Thread: Geography and Navigation in Dreams

I'm going to strive on here as I think there are some important issues to be addressed.
This:

"That is an assumption, not a fact. I have had lucid dreams for years, and sometimes in some LDs I had such a high degree of lucidity that it was remarkable: recalling the current date (try it, it's difficult), what day of the week it is, what time I went to bed, what my activities were before bed, and completely aware that my surroundings are a product of my mind, and completely convinced that I am able to change everything and do everything. Despite all of that, not "everything" was in my control. I couldn't do certain tasks."

I think is the crux of the matter. What Jakob has said amounts to a logical fallacy 'this is my experience and so it must be correct and apply to all. Everyone in this thread is guilty of it to some degree.
The trouble is that expectation in dreams not producing the desired effect in a dream does not discount the role of expectation in all dreams. We've all had dreams where we've flown, looked down at the sickening height, feared for our safety, and the dream responds according to our shifted expectations and we start to fall rapidly to the ground. But to take expectation and apply it to all experiences in an attempt to disprove it as a force in dream control ignores the possibility of other factors that can account for lack of control where expectation is present, focus, intent, and myriad other psychological mechanics of which we are not aware.
I think anyone who hasn't done so already should follow Dinosawr's advice and read Billybob's excellent thread on throwing off the limitations we place on our dreams.

I am just citing from Billybob's tutorial Mastering Your Dreams which I have taken to heart. I hope you will consider what I have said, and I would love to hear your opinion on this matter.

And here I think is the most important, and potentially damaging statement, in the discussion.

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.

You apply your experience to everyone. Again you say there are other factors in dreaming... And yet you disregard expectation effect with no attention to other variables in dream control.

"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"

. This statement is self-contradictory, you say you place no limits on your dreams and yet you've been telling us that there are things that cannot be done in dreams. You say "at least for me it isn't", don't you think you might be missing out on something in this amazing world of lucid dreaming without limits? It's ironic, you say that lucid dreaming 'isn't a virtual world', when that's precisely what lucid dreaming is. It's a virtual world generated by your mind's inner video graphics accelerator, running scripts based schemata (sets of unconscious expectations that you apply to every object in your life, for instance your schemata for a tree say it has green leaves, branches, but doesn't have wheels), and like a simulation or video game, you can play around with the code. In dreams, the action of gravity, and even the dimensionality of the dream space, is entirely dependent on the unconscious expectations you bring from your waking life of the world around you having gravity etc.
In mental space there is no need for measurements of physical space, what use are miles and metres in a mental representation of a dimensional reality. In fact it could be said in dream navigation that the only true statement we can make is that the dreamer remains stationary while the dream moves around them. Any destination or action is only an act of intent away. As Robert Waggoner was told by a particularly perceptive dream figure in one of his early lucid dreams, 'Mister, in this place, any way is the right way'.