Quote Originally Posted by StephenBerlin View Post
And, while I'm here, I want to add this note for the previous posters. Yes, our "expectations" and "confidence" certainly do obviously play a key role in lucid dreaming. That being said - even with all of my years of flying and walking through walls in lucid dreams - and fully realizing "I can do it" - I occasionally have lucid dreams where I can't get off the ground or can't pass through a barrier. Every dream comes with its own potential and limitations for whatever inexplicable reason.
Exactly. I experience the same thing, and not only with flying. Sometimes confidence and expectation just aren't enough. There is that "something" that prevents me sometimes from carrying out certain tasks.

I never expect anyone to take anything I ever say as lucid dreaming gospel. We each have different experience, wide-ranging degrees of lucidity, variations in our brain chemistry, and even perhaps the influence of any of a multitude of prescribed medications. A huge number of factors are involved. Whereas we can learn from one another, we are each unique in this field. I place no limit whatsoever on your dreams.
We place no limits on our dreams, but I believe that dreams do place limits on us. It isn't just a "virtual world" in which you can literally do anything. At least for me it isn't. And I arrived at this conclusion not because I tried to do something, "expecting" to fail, but rather the other way around. I was confident I could do it, but failed. Some things I was able to learn (flying, walking through walls, etc.) but other things I am not able to accomplish to this day. I could also do much better with flying. It also varies from dream to dream.

As you said, a huge number of factors are involved.