An important aspect of understanding the scale forms is being able to play what you hear in your mind, and to play the same thing in many different places on the fretboard. Once you can play whatever you hear in any of the five forms, the need to move to somewhere "more comfortable" is eliminated and you can improvise much more freely.
A good way to develop this ability is to play a simple melody you already know from memory (e.g. Yankee Doodle) in any of the forms, and then move it to all other possible fingerings on the fretboard. You can often play the same melody twice in different octaves within the one form. Once you can easily play a melody anywhere on the fretboard, choose another one and repeat the process, then another, etc. Make it part of your daily practice. It is also recommended that you always sing the lines you are playing. This makes sure you are really hearing the melody and not just playing from finger memory.
This example uses a two bar phrase played in all five forms in the key of C major.