hey there night flyer...welcome to afterlife knowledge. you already know the answer to your questions and just want confirmation.
I'm gonna go out on a limb to say yes, all this time you've been an explorer within astral realms but since the collective agreement in this world asserts dreams are nothing more than unexpressed desires, or rehashes of some past experience, or even (love this one) due to spicy food intake, then you could not speak about your dreams and flights for you would be certainly misunderstood.
what I see you doing right now is "waking up" to who you really are. as is so often the case here we dance not to get to the end of the dance, but just to dance, so I am fantastically enjoying your creativeness as well the many sharings you bring to us.
actually I want you to write a book, but that's because I'm into that writing thing, so if you could write one, maybe I could take a vacation...lol....you have plenty of material and top notch.
it's what I call involuntary astral travel versus voluntary. or spontaneous obe versus controlled, experimental obe. btw, I have been accused unfairly of having an overactive imagination, which I somehow managed to turn into a compliment for myself..lol...you see, you must remember what Einstien said quote, all you non-believers..."Imagination is more important than knowledge." I believe he said this to mean this earthly life values knowledge, which is finite, which is absolute, which is infallible. yet if you look around you, your tenure here is temporary, therefore not finite, not absolute and seemingly so fallible to woe or struggle to maintain absoluteness. therefore give way to imagination, for that is where dreams help us as well as feelings, intuitions, nudges towards what society will call insanity. imagination is the essence of what it means to be a co-creator with the creator.
your feelings tell you that you have been going obe all along. therefore you generate excitement of this knowing, and from that stems the thought "am I more than I thought I was?" ha ha! get it? that's what I mean you are waking up to your "moreness!" this exciting knowledge will lead you deeper into more adventures if you don't short curcuit it with doubting that you can fly, anywhere, anytime. the freedom of from involuntary flight to voluntary flight is inexpressible by word alone, and so that is what Bruce's books will do, to tell you to seek an experience rather than seeking an absolute truth, an absolute knowledge. the only absolute truth there is that I have found is that there appears to be a safety net out there when exploring, doorkeepers and such, so that we always end up exactly where we are supposed to end up; heres the clincher: according to our imagination.
early on, I was out there flying also. flapping my arms. lol. I was always surprised arms could work as good as wings to lift one off the ground. it was difficult. lol. one has to flap awfully hard for maximum velocity and freedom from gravity. I'm lazy. later, floating or gliding took over. becoming an orb, by conscious imaginary technique was the best of all experiences and portended the end of involuntary obe's. in such an instance, to experience yourself as a ball of light makes getting back to the body a delightful experience! ha ha!
what is just as fun as obe, is to practice asking a question: then releasing it and forgetting about it. then getting the answer and surprising yourself that you are able to do this; that you are able to hold your cup up, and that it will be filled, and to the measure that you have imagined, and sometimes will overflow. makes a gal get lazy after that! ha ha! talk later. you are something, you know?
btw, my opinion, astral is associated with emotions, an emotional creative dimension, right brained.
there is a mental projection plane you explore with the question idea. it's also fun. I think my orb experience was a mental body projection and therefore I was starting to use the left side of the brain where before I was primarily right brained. when the mental and emotional get in perfect alignment, thats when exploration gets even more fun.