It is not necessarily a case of conscious self-aggrandizement; indeed, usually one is not conscious of it at all. Hence the need for the dream! Self-inflation may be of two kinds: where the ego is ‘possessed’ by some unconscious factor; or where the ego will not deign to pay attention to the unconscious; or both.
If you are prone to accidents, these may be symptomatic of an ego that is too much under the control of (unintegrated) unconscious forces.
(2) The fear of falling felt in a dream may be symbolic of your real-life fear of letting go. Perhaps the dream is urging you to stop resisting an impulse from the unconscious.
The anxiety expressing itself in a dream of falling may best be dealt with by letting yourself go with the fall, with a view to both finding out what it is that you are frightened of and finding a way of transforming the anxiety-response into a more positive and creative response. Strephon Kaplan-Williams recommends that you stay with the falling in the dream itself (having prepared yourself to do so beforehand), not wake up before the end of the dream. As a way of preparing yourself to do that, you might try writing out the dream again - or re-living it in imagination - only this time letting the fall complete itself. You may learn a lot from this.
See also Flying, section (4) and Introduction, pages 14—15 and 38-39.