Further dreams

[larryhammer]

When I was very young, I had repeated nightmares of falling. Usually, I fell off things, from at least second-story height, but sometimes I fell from mid-air. Sometimes this came out of the dreamstory, others it just happened. Either way, a nightmare. I always woke on impact -- except this one dream. It was one of the from mid-air ones, over our back patio. This time, when I hit the ground, I teleported twenty feet above the ground and fell again. And again. And again. Total major freak-out material here -- but not, apparently, major enough to wake me up. Finally, one repeat, as I plummeted at the ground, out of sheer panicked desperation, I ... missed.

Instead, I floated a couple feet off the ground. Which surprised me so much, I woke up. Finally.

That was my last falling nightmare -- and my first flying dream.

When I first read Douglas Adams's description of flying, I went, "Yes! Exactly!"

---L.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

There's a degree of awareness I have in dreams where sometimes I know it's a dream and I can fly, sometimes I suspect it's a dream and I can fly, sometimes I think it's a dream but I can't fly but I can still jump off of high places and land on my feet, and times I know it's a dream and still can't get any altitude. Those last times are rarer and rarer, though I well remember early dreams where I tried to fly to get away from someone and got grabbed by the ankle.

There have also been dreams where I worked on my flying technique, using things I'd learned about birds and their wings -- fingers together on the downstroke, apart on the upstroke. More recently, I'm trying to get away from the labor-intensive sort of flying and just tell myself that if my arms are out, I should be able to fly high and fast. (For years, I suffered from a chronic upper altitude limit that made it entirely too likely somebody could grab me by the ankle.)

Flying is a good way to get places in dreams. Lots of good dreams start with me in the vicinity of my old house, and then I just pick a direction and head off, looking for adventures or at least amusement.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_twilight_/]

I can't always fly, but jumping and hovering (even changing directions) for a very long time is quite easy. :)