|
Ask most folks why they like flying dreams and
they'll probably answer, "Because they're fun." They're
expansive, energetic, expressive and euphoric. They feel good.
Of course, we're talking about the best case scenario, not
flights where you're frightened, frustrated, fatigued or
flummoxed. Dream flights span the range of emotion and
sensation, but even those at the negative end of the scale can
be beneficial. While fun may still be topmost on your list of
motivating factors, there are plenty of others to ponder.
Would any of these ABCs inspire you to have dream
flights?
Award for Awakening
Once I incubated a series of flying dreams when I'd been
feeling so stiff in the mornings that I practically hobbled
out of bed. During the third of my dreams, I dreamt I was
dancing in the air. As the dream drew to a close, my radio
alarm clicked on. It was tuned to a station that was
broadcasting a song with a rollicking beat. Dancing in my
dreams became dancing out of bed and around the room. There
simply was no physical stiffness left. The emotions and energy
of a buoyant nighttime flight can certainly carry well into
the day. On the other hand, if flying causes us to wake while
we're still asleep, we get another sort of award. It's called
lucid dreaming.
Browsing the Body and Brain
Have you ever had an in-the-body experience? I don't mean
inhabiting the physical body during the day. I mean traveling
through it, deep in the night, as a fairy-like bit of
consciousness. For dreams, it doesn't matter what size we are.
Our awareness of self can shrink and become a traveler on a
fantastic voyage through the body's systems, but the pictures
will be produced for normal size comprehension. For instance,
the flash of light created by the visual nervous system might
be perceived as a storm with lighting in an inky dark
landscape. When we're small enough, the lungs may seem to be a
huge cave of howling wind. I bet you didn't know that Hades is
located in the intestines! The flyer is graced with a gift to
keep the underworld under her skin from being too
overwhelming. She has the ability to rise above it.
Courage to Confront; Choice to Create
In the schema of American psychologist Abraham Maslow,
there are two major motivations that help determine our
thoughts, feelings and behavior: basic needs and growth needs.
When our basic needs (like air, food, safety, companionship
and esteem) are not met, we worry and fret, even agonize and
fear. These reactions are converted into the normative
nightmare and anxiety dream. The flyer has a tactical
advantage regarding threats: flight or fight. We can run away
from problems (flight) or come back to confront them (fight).
When basic needs are satisfied, the energy that had been
forced to fulfill them is liberated for the growth of human
potential. Instead of trudging through trouble, we are free to
fly. As we fly free from survival imperatives, we expand our
artistic horizons. We sculpt creative dreams; we create our
own reality.
Decoding Day Residue
Flying dreams have been labeled "bizarre," that is, they
don't conform to the constraints imposed by the physical
world. It's true that your physical body will walk or run or
drive a car down the street. But your inner body-sense surely
doesn't. It floats along for the ride. Your physical body may
break into a smile over a happy event, but your inner body
leaps for joy. Your physical body may sit on an office chair,
while a spark of your inner consciousness soars to the South
Seas in reverie. Comes time to form a dream about daytime
events and the sleeping mind is not limited to a literal
depiction of life. Rather than a mundane description of your
daily commute to work, it may well depict a slow but steady
flight through city streets. Or perhaps the orchestral sounds
from your car's loud speakers may invoke uplifting emotions
that evoke an ecstatic flight to anywhere but city streets.
Thus, when you get ready to decode a flying dream, ignore the
blatant "bizarre" imagery. Dig underneath it. Concentrate on
sensations, emotions and thoughts. These are the elements that
echo an actual waking event. Dream pictures don't have to be
photographic records of a recent daytime experience. For
flying dreams, the mind reveals the hidden side of self. It
paints how you feel.
Emotional Environmentalism
Dreaming together with other people doesn't guarantee a
communal high. If it happens spontaneously, it's far more
likely that a shared dream will be a nightmare or anxiety
experience. It's deliberate co-dreaming that's likely to shift
focus towards mutual agreement and harmony. Successful mutual
dreamers have this in common: most all know how to fly.
Although their dreams may begin as an anxiety event,
resolution can occur in-dream and the dream will end on an
upbeat note. This is the Environmental Effect: the conversion
of negative to positive while the dream is still happening.
Instead of shadow land, the dream becomes a land of light. In
the long run, the percentage of negative dreams drops rather
dramatically. The flyer is, then, a dream environmentalist,
recycling the residue of daily waste and polluted programming
and retrofitting our minds with attitudes and aptitudes that
build us new Edens.
Finding Friendship
As the flyer matures, flight away from life into the long
night of the hermit's cave transforms into tentative return.
The flyer becomes more willing to risk human relationship and
finds new courage to attempt communication. When I'm lucid and
other dream characters share the same scene, I often ask if
anyone would like to come fly with me. The characters may
raise their hands or simply come forward to join me. A
co-flight can be parallel, hand-in-hand or enmeshed with
co-mingled bodies. This flow of interaction carries over to
the waking state. As a whole, flying dreamers are more likely
than most to share their dreams with other people when they
wake up. Flying dreams are a highly prized gift of
relationship.
Glimpses of a Gorgeous Globe
Since there's no need to breathe in the hyperspace of
dream, there's no limit to how far you can fly. Dream flight
can send you streaking through the stars, en route to a
distant planet or rounding the moon and sun as if you're
propelled by a celestial sling-shot. But there's one spot
where stopping and hovering is a glorious joy. That's where
you can view the whole of our Great Blue Marble supported only
by the infinite dark. Many people write about "oneness" as if
it's some abstract concept in the land of mental ambiguity.
This dream is an opportunity to actually see it: the beauty of
the whole Earth from a vantage point aloft. The flow of the
pen may produce promises or release an ancient longing, but
the fulfillment of human hope happens in Technicolor,
feelie-vision, surround-sensation and the utter reality of
suspension in space.
Herald of Health
How healthy are you? Your dreams can hand you the clues.
Because dreams have a high relation to sensation and feeling,
they can picture such aspects of your being. They might
indicate that you are in less-than-perfect health. Conversely,
they can display the activities of a robust and vigorous
psyche. Flying - how fast, how far, how high - serves as a
thermometer of health. Do I fly through fair skies or foul? Do
I get airborne at all? The styles, moods, obstacles (or lack
of them) can indicate the state of my emotional, mental and
physical health. They can signal that well-being is on the way
or warn me that I need pay closer attention to my body, my
car, my relationships with other animals and people. I
incubate flying dreams to get my dreaming self moving away
from sickness and other sub-standard modes of being. We both
feel better that way.
Intentional Imagination
I'd like to quote British poet W. H. Auden here: "The
trouble with dreams, of course, is that other people's are so
boring"! Oh, my, can we have boring dreams? Yes, indeed. Once
in a dream group, a dreamer related a long tale of trying to
become lucid. When she finally achieved her goal, she found
herself in a empty room, without any characters, without any
props or scenery or a script being automatically produced just
for her. Since there wasn't anything interesting going on, she
shrugged her mental shoulders and let go of her lucidity.
After this, she had no desire to have any more lucid dreams.
That shocked me to the core. But I came to realize the
fundamental difference between fate and free will. The fated
dreamer lets only happenstance direct his drama. The flyer
understands she had a choice to be either passive or an active
agent in the emergence of her story. In flight, we awaken the
Inner Child who is never bored or boring because, in her
theater of dreams, she remembers how to play. She knows how to
release her emaciated imagination from its stark cage and let
it take flight.
Jokes and Jumping Jehosephat
Do you recall the last time you laughed in a dream? Have
you *ever* laughed in a dream? Here's another quote to ponder.
When psychoanalyst Victor Monke was asked about proactive
dreams, he responded that dreams were the results of
"conflicting emotional needs at the same time." If a person
truly were able to direct the course of a dream away from its
"natural" conclusion, said Monke, "he wouldn't be having the
dream" in the first place. As our legacy from Freud, we are
weighed down by the grave supposition that dreams are
repressions of some seriously perverse psychological problems.
There is an insipid inference that only troubled dreams
warrant our attention. Humor has little foothold in such a
fault-finding occupation of the mind. It comes as no surprise
to me to find out that Freud never had a flying dream in his
life. Did you know that, in dreams, it's possible to jump,
laugh, sing and giggle yourself into the air? After all,
aren't flying dreams premiere examples of "levity"? Before you
groan, you might like to know that flying dreams are great
punsters, too. Our dreaming selves can have a very humorous
perception of waking life.
Knowledge versus Kryptonite
The Kryptonite Effect is the nemesis of the flyer. It's
everything that keeps her grounded, makes it hard to launch,
slows her progress and creates a glass ceiling for her
efforts. Understanding these obstacles, and how to overcome
them, translates into helpful hints and an attitude that aids
in solving problems in related sorts of dreams. For instance,
if you come to realize that phenomena like sleep paralysis,
myclonic jerks and floating feelings are quite natural and
common on the borderlands of sleep, then the surprising
sensations of flight will intrigue rather frighten. Cognitive
therapy can change a negative mind set for flying. Behavioral
therapy helps convert knee-jerk reactions to more positive
activities. Programming for flight is practice in incubation,
a primary tool for any proactive dreamer. The more you know
and put to use, the better your dream adventures.
Comprehending Kryptonite means reviewing one's biochemical,
psychological, physical and psychic health and selecting the
appropriate tools for the job of healing. It's a holistic
approach to dreams.
Launching the Lucid Dream
My body's fatigued, my mind is mush, my self-discipline is
practically nonexistent and my dreams are few. I don't know if
you've ever been at the bottom of the barrel, but I sure have,
more times than I care to remember. A highly desirous goal,
like becoming awake as I dream, seems totally beyond my reach.
Pie in the virtual sky. There's only two ways I know to win
the prize. One, take a tremendous leap and hope you land in
the treetops rather than atop a footstool. Pull yourself
together, take a deep breath, and activate your will with all
the power of an Olympic weight lifter and jump. However, the
number of times I've leapt tall buildings with a single bound
is very low indeed. For the second option, take the slow and
easy way, one step at a time. This approach is longer, but
along the way, you can have some pretty interesting dreams. My
dreaming self begins in low gear; I take a walk around the
block. My dreaming self starts to walk; I walk and imagine
flying. My dreaming self begins to fly. Only then, do I give
myself the directive to go lucid. This route from flying to
lucidity, from slug to Super Hero, has been used successfully
by many dreamers.
Mundane Milieu To Mary Pop-ins
What's the most tedious dream you have? For me, it's a
slight variation on some trivial activity in waking life. It's
when my dreaming self is acting like my clone, and a pretty
robotic one, at that. Flying is certainly not mundane; it's a
promise and fulfillment of fantasy. So, what's a fantastic
alternative? How about Alice Through The Looking Glass?
Instead of staying in mundane reality, you imagine yourself
into a mirror. Or into a story, a movie, even a symbol. My
dreaming self likes Pop-ing Into A Picture best, so that's
what I'll choose to look at before I sleep: solid visual
blocks with which she can build the scenery, props, characters
and even story line. Flying into the picture in my imagination
translates into flying into realms of adventure when I sleep.
Or I might try Pop-ing Into A Picture on the borderlands of
sleep. During hypnogogia, I watch the scenes flash like a
slide show, then take a mental breath and launch myself into
one of them. I can start a flying dream that way. Boring, they
are not.
Nullifying the Nightmare
Flight or flight is an automatic response to fear bred from
millions of years of evolution. Since dreams can react to
instinctual promptings, running away from terror is a very
common theme. The flyer has an advantage over surface
dwellers. She can leap above grasping hands or sharpened
teeth. But fleeing is only a first step in the flyer's
defensive repertoire. She can turn and watch the threat from
above or return to fight, frighten, negotiate a cease-fire or
befriend. Should she stand her ground, learn to face down
fear, she still knows, deep in her soul, that she has a
back-up plan. She can always get airborne if need be.
Opportunity for Out-of-Body
Flying in dreams is preparation for astral projection. The
feelings of floating and soaring are already known. It's
simply a case of shifting the scenery. Instead of a fantasy
landscape, a change of consciousness provides awareness of
one's own bedroom. Being stuck in the thrall of sleep
paralysis may be scary at first, but the flyer soon realizes
she can escape that heavy, frozen feeling. By relaxing and
reaching back in her mind for the memory of gravity-free
movement, she can retrieve the sensation of lightness that
enables lift. If she exchanges her serious concern for levity,
then out-of-body she will float. Lightheartedness is the
key.
Practice for Physical Life
Wouldn't it be great to fly like Superman in the physical
world! Well, perhaps someday, someone will find the key to
unlock that secret. In the meantime, flying is still good
practice. It provides the self-esteem to stand up and face
problems in waking life. It models movement for the physical
body. Since the sensations of flight in dream derive from
sensations felt in daily life, the dream can do an about-face
and inspire still more movement, now backed by the confidence
and control that comes from practice in a safe arena. Now
matter if the goal is to roll a scooter, ride a horse, drive a
car or yes, even fly a plane, the dream builds experience for
such activities. It is a first-rate, custom made, flight
simulator.
Questioning the Status Quo
Go with the flow. A wonderful feeling. A heart-swelling
ecstasy. An effortless ride. When you have no place special to
go, catching the wind and taking it wherever it may go is the
name of the game. But supposing the flow isn't sending you
where you wish? Is it sucking you downward, shooting you
upward at too fast a pace? Then you may wonder whether the
flow is flowing in your best interest. Perhaps it is taking
you exactly opposite your optimum path. Flows come from all
sorts of sources: illness and heath, peer pressure and
support, enthusiasm and warped will power. Only some of these
are worth your while. The flyer may catch the latest surge of
energy if she wish, but she is no victim of circumstance. She
has the awareness to wonder where and why and how and with
whom she is going. And the determination to stop and consider
other options.
Religious Revolution and Reality Tests
In the annals of religious history, many a dreamer has been
swept up by compelling forces and flung skyward to serve
almighty purposes. Should the journey be rapturous, the
dreamers may well respond with adoration and awe. But their
own wills and intentions are sacrificed on the altar of
passive surrender. Is this an admirable trait in a spiritual
seeker? A spontaneous surprise may offer little choice. But
the dreamer has the power to awake from the enthrallment of
sleep; to wonder, to compare, to judge. There are many
religious paths, none of which are exempt from reality tests.
Am I being swept along by gods or ghouls, angels or demons, by
aliens or fairy folk, by friend or foe? Must I rely on others
to reach enlightenment or do I have some say about the route
of my Hero's Journey? When the spirit learns to fly on her
own, her inner myth can't help but change. At this, the
dawning of the air-age of Aquarius, willful flying contains
the seed of religious revolution.
Sports and Skills of the Super Hero
Dream researcher Paul Tholey used lucid dreams to help
perfect his skateboarding skills. Then he taught other
dreamers to practice the skills of their sports in-dream, too.
One dreamer was an Olympic equestrian. In order to improve
skiing prowess, Tholey suggested that another dreamer
practice, but not within his dream body. The dreamer flew
along out-of-body, at the end of his skis. Flying helps the
physical athlete, but it also keeps the mind flexible. Players
of chess, board games and virtual reality toys are flyers.
Flying is a sort of dream air-obics. Many video games require
an active mind and quick reflexes as the player speeds from
one onrushing scene to the next. Flying is no sport for couch
potatoes! Even if physically immobilized or confined to bed, a
dreamer with a strong and flexible mind can soar like a Super
Hero.
Traveling through Time and Space
If you wished to travel in Wonderland, how would you get
there? Fall down a rabbit's hole? The ability to fly might
come in very handy just then. There are all sorts of tight
spaces that can be traversed with ease if you have the ability
to move in a unique direction. Not just forward and back, but
down into the depths of the underworld, up from dungeons and
despair and through long dark tunnels out into the light. I've
always thought that time travel would be most practical if it
took place suspended in the air. Less traffic up there. In
dream, if I travel in time, I usually teleport or go via space
vehicle. Either way is an opportunity to try out variations of
the flying theme.
Understanding a Universal Symbol
Since flying dreams have been found down through history
and across the world wide, flying has a solid claim to be
called a "universal" symbol. But is it an archetype? It seems
Carl Jung's primary experience aloft was a vision induced by
medication. Floating happened to Jung; he didn't happen to it.
He was fascinated by UFOs and little girls who turn into
birds, but they were objectified symbols at a safe distance
away. The most popularized flying myth is Icarus, the guy who
fell out of the sky. Why not Daedalus, the fellow who actually
got it right? Hmmm? When I went searching the annals of
ancient legend and myth for tales of flight, there wasn't a
lot of positive adventures to pick from. So I looked further
and found examples in Chinese fairy tales, African-American
folk tables, American tall tales, Japanese comic books,
British science fiction and, most especially, the children's
section of the library. Flying expands your world, in more
ways than one.
Visiting Virtual Reality
Ever seen VR images on TV? Virtual reality is a series of
connected images, a simulation of life on the move. In a VR
helmet, you can visit locations (such as a mimic of Mars) with
all the visual reality of a physical trip, but without the
danger and expense of going IRL (in real life). Or you can
inhabit realms of fancy. In VR your point of view "flies" from
one angle, altitude and attitude to another. Whether fantastic
or realistic, flying provides unique perspectives no
earth-bound individual can have. Just like dreams can do.
Dreams are our own personal virtual theaters of the mind. In
VR you can fly through walls. In dreams you can fly through
earth, air, fire and water. Shrink to the size of a molecule,
grow to the size of a galaxy. Have experiences you've never
"dreamed" of having, here in waking life. Flying is a fairly
comfortable introduction to even more extraordinary
dreams.
Wallop of Wonder
The first experience of any "big" dream can shake you to
the core. It's a sensory, mental, emotional explosion of
feeling that impresses you forever. It remains with you in the
present to serve as an inspiration for the future. And as a
standard against which you judge all new occurrences.
Unfortunately, succeeding experiences may never come close to
equaling the first. Perhaps that's why some folks treat a
flying dream as something sacred, something they never dare
repeat. It would diminish the awe and amazement of the
original impact, they presume. Now, that's just sad. It's true
- no flight will be exactly like another. It could be better!
For me, one of the greatest joys of flying is the view of the
passing landscape. A dream scene can outrank any VR or
physical version with its vivid color, sparkling essence and
overall sense of realness that is unlike any other. I've lost
count of the times I've called out spontaneously, "Oh, how
beautiful! Oh, how wonderful!" while I watched a scene unfold
in all its heart-filling glory as I flew over, around and
through it. Words of astonishment rise like an underground
torrent and gush right out of me. You may have heard of
repeating nightmares, but what about repeating big dreams?
That's what flying dreams are for me.
X-trasensory X-perience
What's the most common psychic dream? These days, it's
likely to be the preview of an air disaster. Airplane and
space shuttles top the list that includes prophetic dreams of
Apollo, Challenger and the New York World Trade Center. The
theme of flight permeates of our culture down to the depths of
our dreams. Sometimes such dreams have great practical
benefit: some folks have been warned away from taking airplane
flights that later ended in tragedy. But there are also plenty
of positive examples of flying psi: clairvoyant, empathic,
telepathic and mutual as well as precognitive. If you want to
visit another person in-dream, then at least one of you has to
travel. Mutual dreamers often use the premiere method of
locomotion, the out-of-body experience. When you move into
extraordinary dream space, where the unknown is the rule
rather than the exception, being able to fly will get you out
of potential trouble spots and shift your paradigm. It can
change the way you view psi phenomena over all. Instead of a
prisoner of prophetic fate, you rescue your own destiny and
place it back in your hands.
You and Your Dreaming Self
What do you actually do in your dreams. Or, I should say,
what does your dreaming self do? Because, if you are a flyer
sans vehicle, you know darn well that you, as physical self,
aren't doing the flying. The "you" of waking reality isn't the
"you" of dream space. Never in waking life have I become
invisible, shrunk to a pinpoint of light or metamorphosed into
a bird. My dreaming self has that sort of fun, although
vicariously, I come along for the ride. It's as if we lead
parallel lives, each with their own unique properties. They
might be separate lives, if we pay no attention to one
another. When we learn to become aware of each other, though,
we can develop a reciprocal relationship. I suggest new ideas;
she may or may not carry them out. Instead of always asking
her to serve my needs, I ask, "What would you like to do?" I
provide new building blocks of vivid memories for her to shape
the dream; she provides me with a life of magic. Who gets the
best of the trade? We do!
Zero In, Zone Out
If I had to pick just one benefit of dream flying, it would
be this: I am more. As a flyer, my concepts of both waking and
dreaming reality have been radically altered. I live in a
wider, richer universe than even before. It's multi-leveled
meaning, not surface symbol. I feel myself to be bigger; that
is, there's more substantial me to fill me up. Fulfillment or
enlightenment aren't mental concepts to write about, with
which to play literary mind games. They are first hand
experiences of beingness. Sometimes I wonder if folks who
write about extraordinary spiritual, mental, psychic or
emotional highs have ever actually been there. Imagining them
is not the same has having them. I wonder what would happen if
we could separate speculation about reality from reality
itself.
But that's just speculation. Guessing, theorizing, writing,
talking. And talking. And talking. And talking... They're
flimsy substitutes for the real thing. So time to stop
simulating sleep and start sleeping. Pleasant flights!
Zzzzz.
|
|
| |
