Yes, I'm still alive. And well. I've been in a very inconsistant dry spell since near January and have been having lots of lucid moments, but no full blown LDs... until now.

I dreamt I was making a video game to show off to my friends. It was a combination of Zelda, Donkey Kong, and a FPS. One of my friends told me through a disembodied voice that it was terrible and had no plot while I watched his game screen. The thought occurred to me that this was a strange thing to do, but I didn't realize that I was dreaming just yet.

Then I was walking down the halls of my old elementary school when I turned a corner and woke up. In a half-awake state I remembered about the MILD technique and repeated to my self, "I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming," while imagining myself performing various reality checks. When I finally fell asleep it took me less than two minutes to realize I was dreaming.

I was full of excitement, as I hadn't had an LD for awhile, and immediately tried to test the extent of my LD powers. I was in front of my house standing in the street and jumped in the air and dove straight forward. I was about to fly... but then I hit the ground. Then I remembered I had read somewhere in this forum about the lotus position being a more effective way of flying, so I tried that. I got better results than the first attempt, but I wouldn't exactly call it flying. It was more like travelling agonizingly slow 5 inches from the ground and occasionally bumping into it. I found a group of college kids and when one insulted me about my lack of dream abilities, I pulled back to pulverize him with a blast of energy. What happened instead was that I stood there with my arm outstretched and looked really stupid.

When I woke up, I remembered something. I've never been able to fly in my LDs, or, if I can, I never am able to enjoy it fully. I'm either flying to slow or close to the ground, or both. Dream powers are limited and very tempermental if at all. Scenes are hard to change. You would think that after awhile it would be easier to do all of these things with ease, but I haven't in almost the year since I started LDing. Does anyone know how I can fly easier and have more control over other dream elements? That would help me greatly if you do.