These really intense dreams, are you in control of the imagery, or is it something you are experiencing beyond your control? When I have intense dreams and try to control them the fidelity breaks down and I usually wake up.
Didn’t practice too much, maybe you can get better at control, my own actions I could control including things like walking through wall or flying off from balcony, but not so much environment around me, a bit but not much. For waking up (very common when you realise you are in a dream) for me spinning around always worked very well. For me visual and sensual details were absolutely impressive, it’s at the level you can easily believe there exists another world, but it’s always nonsense threaded from your own memory with logic errors everywhere, however when inside the feel of truthness of reality is absolutely overwhelming.
By spin around I mean keep turning around in your dream when you feel you're loosing it/waking up, don't close eyes in the dream but in reality you're lying down with closed eyes (without spinning)! :)
Yeah, I don't have much control yet. I can choose where to go, and I can look around and stuff, but I can't really change the scenery. I think you can do it with practice though.
I have managed to fly a few times, but the first couple of times I tried, I jumped and fell flat on my face! I don't really experience pain in my dreams though.