Okay, so I had an LD last night. I was in a warehouse looking for one of my fave actors, Rick Gomez! 
I kept EXPECTING that he was behind me or to the side of me–nothing. I searched all over that dang warehouse and couldn’t seem to find him. How do I get him (or other people) to appear?! I mean, it’s majorly frustrating! If you EXPECT something to happen in a DREAM, shouldn’t it?
One other question: have any of you had the problem where you think you’ve found someone you wanted, but they don’t look QUITE like the person you wanted–like your dream changed their face a bit? Youd’ think our minds could unconsciously memorize that person’s face for you. How do you change that? 
In my last LD, I had a problem that looks like yours… I just suddenly lost the control of the dream… I was Lucid yet, and trying to control stuff, but it wasn’t working anyway… Than, I woked up few moments after has lost the control…
Yeah, I’ve had things of that nature happen as well. Sometimes people in a dream can appear to be not what you expected. I don’t think it’s anything that a little more practice and experience won’t cure though. Get creative. Maybe you could put the guy in a big machine that will make him what you expect him to be? But then there’s the issue of actually finding this “magical” machine. I don’t know. Keep at it, you may just need a little more experience.
I get the idea that you TRIED to expect it. Expectations are not voluntary. You must find a reason to expect things to happen. If it is enough to know that you are dreaming and that Rick Gomez might easily be next to you, that is perfect, but how often are things really perfect? Maybe all you need is to think about it, come to the logical conclusion that he is there, or maybe you need to do the thing with the machine. Anything goes.
If just plain expecting doesn’t work, try doing something like saying (you also really have to believe in it) “when I snap my fingers, it will appear” or something.
Heh, I had a similar problem in my last lucid dream. I went up to a door and tried to convince myself that when I opened it, I’d see an underwater dreamscape that I could jump into and swim around in… when I opened the door and jumped, though, I just fell into an abyss and felt the dream fade 
.
It generally takes some practice. You need to truly know it would work, and not only to expect it to.
Thank you for your replies! The mind IS a powerful thing, we just need to believe it like you all said. BTW, Twilight Dreamer, do you know the Twilight series??? IT FREAKING ROCKS! 
No, I never heard of the Twilight Series… But it does sound cool. Too bad its low fantasy…
Yeah, it is pretty low fantasy, but that’s what makes it SO awesome–it’s realistic. I highly reccomend them though! 
I’ve had this problem before too. Try instead to find a door, and expect the person to be in the room behind the door. This works for changing scenery as well. I actually practiced this IRL because when I’m standing in my bathroom, its hard to visualize something else behind it other than my hall. A trick for doing that is: say you wanted to change the scene to a beach… Then expect there to be sand coming under the crack of the door, then visualize the two rooms blending, then open the door to the full beach. Does that make sense? Try to find a way to hint of what’s behind the door before you open it for better chances.
OMG–genius! 
That is so clever! So, for example, if I wanted to go to a ballroom, I could make classical music sound like it’s coming from behind the door then open it? Sa-weet.
Agreed, that’s an awesome idea! 
If you want to be lazy though, get yourself an all-powerful magic wand. 
Seriously, they’re very “no-brainer”, you can’t really go wrong with a magic wand unless you expect it to break or something. You can just wave it and say something along the lines of “Rick Gomez, appear!” and he will. It works for just about everything. I hardly ever use the things because I like learning powers and such on my own the hard way, and I’ve mastered a lot of them. But anyways, that’s a very lazy way to do it, 
I LOVE Skidzz’s idea! gives Skidzz ebil cookies 
I have this problem too, and I have also had the same problem as razor2518, except in my last lucid dream I was able to get back my “powers” by trying. In all my lucid dreams for some reason I think that I should be able to walk through walls. I actually go to do it and just bang into the wall. It makes me really confused because I’m sure I should be able to do it but can’t.
That’s odd. 
If you’re really that confident you should be able to do it, you must have at least a little doubt that it won’t work because otherwise it really should be working for you. Walking through walls, (or “Phasing”) is a really fun power, (one of my personal faves, ) until I completely mastered it I was having the same problem except that sometimes it would work. The problem was that I still had an inkling of self-doubt, once I said out-loud, “This is MY dream, this wall doesn’t even exist, so I CAN and WILL go through it!” It worked! 
How exactly are you trying to phase? At first I had to make phasing work by touching the wall, then it would kind of suck my hand into it and the area around my hand would kind of “warp” like putting your hand in water. After a while I could phase without touching the wall, and now I’m at the point where I can be flying at extremely high speeds and phase through a window with ease so just keep practising. I hope at least some of that helped you! 
to add my own two cents : i , to phase beginn to “feel” myself becoming able to go trough , i “feel” the wall getting like gauze and slip trough it like i were walking trough a water stream … , put all doubts aside , and it will work eventually …
I think if there’s any thought in your mind that you’re not sure expecting will work, it won’t. For example, I was passing a corner in a dream and expected to see a dream set, the seat appeared, but before the entire set came into my line of view I was a bit surprised and not exactly certain that it would be there - although I was expecting it to be there. I believe the biggest enemy in the quest to lucidity is doub.t
Yep, or lights alternating colors and coming through the bottom of the door. You get the idea it seems. That’s good. 
It was hard for me to describe in words. I’m still trying to get me proficient at it myself.
Gosh, is it ever. I’ve never tried poking a finger through the palm of my hands as a RC before. I started doing it though to add variety, and one day IRL the thought came to me “What if I try it and it feels all gory and I feel the bones in my hand.” So the first time I tried it in a lucid dream, that’s what happened. It was disgusting. I guess it worked, though. I guess I’m saying that not only doubt, but expectation causes something to fail. Last night I had a ND that my friend was floating, and I went to float beside him (see my DJ) but expected not to be able to (I didn’t doubt I could fly since I was seeing my friend do it, I just expected that something would probably go wrong. So when it comes to LDing, expectation is everything. For an RC to work, you have to expect weird results. For a dream scene to change, you have to expect it too. So I agree: doubt is the LD slayer.
LOL That sounds pretty gross! 
I had a question about a hand RC. I was hoping a good RC would be to look at my hands everytime I walk through a door. And when I go through a door in a dream, I would look at my hands and realize that I’m dreaming. Does that depend on the person or does it usually work for any of you? 