From my experience with dreams, I have been able to experience the astral equivalent of every physical sensation I'm familiar with; e.g. touching soft and silky smooth hair, feeling cold water on body, eating delicious food, seeing with clarity, hearing music, smelling familiar scents, etc.
However, physical pain seems to be a bit unclear. It was only just last night when I tested out for the first time the sensation of pain in a dream; I brought my hand close to a Penguin and it pecked at my fingers hard and there was a very sharp and startling pinch that felt realistic and painful. In previous dream experiences that would normally induce pain in the physical world, I would feel vague, abstract, mild and uncertain forms of pain... Well, If I can experience virtually every other sensation I have in the 3rd and 4th dimension then I don't see why pain would be left out in the astral world...
My best bet is that we sense best in our dreams whatever sensations we are most familiar with and have memorize well. These senses have a lot of "astral momentum" as one theosophist put it, just like the momentum that creates our astral body and makes it feel and appear realistic.