# Sleep and Dreams > Sleep and Health >  >  Does a high IQ affect lucidity / dreaming?

## hyperangel13

I recently found out that my IQ is 155 (and yes, a real test, not an online one). I was wondering if a high IQ would mess with dreaming and lucidity.

To describe some of the things a high IQ does to me:
-- I think very, very fast.
-- I think about everything 'deeper' than most people, making useless things be linked to philosophical meanings, etc.
-- I sometimes stare off into space, drowning out anything I hear or see with my thoughts.
-- I have very good visualizing skills.

A high IQ does NOT mean that I am smarter than anyone, nor that I can utilize my knowledge BETTER than anyone. It just means I happen to think faster.

In regards to dreaming: I find that my fast thought process makes it harder for me to fall asleep, and sometimes I can't control where it's going (as in trying to think about History before a test, but it just doesn't work). Also, in my (very few) lucids, I've thought out some of my moves before I do them, to avoid getting scared / losing lucidity. 

But in a medical / whatever sense, what effects do you think high IQ would have on lucidity / dreaming? ^^

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## Oros

A good news, you have easier to learn thing than a normal person then, if you didn't know it.
There is no effect on the dreaming just because you got high IQ  :Sad: 

There should be a thread somewhere about IQ and recall, just couldn't find it.

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## ninja9578

155? you're higher than me  :Sad: 

IQ is mostly logic and memory.  The logical part of the brain and the memory is turned off during non-lucid sleep so getting lucidity probably wouldn't help that much, but once you're lucid they should be better.

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## Out of the Blue

Aren't IQ tests losing effectiveness as a tool? I know there's much debate over them.

Regardless, to score high I'm sure you're intelligent, but I don't think it would have any major effects on Lucid Dreaming.

Good luck though!

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## panta-rei

Haha! one point higher then you! Mines 156, and I know that trying to fall asleep is hard, especially when you try to focus on one thing. I think it helps me because I can visuallize better, and I have vivider dreams, making it easier to notice things that are off.

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## hyperangel13

@ Delphinus: That would make sense. I would think my lucids would be a lot more vivid, but they feel like normal dreams most of the time (which makes me feel like I'm not really LD-ing). Maybe everyone else is right; that the IQ doesn't have a very big effect on dreaming at all.

In regard to memory: maybe it would make dream recall better? That is, untrained.

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## TalkingHead

Ability to Concentrate is VERY important.  But come on;  intelligence helps; visualization... just learn to meditate or calm yourself and going into trance when falling asleep.  If your intelligent you'll want to keep finding new angles on lucid dreaming; so check out astraldynamics.com and look into what robert bruce has to offer.

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## 7heUsedB3rth

Wouldn't a high IQ, in theory, hepl? Its like, being an artist would help being an arcitect, at least it won't hurt!

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## dreamdatum

Wow... an IQ of 155. You must be damn smart!

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## TempleGuard

I never took a test to check my IQ, but I think much before falling a sleep, and thats the main reason it takes me so long. I have nights, when I start making plans and whatever and stay awake for 2-3 hours just thinking about shit. And probably High IQ is not a big deal, I guess that I can some good score if I try it, too - it looks so freaking easy..

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## TalkingHead

What's the highest possible IQ.. 160?

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## hyperangel13

> Originally, IQ was calculated as a ratio with the formula 100 x (mental age / chronological age).
> A 10-year-old who scored as high as the average 13-year-old, for example, would have an IQ of 130 (100 × 13/10).



I'm not sure what the highest IQ calculated was. Wikipedia probably has more info.

Even with a high IQ, it's really what you make of it that makes you smart. XD I find that I have problems remembering things because of it...which makes it very hard to learn things sometimes, especially in history.

But! Yes, LDs, I has them.

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## panta-rei

> What's the highest possible IQ.. 160?



If it was, people like me and hyperangel would be very rare. I am not sure, but i know it goes higher then 200

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## hyperangel13

200 would be like a 10-year-old that is as smart as a 20-year-old (both educationally and mature-ly [?] ). 

Right now I'm 16, so according to calculations: (155
1.55 = ma/aa (ma is mental age, aa is actual age)
1.55 = ma/16
24.8 = mental age

Apparently, I think like a 25-year-old. That's all IQ is.

About the range: Here's a handy picture from Wikipedia.
(Click here)
Most of the population is centered around the middle of the "bell curve", between 85 and 115. The percentage on the y-axis of the graph is %population with that IQ. (As you can see, 155 doesn't even show up...and 200 is probably 1 person in the entire world. XD)

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## TempleGuard

> 200 would be like a 10-year-old that is as smart as a 20-year-old (both educationally and mature-ly [?] ). 
> 
> Right now I'm 16, so according to calculations: (155
> 1.55 = ma/aa (ma is mental age, aa is actual age)
> 1.55 = ma/16
> 24.8 = mental age
> 
> Apparently, I think like a 25-year-old. That's all IQ is.
> 
> ...



This curve is so not real.. It cant be that pefect and simple.. And the peak cant be at eaxctly 100 and the lowest point 45 before 100 and the highest 45 after 100. This is so made-up!

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## hyperangel13

Of course, it's not absolutely perfect. However, that was the way the IQ test was designed - most of the population centered around (mental age = actual age), and decreasing.

I've taken AP Statistics and it makes enough sense to me. I believe it. 

This is what Wikipedia had to say:





> IQ tests give approximately this Gaussian distribution across a large population. This plot is artificially generated and does NOT represent any experimental data. It does not reflect narrower spread of women's vs men's IQ, nor does it reflect a bias to low scores due to disability or injury.

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## Idolfan

I do beleive people with higher IQ are more prone to LDing. Most stupid people don't really know dreams exist let alone consider LDing so it makes sense. The average bloke would like think about their dreams once a month or less! I haven't had a recent IQ test but about seven years ago or something ungodly like that it came out as 137, and I was already having some (but very infrequent) lucid dreams.

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## hyperangel13

> I do beleive people with higher IQ are more prone to LDing. Most stupid people don't really know dreams exist let alone consider LDing so it makes sense. The average bloke would like think about their dreams once a month or less!



I don't think that really makes sense with what we've been discussing. Higher IQ doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter, or just prone to lucid dreams - if it did, I wouldn't be here!  ::D: 

I don't agree that "stupid people" or "average blokes" don't think / know about dreams. Most of my friends have average IQs and though I haven't told them about my lucids, they do have dreams and they think about them as often as any high IQ person would. 

Also, just look at a lot of "average" people on this site that have great recall and great lucid ability - and then look at me, who's only had about 5 lucids in her life. I don't think IQ affects recall or lucid ability like that at all.

>>; No offense, of course.

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## Oneironaut Zero

I think a higher IQ might help with recognizing the dream state. Our logic centers are allegedly turned off in non-lucid dreams, but it takes that logic to recognize dream signs for what they are, and induce DILDs that way. I would say someone with a higher IQ would have an easier time with that method than someone without.

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## DuB

> This curve is so not real.. It cant be that pefect and simple.. And the peak cant be at eaxctly 100 and the lowest point 45 before 100 and the highest 45 after 100. This is so made-up!



Believe it. 

Some time ago it was discovered that most population parameters could be represented visually as a "bell curve," known more formally as a normal distribution. Height, weight, intelligence, socioeconomic status, all of these approximate a normal distribution, meaning:The majority of people are clustered around the mean (average height, average weight, middle-class, etc.)The farther you move from the mean in either direction, the less people there will be (tall people, fat people, rich people)Very few people fit into the extreme tails of the distribution (people over 7ft, morbidly obese people, billionaires)Regarding IQ scores specifically. IQ tests are *purposely designed and calibrated* so that the average IQ score is 100, a completely arbitrary number chosen simply to represent the mean. The tests have even been recalibrated a few times over the years because psychometricians noticed that the average score was starting to edge over 100 - so they made the test more demanding in order to bring the average score back to 100. (See "the Flynn effect" for more info.)

After analyzing millions of IQ scores, psychometricians have found the standard deviation of the scores to be 15, and this is where the other numbers come from. Statistically speaking, about 68&#37; of all scores for a normally distributed parameter (such as IQ score) will fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean (i.e. between 85 and 115), about 95% will fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean (i.e. between 70 and 130), and about 99.7% of all scores will fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean (i.e. between 55 and 145). This means that a score lower than 55 or or higher than 145 (such as hyperangel's) is entirely possible but extremely rare. In fact, only about 0.0126% or 1 out of 7930 people have an IQ score of 155 or higher.

In short, these are not made up numbers at all. They come from purposeful calibration and analysis of millions of IQ scores.

As far as the link between IQ and lucid dreaming - I, for one, am skeptical of such a link, although I suppose it's possible.

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## Elite

I would imagine it would give you a more vivid picture if you have really good visualization.

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## Idolfan

> The tests have even been recalibrated a few times over the years because psychometricians noticed that the average score was starting to edge over 100 - so they made the test more demanding in order to bring the average score back to 100.



Oh great, I wonder what the IQ of the bloke who came up with that was? Keep it around 100 and make people feel dumber than the actually are. I beleive it, I just think it's stupid. Imagine in the future the freaking government could rig it. If it stays at 100 all the time we won't know if we're any smarter or dumber than in the first place, it seems people underestimate the importance of such things. 

Anyway, I literally did think IQ did signify intellegence but how is that defined? You're all right because there's all sorts like creativity, orgonisation ability and lets not forget the actual speed of your mind. I mean look at me I often get really good marks but it can take me twice as long as everyone else in the class to get work done so people sometimes think I'm dull. What does IQ actually measure? Or did anyone actually tell us in the first place?

In which case maybe level of creativity and things like that may also influence lucid dreams. Hey, it might even turn out that the worlds greatest artists have really dull dreams cos it's a different side of their brain that's functioning at the time. Interesting stuff.

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## Universal Mind

> A high IQ does NOT mean that I am smarter than anyone, nor that I can utilize my knowledge BETTER than anyone. It just means I happen to think faster.



IQ stands for "intelligence quotient".  It is about memory and reasoning, not merely thought speed.  Some IQ tests involve timed sections, but on those, time is just one variable considered.  On others, time has nothing to do with anything.  

Your IQ probably has very little to do with ability to become lucid.  That is a matter of determination and attention.  However, your intelligence is probably what made you interested in lucid dreaming.  You like using and exploring your mind.  

You described your thoughts as rapid and out of touch with your surroundings.  I am that way too.  That can be a disadvantage if you have trouble staying with a thought.  My mind is all over the place all the time, and I am in co-pilot all day every day, but I can get very zeroed in on a thought I think is really interesting.  To be lucid, you have to be on the look out for your mental activity to be dream like.  Once you become lucid, you have to hold on to the thought that you are lucid.  That is all that matters.  

My best recommendations for being a lucid dreamer are keeping up with your dreams and having a very reliable dream sign.  It is great to keep a dream journal, but if you don't want to do that, just think about your dreams on a regular basis.  At some point every day, ideally a few times, try to recall past dreams.  Make it your goal to come up with as many as you can in a month.  That will help you prepare to recognize your dreamscapes when you see them.  On top of that, have a dream sign that you think about a lot during the day and that you know for a fact that if you ever actually see it, you are definitely dreaming.  My number one dream sign is floating.  I will try to float off the ground several times a day.  The more times, the more effective the strategy.  When I finally do see myself floating into the air, it means I am dreaming.  

When you reach lucidity, stay calm.  Getting too excited will wake you up.  Just ride it.  The harder you try to control the dream, the less vivid the dream will be.  You should practice nearly effortless dream control.  My best lucids happen when I am not trying to control anything.  I just watch what happens.  Sometimes I will make a decision to go to a desired dreamscape and then just watch the show once I get there.

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## The Cusp

> 200 would be like a 10-year-old that is as smart as a 20-year-old (both educationally and mature-ly [?] ).



I have the mind of a dirty old man, so that must make me some kind of genius!

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## Kyte

This is probably a dumb question but where can you take a REAL i.q test? Whenever I look on google I get the usual online test bullshit.

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## darkhawk918

My IQ is 134 and my girlfriend's is 149 or something like that. But she can remember things MUCH better than me. She has like a perfect memory. I keep a dream journal by my bed but she doesn't have to because she remembers them all the time (pretty much every night). Though she has woke me up at about 4am and told me to write her dream in my journal because she's pushy like that. But she has remembered them when she woke up the next day. We both get lucid at least 5 times a month each.

However, my brother's IQ is only 80 something I think but he has explained dreams to me that he described as "odd" but he described them as if he was perfectly lucid. He also tells me that it happens quite a few times a month - maybe he was just born with "da power"

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## hyperangel13

> This is probably a dumb question but where can you take a REAL i.q test? Whenever I look on google I get the usual online test bullshit.



Go to a certified psychologist or IQ tester - they administer the real tests.  :wink2: 

Online tests are complete crap. I took one and got around a 100, then I took another and got like a 200. So retarded. XD

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## panta-rei

I took mine in school when I was younger... don't quite remember why or how...


OH! I just took one online, it said 126, but I walked away for a second, so the test was tainted.

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## Digital.Totem

A higher IQ seems to lead to quicker realization of your dream. I become lucid nearly immediately upon entering a dream. Dream recall on the other hand is based on how important/special the dream was and how good your natural memory is. However dream recal does strengthen day to day memeory. As to IQ tests contact MENSA, that who I took my test from and it's very real.

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## Digital.Totem

> Go to a certified psychologist 
> 
> Online tests are complete crap. I took one and got around a 100, then I took another and got like a 200. So retarded. XD



A psychologist can give an IQ test but they tend to be very simple and only deal with functional spatial awareness.  But MENSA is who you want to be able to say they gave you the test. You can't really write an equation to measure IQ based on simple tests. The human element is the real method to score an IQ test. Oh and to the guy who scored a 126 but walked away for a second so it's not valid, don't worry nothing you take on the internet means anything. but 126 would make you slightly above average. I don't like that we measure IQ because it divides people, granted primarily smart from stupid, but smart people get competetive about their IQ. So I never give mine.

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## panta-rei

Well, IQ test aren't about knowledge, they are about how fast your brain computes things. I know a lot of things, I mean a lot, but that doesn't mean I will do good on any IQ test, If I learned all those things from heavy repetition, my mind might not compute things fast enough to get agood score on a real IQ test.

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## Digital.Totem

> This is probably a dumb question but where can you take a REAL i.q test? Whenever I look on google I get the usual online test bullshit.



Mensa look em up. I'm a member of both Mensa and the 999 club. the 999 club are for people who score above 99.9 percent of the population. My IQ is 176. That was an average from 3 tests one oral, one physical, and one written. On physical and written I score over 180, but since I'm a visual learner my oral exam was low if I threw it out, which I can't, my IQ would have been 185.

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## rpgedgar

> Aren't IQ tests losing effectiveness as a tool? I know there's much debate over them.
> 
> Regardless, to score high I'm sure you're intelligent, but I don't think it would have any major effects on Lucid Dreaming.
> 
> Good luck though!



I read somewhere that IQ tests are mostly designed for discovering people who fall at the farther ends of the IQ spectrum.  It's not really designed to find out how smart any given person is, but rather to see if somebody is exceptionally different than the average.

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## rpgedgar

> I don't like that we measure IQ because it divides people, granted primarily smart from stupid, but smart people get competetive about their IQ. So I never give mine.



I agree.  I took the Mensa test and I'm glad they didn't give me a score.  I knew that it would drive me nuts when I heard a score higher than mine, so just knowing that my IQ is 132 or higher is good enough for me.

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## i make it rain

> A psychologist can give an IQ test but they tend to be very simple and only deal with functional spatial awareness.  But MENSA is who you want to be able to say they gave you the test. You can't really write an equation to measure IQ based on simple tests. The human element is the real method to score an IQ test. Oh and to the guy who scored a 126 but walked away for a second so it's not valid, don't worry nothing you take on the internet means anything. *but 126 would make you slightly above average.* I don't like that we measure IQ because it divides people, granted primarily smart from stupid, but smart people get competetive about their IQ. So I never give mine.



sorry to be annoying but 126 is more than slightly above average. it is almost 2 standard deviations to the right from the mean. so if im doing the math right, that is *almost* higher than 97.5&#37; of the population. (I say almost because i am assuming your score is 130 so i don't need a calculator.) admitingly it is lower than those who are stating their IQs here because the only people who know their IQ are those who did exceptionally well. if mine said i was average, i would forget it pretty quickly, but if it said i was a genius, i would frame it on my wall (which backs up rpgedgar's theory). but alas i am too lazy to take an IQ test...

by the way, you take AP stats at 16? nice. im 18 and i am taking it. but senioritis is making me do less than well.

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## i make it rain

> Aren't IQ tests losing effectiveness as a tool? I know there's much debate over them.
> 
> Regardless, to score high I'm sure you're intelligent, but I don't think it would have any major effects on Lucid Dreaming.
> 
> Good luck though!



they are losing effectiveness mainly due to their extreme western bias as well as other reasons. but i think they work well enough for this thread at least.

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## hyperangel13

Yeah, I'm a freak of nature. I'm a year too young for my grade (11th grade), and I took it last year. I'm advanced in math and spanish as well...but that's beside the point here.

If IQ is the processing speed of your brain (Much like the speed of a computer hard drive), then I wonder how it would affect a normal person's dreaming ability. I'd think there'd be better recall...

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## Pancaka

> My IQ is 134 and my girlfriend's is 149 or something like that. But she can remember things MUCH better than me. She has like a perfect memory. I keep a dream journal by my bed but she doesn't have to because she remembers them all the time (pretty much every night). Though she has woke me up at about 4am and told me to write her dream in my journal because she's pushy like that. But she has remembered them when she woke up the next day. We both get lucid at least 5 times a month each.
> 
> However, my brother's IQ is only 80 something I think but he has explained dreams to me that he described as "odd" but he described them as if he was perfectly lucid. He also tells me that it happens quite a few times a month - maybe he was just born with "da power"



 according to what you're saying, you have a "very superior intelligence," your brother is dull and you're girlfriend is a genius (according to the IQ scale)  ::?:

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## The Cusp

IQ does not affect your dreaming.  Now will you eggheads stop bragging about your IQ?

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## hyperangel13

@ The Cusp: It doesn't? Not even with recall or "realness" or anything? 

=_= But you're right; the thread has deteriorated into a bragging contest...

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## Quark

Hell, my IQ is 666, where do I fit in?

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## Kraftwerk

IQ is Logic and Memory, Lucid Dreaming is visualization and Creativity for the most part. Its more of a rightbrain thing. (I'm nearly central when it comes to hemisphere dominance, I have a semi-high IQ AND creative ability)

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## hgld1234

I think that my iq makes it v difficult to sleep at night. But my dreams are very vivid, sometimes I can remember them photographly. If I'm lucky, video. At least for a few seconds.

To the person who said their iq was 176, I give you this: WOW  ::shock:: . That's like, genius. Wow again.

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## Zhaylin

I don't consider myself especially smart.  I took a legit IQ test and here's my results with some comments from the shrink:

"My stupid psychological/parenting class gave me an IQ of 105 with a Performance Score of 107 and Full Scale of 107

I don't know what the break down means, exactly, but I'm still somewhat impressed by my "low" score because:

Verbal
Vocabulary= 14
Simiarities= 14
Arithmetic= 6 [!!]
Digital Span= 7 [!!]
Information= 10
Comprehension= 15
Letter-Number Sequencing= (7) [? !!]

Performance
Picture Completion= 14
Digit Symbol= 15
Block Design= 6 [!!]
Matrix Reasoning= 9
Picture Arrangement= 12

"The client's remote recall was observed to be mildly deficient... Her concentration was observed to be mildly deficient, as noted by her scaled score of 7 on the Digit Span subtest of the WAIS-III. The client displayed the ability to reason at the abstract level. She displayed motor tension during the assessment. The client's overall motor functioning tended to me mildly retarded, and she presented as a person with a slow tempo... Overall, the results of today's assessment indicate that the client typically functions within the average range of intelligence, although the verbal aspects of her intelligence are more appropriate to a high average range of intelligence."

With my math scores so low, I was impressed that my verbal scores pulled my total up as much as it did"

"Mildly retarded" and "slow tempo" still makes me angry to read lol
But, it does take me an exceptionally long time to figure out even mundane things.

I can LD if I REALLY try.  But my dreams are always intense and very vivid.  I have an intense dream life and my recall is outstanding most of the time.  So, I doubt IQ is directly connected.
Sometimes my subconscious mind will figure out things before my rational mind does.  During such times, dream themes symbolically make the connections so I can logically piece things together.  But my grasp of the abstract isn't too great, so the symbolism is usually more ??? concrete than abstract.  
Maybe IQ plays in in a round about sort of way.

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## Puffin

I think lucidity as a whole is more about awareness than actual IQ.
But in general dreams, the content may be slightly different than those belonging to someone of a lower IQ. But then again, content also changes if the person happens to be really creative or artistic, as well as realistic. People with little to imagination tend to usually have fairly straight, normal dreams, like shopping in a mall.

Just my two cents.

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## Flashdance

Kraftwerk, don't bump old threads.

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## BigFan

> Kraftwerk, don't bump old threads.



I have to agree with this but we've also had a recent flood of old threads being bumped recently  ::?:  

As for IQ, don't think it affects LD at all. Possibly helps with recall since that's linked with memory and practice, but, that's it  :smiley:

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## nina

:lock:

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