I ask because it’s considered common knowledge that you can’t but I regularly have dreams where I continue books I’m reading irl (they usually devolve into naritive nonsense over time and then sometimes to blank pages, but the actual text is definitely deciferable), text messages, computer screens, and road signs, in both lucid and regular dreams. Am I the odd man out or is it actually just something people say?
It’s commonly used as a plot device in stories, and in my experience people will tell you about it as a way to “wake up” in the dream if you complain about nightmares and people I’ve spoken to IRL about it take it as accepted truth
You can read in dreams, but usually the text changes if you look away and look back. That’s the “dream check” most teach when explaining lucid dreaming.
There’s exceptions to this. Text that is strongly associated with images may stay static, e.g. a brand logo, but I find it’s incredibly hard for documents and books to retain their information.