Lucid but can't DIRECTLY control my dreams?

I haven't really been trying lucid dreaming, but I was just feeling tired today midafternoon and just plopped in my bed. Some few minutes later, I fell into a dream state. I had a super vivid view of everything in the dream. And yet, I knew I was lucid dreaming because I could still feel my real life body lying down on the bed at the same time feeling everything in my dream body. It was strange, because it was like feeling like you're lying, but at the same time feel like you're standing up. So I knew I was dreaming.

So anyways problem lies here. In my dream there was the big ocean below me and I kept falling onto it bouncing way back up like it was a trampoline. And at the moment I realized I was lucid I thought, "Hey, why not try flying?" So I try to fly and close my dream eyes and imagine myself flying, but when I open them, I'm not flying and still bouncing around over the ocean. It's kinda like this. Imagine yourself in real life. No matter how hard you imagine yourself flying, it's impossible. Well, in my dream, I kept imagining it and it wasn't happening.

HOWEVER, I did notice that I can control my dreams, yet not in the way I like. So I stop bouncing and land floating in the ocean. I keep thinking, please don't let a shark appear, don't let a shark appear. And what do you know? A shark appears. So I think to myself, if that shark appeared because of my thinking, I should just as easily be able to make it disappear, right? Well I think really hard and the shark still doesn't disappear. And right when it's about to attack me, I start bouncing again off the ocean continuously. So I'm thinking, "Thank goodness. Just keep bouncing and don't stop and the shark won't get me." And right when I think that, I stop bouncing. Then the shark almost gets me once I land but magically saved by a random stream of water that washes me away from the shark.

So my questions: Why is it when I want something to happen, it doesn't happen. Why is it when I desperately hope something doesn't happen, it happens. And even more, in my dreams, why is it that when I desperately hope something will happen because I'm in danger, I get saved at the exact last second, but the way I'm saved is not the way I was hoping to be saved. Example: I was desperately hoping I would start bouncing again once the shark was coming for me a second time. However, I end up getting saved by what I least expect. A jet stream of water. In fact, things ALWAYS happen in my dreams that are completely random and I don't expect, even when I'm lucid. And funny thing is this thrilling enjoyable bouncing action packed dream only lasted 10 minutes when I checked the time in real life, yet it felt like 30 minutes.

hello there i am not an experienced one but i can tell you some facts related to your question.
1. i think that was a lucid dream with a good level lucidity.
2. when you were bouncing and trying to imagine hard that you should stop bouncing at that time you internally knew that you may not stop and your thinking may not work .suppose if we are passing through a wall in a dream and we try hard to imagine that we will pass through it but we have different experience with walls in waking life which creates a mental block and we could not pass it right away but if we realize the full implications of dream then we will definitely pass through it. so next time you are in a dream just stabilize the dream and think about some memory of waking life that will help you increase your awareness and things will be easier for you.
3. do not close your eyes in dreams ever it may collapse your dream.
4. do not use negative words in dreams our subconscious mind don't accept it so when you thought don't make a shark appear your mind took it as make a shark appear and left don't.

and congratulations you had a 30 min long dream i am struggling to reach that far.

Hey,
lucidity does not equal dream control in any way. Lucidity just means realising that you are dreaming while still being in that given dream. I for instance often have a high degree of control in my lucid dreams, but however sometimes there are dreams in which I realise that I am dreaming, but I can't actively control them (sometimes I can change bits of it, but the dream just drags on without giving me a chance to control it). However once you have some sort of control over your lucid dreams it all comes down to expectation. If you expect something with absolute certainty then it will happen.

I can't tell you why you get saved in the last second and in a different way than you expect. You might just ask DCs when you are lucid and have some control. They might give you answers to some questions you have like "Why does .... happen?".

benni is correct with this; lucidity doesn't mean controlling dreams. Perhaps instead of trying to control your dreams, you could just see where the dream is going while staying lucid. It would be quite nice to just sit back and watch the dream unfold. You could always try controlling it another time.

Now I've heard about changing the dreamscape or going somewhere else. There are a few ways that I've heard of (like going through a mirror, a door, or turning around and expecting the scene to be there) to go somewhere else, and maybe by doing that, you can change what the dream does? I don't know if this will work, but at least I'm suggesting something. xD