This is for the experts out there. I’d like to know what can be accomplished as I’ve begun studying lucid dreaming and I find it quite fascinating. How close to wakeful clarity can be gained with much practice? (percentage wise, maybe) Will I eventually be able to remember lucid dreams almost clearly as real life events? Can I practice instruments in my dreams? Will I have the ability to let my mind generate scenarios but still remain lucid to explore them? Any other thoughts on what the limits are?
To put it simply, the limitations extend as far as your imagination.
Depending on the strength of a Lucid Dream, you can often experience the same level of conscious thought as you can while awake. Also, your memory tends to function better while lucid than it does in normal dreams. In fact, I can still vividly remember my first few LDs, which originally gave me the impression that consciousness allows for better memory.
You can play instruments, but the sound will almost certainly not match what you are playing. You have to understand that the sound you are hearing is not actually generated by the instrument, so you’ll find that you won’t actually benefit from practising playing in a LD. It might still be fun though, so give it a go. Undoubtedly, the first time you touch something you will start to understand just what is possible in lucid dreams. Objects feel perfectly real, and can look as clear and detailed as they do in real life.
Not only is it possible to let your mind generate random scenarios, it’s inevitable. You can control certain aspects about where you are, and what your surroundings might look like, but your subconscious will always fill in the details. You will see items laying around that you have never seen before, and characters may appear in places, doing random things. I was actually once talked into going for a run through a desert by a dream character that I did not create.
Good luck, and don’t give up. It’s worth it. 
Wow, this is all so incredible. Is it still possible, with full concentration, to say create a simple hall with a piano and get over performance anxieties or something with limited randomness? Also, what kind of time interval for getting to an “experienced” level am I looking at? I can recall 2-3 dreams each night, I’ve had about 3 “fake” lucid dreams.
It depends on the instrument, and the dreamer. I’ve often dreamt of playing the piano when I was practicing. I played better than real life, all the keys seemed to play the right note. I couldn’t go wrong. Though I like to think it helped me practice, it would be hard to try practicing a certain piece… I’m guessing. I’ve never really tried.
Well, I’ve played the piano for 12 years now and I’m at what people would consider a virtuoso level. I hope my consciousness will be able to generate a realistic instrument 
Think for a moment about how your imagination works in real life. You can be doing anything you like (for example, right now you’re reading this from a computer screen) yet at any time, you can use your imagination to visualize anything you want. It wont change the room you are in now, or the objects you are interacting with, but you can still expereince things on a somewhat unrealistic level any time you wish.
Now, when dreaming, what you are seeing is your imagination. If you want to just stand still and think about some place, or person, then chances are they will appear somewhere in your dream. You don’t exactly have a separate little ‘note pad’ like you do while awake. What you imagine, you will see.
This may give you the impression that the dream world is unstable, and to a drgree it is, but it’s controllable. When you become lucid, you tend to take more notice of every part of your surroundings. Quite simply, the moment you stop looking at something (and stop thinking about it) it no longer exists.
What kind of perception clarity is possible compared to real life after alot of experience? Something like 95%? Also, what if I don’t want to have a LD; can I just easily let me consciousness drift off to real sleep in an LD?
What is it with people not wanting to have a LD over the last few weeks? 
I don’t think it would be a challenge to lose the lucidity once you had it, but I really, really can’t see why you would want to. Though I havn’t tried it myself, I think you may actually find yourself waking up from a LD more often than simply losing the lucidity.
Its hard putting a percentage on the level of clarity you have while lucid. How clear is your mind when you first wake up in the monring? Not very clear. People take a while to ‘get going’ once they wake up, so you may find it’s the same in LDs. Since your conscious mind has just been asleep for a few hours, you may be a little hazy for a while. Most people can’t LD for hours, so it’s hard to say how much better it gets.
This is also all relative to how lucid you are, so I guess there is no quick answer.
Atheist, I really like your computer screen analogy and how it relates to what one experiences in a lucid dream. It gave me an “ah ha!” 
about a few techniques I’ve been practicing with focus and meditation. I think these practices are benificial in keeping the environment in a LD “under control” more or less and helping in extending the experience time-wise. Recently I had a LD where I could read things very accurately, which is odd, since I’ve heard that letters and sentences change… and I thought this while within the LD and then slowly the letters changed IN RESPONSE to my thought. Also, it was the longest feeling lucid dream I’ve had so far, about 10 minutes “real-time” in my estimation (since I conveniently didn’t have a watch, lol). I came to the conclusion, or I’m becoming more convinced that a mind with focus or a level of consciousness that is “still” and “unobstructed” with extranious thought helps keep the “scene” of the LD last longer… basically a longer LD.
That’s exactly right, Infinite Isis.
When you consider that everything that happens in your dreams is all coming from within your own mind, it makes sense that anything you see is a result of whatever you are thinking about at the time. You’re example with the unchanging text is the same as my earlier observations using the clock RC. After reading the time, I would keep thinking about the time I just read, which is why it didn’t seem to change for me. This is why I changed my watch/clock RC method to now include actively trying to change the time, rather than simply letting it change itself - which was not guarenteed to happen.
Anyway, I agree with your theory. Keeping your mind focused on a particular thing will usually result in a prolonged experience. Even closing your eyes creates another oppertunity for you to lose lucidity. If the world around you dosn’t logically make sense, then your mind can’t interperet it correctly.
Your right Atheist, good info.
Okay, You guys have gone through the most. But the thing is, according to whoever you can say you are a very strong lucid dreamer, but there is something that is called how you percept the world, how you see on things, realises them and sutch. That influences what you can do in your dream, and the subconsiusness is allways trying to makes things understandable.
So creating a hall out of nowhere would be for a hardcore Lucid dreamer, But concentrating that behind a door would be the hall and the piano is much much more belivible to your own mind, so it is easier.
About how real the LD can be. I have had LDs that have been more “real” than my every day life, but that is just b/c that i concentrated on a way that my mind would remember and feel as it was more than it was. It can be experienced in real life, but is easier when you are in the land of your mind. But Ive allways thought that things can be more vivid, as vivid or less vivid as real life. The thing that normally is less vivid for me is sex. i have no idea why, but its just less vivid. Smell taste and sight and other touch things is realy vivid, but sex. sigh
About you playing your piano in your LD. Yep, very possible. Your mind has a rememberance that excludes your active part, and under dreams you can “remember” the exact sounds, and maybe the way the sound bounces as you are in different sorroundings. So it would be very possible for you to play in a lucid dream.