Question
How common is lucid dreaming?
Answer
Quite common. I don't know about lucid dreaming itself, but a more extreme form that often follows a lucid dream, called sleep paralysis, is apparently experienced by about 25% of the population at least once in their life (based on a study of Iranian students), so lucid dreaming must be more common than that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sle...
I lucid-dream quite frequently (though I don't know how to do it intentionally), to the point that it's boring now. I've also had a few bouts of sleep paralysis (each time I had multiple such experiences over a 1-2 week period), which is much more interesting. The first time it happened was in high school and I was in sheer panic, imagining I was dead and having an out-of-body experience. Then I looked it up and understood it.
Sleep paralysis happens when you not only realize you are dreaming, but actually wake up before a REM cycle finishes. During REM, the brain paralyzes the body to prevent self-injury, so if you wake up before, it feels like you are paralyzed. It is an extremely weird state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sle...
I lucid-dream quite frequently (though I don't know how to do it intentionally), to the point that it's boring now. I've also had a few bouts of sleep paralysis (each time I had multiple such experiences over a 1-2 week period), which is much more interesting. The first time it happened was in high school and I was in sheer panic, imagining I was dead and having an out-of-body experience. Then I looked it up and understood it.
Sleep paralysis happens when you not only realize you are dreaming, but actually wake up before a REM cycle finishes. During REM, the brain paralyzes the body to prevent self-injury, so if you wake up before, it feels like you are paralyzed. It is an extremely weird state.