Two large surveys of university students examined factors linked to how often people have lucid dreams. The first study, with about 700 students, found that lucid dream frequency was not significantly related to imaginative ability but was influenced by two factors: how often people had nightmares and how often they recalled their dreams. The second study, with about 7,900 students, identified two subgroups among frequent lucid dreamers: one group that also had frequent nightmares and distressing negative dreams, and another group with few nightmares and more positive emotions. Those who frequently experienced both nightmares and lucid dreams reported slightly less vivid colors in their dreams compared to those without lucid dreams.
Higher dream-recall frequency is associated with more vivid voluntary waking imagery and more frequent use of visual imagery, but not with control over visual imagery. Among 323 undergraduates, frequent dream recallers (n=82) scored higher on vividness of visual imagery and reported more use of visual imagery than infrequent recallers (n=80). Dream recall was significantly related to scores on visual, cutaneous, and organic sensory subscales, but not to auditory, gustatory, kinaesthetic, or olfactory subscales. No sex differences were found. The findings support Cohen's salience theory, suggesting that voluntarily forming vivid waking images helps retrieve or preserve dream images.