While reading through the God Delusion topic, a thought occurred to me.
Because of a theist’s belief in the supernatural or a higher power, and an atheist’s belief in the material, would theists and spiritualists be able to more quickly achieve better levels of control? Control in LD’s really comes down to willpower and faith in yourself. So by having a certain otherworldly faith in waking life, would that aid your faith in your dreams?
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with not believing in a higher power or not being spiritual or that atheists cannot achieve good control. Infact, the topic I created on transforming in dreams addresses how it a lot of dreamers have trouble transforming because of the lack of real life feelings to compare it to. Does anyone think there’s a correlation? Do you feel that your beliefs have helped or aided you in your LD control?
Interesting idea. Well, I’m an atheist (not interested in joining that topic lol) and I find that control of my dreams is somewhat simple due to the fact that I believe that existence itself stems from human consciousness and nothing more. When the material world is simply an interpretation of different human consciences, the dreamworld consists entirely of those interpretations. With this idea I can feel that the dreamworld can be exactly like the real world (but with, in LD’s, my own input), and therefore I feel like I have a large sense of control since interaction mimics that of the real world, but with my own conscience imagining the material instead of absorbing it from surroundings in reality.
By a direct example of comparison between your dreams and my dreams, I would definately say that there is a correlation.
On the other hand, to examine this truthfully, it wouldn’t be enough for people to say “I am religious and I have so-and-so many powers”, because that would lead to inaccurate self-examination. Instead, people should check if religious/atheistic people in general have more or less control in their dreams than do themselves, so that correct comparisons are made.
With sufficient examples we might be able to make a hypothesis that religious people have more control in their dreams. 
I thought something similar when replying to a topic. I was saying about how you have to believe you can LD to be able to do it, in most cases. Then I realised that, that isn’t conducive with a cynical point of view. Were proof may be required before entertaining an idea. I’m not sure it would be as effective to investigate it when you instinctively doubt everything, even if you logically believe there may be something to it due to numbers interested, accounts or other such sources.
I can’t see it having an too much of an effect, in terms of dream control. In some ways, those with no belief in a higher deity, might have an advantage with some forms of dream control. For example, those who expect repercussion within dreams due to conduct would no doubt experience it, or degradation in their ability to LD, by way of a punishment for their perceived abuse of their abilities. (irrespective of whether such repercussions really do have a source outside of ourselves, for the purposes of discussion.) Whereas those who believe it is purely in your head, would not be subject to those repercussions from themselves. Obviously speaking in a very general sense, independent beliefs vary widely therefore effects will also.
Beliefs affect how we process and assimilate our information, so I would think it would, but positive or negative, remains to be seen, in my opinion.
I wouldn’t consider myself as an example of this. Although I have spiritual views, it was because I was a very imaginative child and happened to start LD’ing at that time. So of course, I already had the mentality that anything was possible and naturally a lot of willpower. I was pretty fortunate.
Sounds like a good idea for an experiment. 
hmm interesting thought. You would first have to examine who has faith in what. And go from there. This could be a very interesting experiment
! i like