Quote Originally Posted by RebelSeven View Post
That's why this is such an out-dated idea. Everything can be excused by the ceaseless repetition "You just didn't believe in it enough. You had some doubt" and then it is impossible to get at the true mental mechanism of the dreamer's difficulty with dream control. It smothers the chance to grow.

In my lava dream (sorry I didn't make it clearer) I was believing that I would fail to protect myself, and that I would feel pain from the heat, to the point that I almost bailed on the whole idea, but here my beliefs were proved false.
What if that repetition is the truth? What if you really failed because of that you didn't believe in the success? Oh just because people repeat something that doesn't make it false instantly.

Thoughts are incredibly different than beliefs. Thoughts and attention are far better tools to manipulate your dreams. You can affect them, tweak them, play with them. Learn to control your awareness and focus your mind, this is all useful in dreaming and life.

Beliefs are stagnant and by their very nature are unchangeable. This makes them a useless form of control
Beliefs are built upon thoughts. They are not that different in their nature as you seem to think
Your beliefs can also change, so that's false.

As you were walking towards the lava, fearing that it might hurt you, you probably realized that you have nothing to fear, since it's just a dream even if the lava seemed scary at first... therefore it didn't hurt you
Your belief about the dangerous nature of the lava changed.

Anyway, i don't plan to continue this, since we don't seem to get anywhere. You have your own way of thinking and i have mine