A strong self-suggestion backed by an intense visualization can induce a
flying dream. But it takes a lot of effort. After a busy work day, effort
is the least thing available as I prepare for sleep. My energetic movements
occur in the midst of the day. So if labeling and picturing my intent at
day's end doesn't fully do the trick, which of the Consistent Clues can
show me how to ride the vigor of waking life into sleep? It turns out that
the sign is based on form. But the energy signal is color.
Trading Places
The selected picture is not the only target in a dream telepathy
experiment. As the facilitator, my waking or dreaming life often attracts
the interest of the participants. One Saturday night in 1985, I "sent" a
picture of a skydiver to a class at the Dream Training Institute of San
Francisco. Then, on Monday night, I had this dream:
"Inside a car with other people, we are going exceedingly fast...Our car is
a large white sedan driven by a short dark haired woman. At times I am
soaring over the car, keeping pace with it."
The night after my white car dream, I attended the class as a guest speaker
on dream telepathy. The class shared their experiment dreams before I
revealed the picture to them. One of the members, Melinda Nelson, had a
dream that caught the airborne theme of the target picture quite nicely.
But the particulars more nearly echoed the dream I'd had. In addition, she
had some waking images to share. On her dream report she wrote:
"During the day, around 4:30 P.M., I have an image of a car, small to
mid-size, maybe the size of a Japanese compact, yet American made, going up
a slight hill. The surroundings are countrylike with green hills and no
other cars around.
"In the early A.M. I have a dream in which I'm driving a mid-sized newish
compact car with light interior at night with the stars out. I am going up
a slightly rolling hill, surrounded by a countrylike setting, as above.
Suddenly a woman who looks similar to Linda Magall#n comes flying through
the roof of the car (like O. J. Simpson in the Hertz commercial) and
settles into the passenger seat. She's busy with her notebook, pen and
research notes and keeps her focus on her notes. She doesn't actually say
"Hello," yet there is a friendly sense. She has something in her hair:
either a pencil behind her ear and/or plastic curlers, just a few on top of
her head. She seems to be focused on correlating figures on a few sheets of
paper."
Of course, Melinda's dream was describing how I approach the analysis of my
dream telepathy experiments. I was particularly amused by Melinda's
description of my entrance into her dream. She had borrowed the style from
a Hertz rent-a-car commercial that was running on TV.
When we talked further, Melinda said she thought her dream car had been
white in color. Same color as my dream! Then, before I could comment, she
asked, "Do you have a maroon bathrobe?" for that was what she had seen me
wearing in her dream. It wasn't surprising that she would dream of me
clothed in such attire. I was wearing a bathrobe while I sent the picture,
curled up on my bed.
"No," I replied with a grin. "I have a white bathrobe and a new burgundy
Honda!" Melinda had pulled a neat switcheroo with her dream symbols, but
had the correct essence of my situation. The colors were right. They had
just traded places.
Hide and Seek in the Sky
It is true, that when I drive the freeway, I really "fly" down the road.
Besides the highway, there's another place in waking life where I always
feel like I'm flying. And that sensation easily converts to flying dreams,
too. I used the Consistent Clues of shape, motion, label and color to
discover the source in this dream that occurred one balmy summer night
during the previous year.
"The area is countrylike with green trees and grass. A small airplane,
high-winged, like a Cessna, takes off flying. I follow, keeping pace. Then
I see a new, modern red two-seater up ahead. I fly above the tops of
eucalyptus trees to investigate. The plane I leave behind is disappointed
and thinks I'm impressed by the newer, flashier models.
"I fly on the right side of the red plane, then over and above it to the
left, and back to the right. The plane is surprised. I wave and smile,
flying on ahead. I bank to the right, showing that I fly just like an
airplane. "Red" follows me because it is fascinated that I can fly without
a vehicle around me.
"I dip down towards a field, then try to rise to clear the trees at the far
end. Line or wires appear horizontally across the sky. I think, "Oh, no!"
I've got to get over them, beyond them, and fly free. With effort, I rise
past tree-top level beyond the wires and towards the blue sky. I am now
flying above hill level. I sense that "red" is on my tail. I don't like
this.
"The countryside below is hills of dry grass and two-lane roads. Off to the
left, on a hill, are two towers. One is a brick or stone cylinder with a
tong-like structure on top. I bank to the left and towards it. The plane
flies around it to the right as I fly left. Passing the cylinder, I do a
quick downward spiral in order to place the cylinder between me and the
plane. Behind the top of the cylinder I float, moving to keep myself hidden
from the plane as it changes position.
"The plane asks, 'Where is she?' and loops to the right and heads back my
way. I descend down the side of the cylinder, then feeling I've gone too
low, levitate back up. When the plane is back on course, I fly up behind
it, approaching from below and rising above. I feel pleased because I'm in
a better position to see it."
The twisting, turning "plane" in my dream was acting like a person! That
intrigued me. In addition to recording the dream text, I did a quick sketch
of the "tong-like structure." Then I went looking through the house for
that form. The eucalyptus trees behind the house drew my search outside.
There was most certainly a "cylinder" in the back yard, although it was
made of plastic and metal. It was the above-ground swimming pool. At the
top of it were the railings of the step ladder that allowed people to climb
in and out of the pool. The upper board, or landing, of the ladder plus its
railings were the "tong" shape of my dream.
Due to the hot weather, my children and I had spent quite a bit of time in
the pool the day before. We were splashing water, diving underneath the
surface and playing "chase" games with a blue ball and each other, in and
out of the pool. My daughter Teresa was wearing a bright red swimsuit. She
was the red plane in my dream.
Swimming provided the sensation of flight. The Clues to discovery were the
shape of the pool and ladder, the motion of running and diving, the
correct label of the trees and the brightest color in the scene. Just
like Teresa's swimsuit, that plane was really red!
The Lime Green Suit
Most often, when I see color in dreams, there's a literal connection. I
dream of a friend wearing purple because that's her favorite color and I've
seen her in it often. I dream of orange fish because the ones swimming
around in our fish tank are that color. When I go searching a dream
dictionary, I can certainly find "black" and "white" as well as the primary
colors such as "red" and "blue." But what about the zillion other hues like
maroon and burgundy? It was an uncommon tint lead me to unlock the
significance for this dream, also from 1985:
"I'm wearing a bathrobe, but I wonder what I can wear to appear sharp and
businesslike in my new dreamworker role. I suddenly remember a lime green
suit I used to wear. I go to the closet to find it. On the top shelf I see
something that color. Is it a hat to go with the suit? No, it's a roll of
material...(I look further and find the suit.)
"The lime suit looks in good shape. It's made of wool and has a black
pullover to go with it. At first the suit looks like it has a neckline of
black, see-through nylon, but then it changes to a sweater with leather
patches, very rich and thick."
Because I was trying to understand dream interpretation, I attempted to
find the "meaning" of the color. Although the dream dictionaries listed
green and yellow, there was no lime green. Typical. I tried to link with
lime the fruit and lime the mineral and...No luck.
As I continued to dredge the details from memory, the first picture in my
mind was of a lime green suit, period. When I reread what I'd written, I
remembered that black neckline. Then I realized the style was the same as a
suit I had made just before I left for college. It was the most complicated
piece of clothing I'd ever sewn and I was very proud of the accomplishment.
My waking suit had had a similar charcoal border. It was the same shape as
the dream suit. But it had been a different color. So why did I dream up
the lime green?
I wasn't wearing business suits at the time, and a consideration of its
"good shape" didn't provide me any clues. So, instead of form, I decided to
concentrate on color. I walked around the house, looking, not for any-ole'
green, but that specific, brilliant, almost phosphorescent, lime green.
And there it was, lying on the coffee table. The most recent issue of the
Reality Change newsletter was black ink on lime green paper. Its title
had a black border. The newsletter contained the first article on dreams
I'd ever written and I was very proud of it. Duh. It's so obvious once I
make the connection.
The article was accompanied by a formal portrait of me, which ran for each
of the several issues in which I wrote articles for R. C. A few years
later, I would take a less formal picture, wearing a thick sweater vest, so
it makes sense to me that I would dream of the lime green suit morphing
into a sweater. But what about its "leather" components?
Pern
I am a fan of Anne McCaffrey's books, especially her "Dragonflyers of Pern"
series, and had been thinking about one of her novels before I went to bed
that same year. My dream borrowed heavily from the story line:
"I'm with a group of people: at least one woman with long, dark hair and a
blonde man. They are dressed in leather and cotton feudal outfits. We have
journeyed to the Southern Continent of Pern to find out about the
"scientific researchers" who landed here from Earth many years ago.
"Now, I'm back in a town in a canyon on the Northern Continent, dressed in
a multi-layered peasant dress, with leather boots and vest and peasant
blouse. The townspeople are out in the town square, looking up at something
caught on the corner roof of a building.
"I walk over to the building with a rope swung over my shoulder. I throw a
loop up to the corner of the building, then shimmy up the rope so easily
it's as if I'm levitating. Then I whip out a knife, and cut the restraining
line that had been attached to the roof. I am slightly concerned that I've
had to wear a dress while performing this maneuver. The townspeople are
duly impressed.
"I drop down to the ground and stride out in confidence, heading toward an
open area at the far end of town. From the midst of the town square crowd
the blonde haired man joins me. He asks me a question. I respond with a
single word. I have been picking up the language of Pern pretty quickly,
although I've only been here for a short while. The language of Pern is
similar to English, because it's a future development of that language. And
sometimes I use telepathy to help me translate a word or two."
I really liked the style of the dress I wore in the dream. But I thought it
was made of animal hides, since it was colored brown. An actual dress of
that construction would have been hot, heavy and expensive, so I didn't
even begin to think of sewing it. However, a couple of years later, I
walked into Macy's department store and there, perched high on a display
shelf over the door, was the dress! From a distance, it had a leather look,
but up close I saw that it was actually made of cotton. Brown, with long
folded panels of material and a low bodice, it had a medieval flair. So I
bought it and wore it to a Renaissance Fair. Perfect! I even wore it to
work, where it got rave reviews. Or at least raised eyebrows.
Jumpsuits
By this time it had become obvious that, whether literal or symbolic,
colorful clothing could show up in my dreams spontaneously and many of
those dreams were related to the flying theme. What would happen if I
deliberately donned clothes during the day with the intent to go flying at
night? The most obvious option was an aviator's suit, but that seemed too
bulky to permit easy movement, even in waking life. And it wouldn't have
fit the dress code of the work place very well.
So I decided on a more feminine alternative, the jumpsuit, a one piece
blouse-and-pants combination. I bought several over the next four years:
black, white, turquoise, purple and green. Every one of them was
incorporated into a flying dream. I dreamt I could fly just because I was
wearing that turquoise jumpsuit. Wearing the green made me a mundane
airplane passenger, but when I put on the violet, I became a purple sprite.
The white version was a super suit for both me and another dream character
(in waking life she liked to wear white, too).
But the winner for inducing the most flying dreams was the black jumpsuit.
So I made sure I bought a replacement when the first one wore out. Black
worked well during the cold months; I switched to white for spring and
summer. Either way, I wore them with boots. After all, Superman wears
boots, doesn't he? But my boots were black, whereas his were red. That
didn't deter me, however. At Christmas time, I bought a pair of knee-high
red socks to wear underneath the boots. Then one cold winter night, I wore
them to bed. That's when I discovered the Red Socks Technique.
Red Socks
Whenever I wore the red knee-high socks, I'd simply sleep the night away,
deep as I pleased. The socks warmed my feet and dried my mouth, gradually
making my body uncomfortable, and thus allowing me to come back to the
waking state very, very gradually. This usually happened about 4 or 5 A. M.
Because I came to consciousness so slowly, I was closer to the sleep state
than the waking. It was quite easy to do an about-turn and head right back
into the dream. Sometimes I was so drowsy, I could even get up, go to the
bathroom and return to bed to dream. In that case, I stretched out on the
bed in a flying position and took on the attitude and alignment of
Superman-style flight. I tensed myself mentally into a super ball of
strength and gave myself the strong suggestion to go lucid.
Then, I dived into the dream. Sometimes I could go directly from
hypnogogia, literally propelling myself into the imagery in order to start
a lucid flying dream. Sometimes there was a break in consciousness;
afterwards I simply found myself in a lucid dream, and I could launch
flight from there.
Clothing of Flight
I think clothing inspires flight because it's a suggestion that literally
surrounds me during the entire day. Even if I don't mentally recall my
flying intent, my body surely does. The most effective method is to give
myself the strong self-suggestion as I'm getting dressed in the morning
(when I still recall some of the feelings of sleep). In a way, it's like
"loading" a talisman with magic. But it's not a teeny bit of symbol on a
string around my neck. It's a whole body icon. Awake or asleep, it places
me fully into the middle of the action.
http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html
(Dream Flights)
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