomenon.
Science also now knows that, not only is lucid dreaming real but, it is relatively common as well.
I should note that the 55% of the population who have experienced at least one lucid dream represents only those people who remember that they had a lucid dream.
It is more than possible that many, many more people have experienced the state of dream lucidity but have merely forgotten.
Everyone dreams yet there are a large proportion of people who never remember any of their dreams.
There are an even larger number of people who only remember some of their dreams (in fact most people fall into this category).
So, it is not a stretch to assume that there are some people who have had a lucid dream but merely forgotten the experience just as they forget their other dreams.
This ability to recall a lucid dream after it happens is so important that training yourself to remember your dreams accounts for a very important part of lucid dreaming training.
Consistent lucid dreaming is more rare
So, we know that experiencing at least one lucid dream in your lifetime is not at all rare and is, in fact, very common. But, what about consistent lucid dreaming?
Is it common for people to have lucid dreams on a regular basis throughout their lives?
Although lucid dreaming as a phenomenon is common, consistent lucid dreaming where a person lucid dreams on a regular basis is much more rare.
However, that is not to say that it is a rare occurrence; it is just not as common as a one-off lucid dream.
While a whopping 55% of the population will experience at least one lucid dream, only 19% – 37% of the population will have consistent lucid dreams, experiencing dream lucidity at least once per month.
This percentage equates to between 62.35 million and 103.24 million in the US alone.
So, it is not a small amount of people by any stretch of the imagination.
With between 19% – 37% of the population experiencing at least one lucid dream per month, consistent lucid dreaming is also fairly common.
So, we can see that lucid dreaming, even consistent lucid dreaming, is far from a rare thing.
Lucid dreaming is much more common than most people think it is.
How rare is it to lucid dream every night?
We have covered that having a lucid dream is a very common experience for more than half of the population and also that, although more rare, consistent lucid dreaming is also fairly common.
But what about daily lucid dreams – how rare is it to lucid dream every night?
Experiencing a spontaneous lucid dream every night is very rare, though there are people it happens to.
There are also people who have trained themselves to lucid dream every night but they are also rare.
Most lucid dreamers will lucid dream between 1 – 3 times per week, during their most frequent periods and once per month, during their most infrequent periods.
Although anyone can teach themselves to lucid dream consistently (as I cover below), experiencing a lucid dream every night is rare.
Even very experienced lucid dreamers will usually only have between 1 – 3 lucid dreams per week.
Having said that, it is possible to have multiple lucid dreams in the same night.
In fact, it is even possible to have multiple lucid dreams within the same dream!
This happens when a phenomenon known as false awakenings occurs.
This leads some lucid dreamers to incorrectly believe that they are stuck in a lucid dream and unable to awaken. You can read more about false awakenings here.
Multiple lucid dreams can occur in the same night because we naturally have up to 7 separate dreams in a 8 hour sleep cycle, everyone of which offers the opportunity to become lucid.
There are some people who are natural lucid dreamers some of whom will lucid dream every night.
Natural lucid dreamers, also known as “spontaneous lucid dreamers“, have never trained themselves to lucid dream and find that it just happens to them naturally without them trying to do it.
A very small number of spontaneous lucid dreamers find that they enter the state of dream lucidity every night, as I covered in this article, without any effort on their part.
Some of them would prefer this did not happen. There are very clear reasons for this happening though.
The causes of lucid dreaming are clear and these daily lucid dreamers exhibit some distinct daytime behaviors and (natural) brain functions that make them lucid dream every night.
Now, lucid dreaming every night may seem like a great thing to most of us but, as trained lucid dreamer myself I can understand why a spontaneous lucid dreamer may want to stop having or limit the number of lucid dreams. At least until they have full control over when lucid dreaming happens.
Sometimes it is beneficial to not lucid dream especially if you suffer from sleep paralysis or similar unwanted experiences due to your lack of control over the frequency of your lucid dreams.
Lucid dreaming commonality statistics
Here is data related to the commonality of certain lucid dreaming experiences as it relates to both men and women.
The lucid dreaming data in the table below is provided by ResearchGate.
How to make lucid dreaming common for you
Whether you fall into the category of people who remember having just one lucid dream, those who have never had a lucid dream (or at least do not remember having one) or those that do not remember dreaming at all, it is possible to learn how to lucid dream consistently.
It has clearly been demonstrated over the last few decades that anyone can learn how to lucid dream.
And, the good news is that, not only can you learn how to lucid dream on a regular and consistent basis but you can also learn how to make it happen deliberately whenever you want.
How?
You do it by following key techniques outlined in a lucid dreaming course.
A good advanced lucid dreaming course will incorporate the newest psychological research. It will twin this with proven lucidity induction techniques, to not only teach you how to become conscious in your dreams but to also help you gain total control over them.
Once you have trained yourself to become conscious in the dream state you can use certain techniques to do anything you want in the dream and to structure the entire dreamworld in whatever fashion you desire.
In fact, it has been shown that you can even use your lucid dreams to affect the real world or even use them to make you smarter because a lucid dream feels just as real as real life.
So as you can see, making lucid dreaming a common occurrence in your life is well worth the effort and something you should seriously consider learning.
This course is great for beginners who want to have their first lucid dream while this community includes a lucid dreaming course and access to other lucid dreamers.
Go ahead give it a try as there is nothing to be afraid of and only benefits to enjoy!