© 2006 David L. Kahn    

     We dream to fly, and we fly in our dreams.  Those of us who have experienced flight dreams know the sense of peace and freedom.  The sun is bright and the air crisp.  All the colors are unusually vivid.  The feeling can only be described as exhilarating as you leave the earth and…

     Your belly scrapes the ground while you try to fly superman style because you are having trouble holding onto your picnic basket filled with empty jugs of motor oil, which for some reason is necessary in order to take flight.

     Flying dreams, just like any other, have a spectrum ranging from scary and frustrating, to fun and spiritually enlightening.  You could say that you are attempting to accomplish something good in each of these dreams, just more successfully in some than in others.  Our minds may be telling us to take a different flight plan, take off from a different location, or to keep on soaring to the heavens.  Or, perhaps, maybe we just need to leave the room…

     I walk into a very tall room, perhaps 25 feet high.  The walls are concrete block, so there is no natural light.  I see what looks like a choir along with a conductor, except that the choir is made up entirely of penguins.  The conductor has the penguins dancing back and forth in unison.  Somehow these penguins can fly.  I can fly by grabbing hold of a penguin and flapping my arms, which I do.  We take off, but since we are inside there is a limit to how high we can go.  I also find that that flapping my arms is very tiring and I can only stay up in the air for short periods of time.  It is fun, but too exhausting.

     The need to hold on to something in order to fly is very common.  Even in lucid dreams it can be hard to get off the ground, although it is in lucid dreams that I began to understand the reason.  Not long ago I had two lucid dreams in a short period of time, each time choosing to fly.  In the first dream I grabbed my son’s hand and flew high over the trees with him.  I began to have some doubt about my flying ability, and I felt myself drop with the same feeling in my stomach that I might get on a roller coaster.  I realized that my doubt caused this drop, and with that thought I gained control of my flight.  In the second dream I felt myself being lifted into the air by something that I could not see.  As I reached several hundred feet I began to have that same feeling of doubt.  Again I dropped with a nervous feeling in my stomach.  I knew that I needed to let go of doubt, and I trusted this unseen force not to drop me. 

     So, what’s the deal with these penguins? 

     For one thing, penguins can’t fly.  They also don’t dance in unison and hang out in tall concrete block rooms.  In other words, I am making myself reliant on the wrong kind of bird for help, and I am trying to take flight in a place where there is a low limit on the level that I can reach.  The penguins dancing in unison represent all of the “non-flyers” acting alike, and following the instructions of someone else.  I am too much of a free thinker, and this could never work for me.

     Over time, I went from flying with penguins to holding onto a kite and, later, being lifted by unseen arms.  Despite the exhausting flight, I treasure these penguins.  The dream was actually quite humorous, and that doesn’t happen by accident.  Although I was being told to reconsider my flight plan, I was also being told to lighten up and laugh.  I wish that I had a picture of this dream.  It would make for a great image.

© 2007 David L. Kahn 

Taking flight upon awakening in the dream state is something that almost any experienced lucid dreamer will tell you they’ve done, often many times.  The sense of freedom, along with the excitement of going beyond what is possible in the physical world, is a reasonable explanation for why so many of us take to the sky upon awakening in the dream world.  But, are all lucid dream flights decisions made entirely by our conscious minds, or could it be that our subconscious minds drop hints suggesting that we use this opportunity to fly in order to symbolically show us something that we need to know?

Despite being aware that they are dreaming, many lucid dreamers describe difficulty flying, including trouble getting off the ground or ability to go where they want.  Other times, the scenery is unexpected or obstacles get in the way of a smooth flight.  Some report turbulence, while others report spiritual experiences.  The decision to fly may be “yours”, but it may be your dream “creator” that sets the course.

Last year I had a few dreams in which I quickly made the decision to fly upon becoming lucid.  In each case the flight started nice, but I later began to drop from the sky, eventually regaining control of the flight.  Within the following example, I noticed the pattern and understood the reason for the troubled flight.

I am walking down an empty street.  I see some trees in front of me, of which I take particular notice. One is full with leaves.  I suddenly realize that I am dreaming.  I believe it is the quiet reflection that I have during walks that causes me to recognize the dream.  I take off and fly, going higher than the trees.  I come back to the ground and see my son.  I hold out my hand and he takes it with his, neither of us saying a word.  I take of flying again, this time with my son.  We fly for a while together.  I begin to have some doubts, not about this being a dream but about my ability to fly.  I then start to drop and I feel the sensation of dropping in my stomach.  I know that it is my thought that causes me to drop, and then I fly free again.  I bring my son back to the ground, and then I take back off to fly some more. 

In each of my dreams in this series, I realized that my doubt about my ability to fly is what caused the drop in altitude.  I physically would feel the dropping sensation in my stomach, like the feeling of riding on a roller coaster.  Even though I knew this was a dream, I still had doubt about my ability.  That is what the dream set me up for.  I needed to learn to simply trust in my ability, and know that I’d be fine.  The flight was a metaphor of freedom and enjoyment, with implications that reached far beyond the lucid dream that I was experiencing. 

In a more frustrating dream, I attempted to fly only to find that I couldn’t get out of the building that I was in.  It was an old, rickety building with a low ceiling.  I knew it was a dream, and yet I couldn’t fly through the ceiling.  Each time I tried, I had the sensation of bouncing off the ceiling.  Eventually my frustration set in and I attempted to find the exit.  This dream begged the question, “Why am I frustrated?”  Essentially I was doing the same thing over and over without success.  I was able to think of some things in my life that matched up with the idea of repeating a pattern unsuccessfully, of which none was an attempt at Superman-style flying.

Among my flying lucid dream experiences included a dream in which I was completely bored.  Here I was lucid, with the entire universe at my hands, and I couldn’t think of anything interesting to do.  I took off and flew, but the scenery was very bland.  The ground was flat, with no buildings or people anywhere in sight.  I remember associating my lack of finding anything interesting to do with the feeling of writer’s block.  In fact, it was about writer’s block.  I had been stuck on a particular chapter of my book.  In the dream, I ended up deciding to come back down to earth and just enjoy the feeling of being lucid, even if I didn’t have anything specifically to do.   

In perhaps my strangest example, I was enjoying a nighttime flight through the city.  My flight took me between tall buildings, with the city lights below me.  It was all great, up until a dream character flew up to me and attempted to assault me.  He/she (I never saw the perpetrator’s face) slashed at me with a knife and cut the left shoulder area of my shirt.  I ended up getting hold of the knife and I stabbed the character, causing him/her to fall from the sky.  Even within a lucid dream, the fight or flight instinct took over – in this case quite literally. 

During the day we have numerous thoughts that go through our minds.  We tend to notice most those that we consciously create, but if you pay attention you will recognize an almost constant stream of “non-conscious” thoughts, such as daydreams or music.  These thoughts, like dreams, can be interpretable.  The song lyrics, or emotions you associate with that song, may nudge you towards actions you may not be aware of.  Daydreams really aren’t so different than night dreams in this way.  If you notice these thoughts while they are occurring, you can then have choice and awareness as to where those thoughts lead, much like your ability to have free will within a lucid dream.  In much the same way, your decision to fly within a lucid dream may be a cooperative effort between different levels of consciousness in your mind.  Your dream “creator” will place things in your dream, much like the music during the day, and perhaps nudge you towards lucidity.  If you indeed do become lucid, the ultimate decision to fly may be done with free will, but it could be that the dream “creator” invented a scene that was ideal for flying, and therefore your first thought was to do so.  It could also be that the decision to fly was entirely yours, but the “creator” then adapted to this choice, creating a scenario to teach you something of value.

The next time that you choose to fly in a lucid dream, consider pausing for a moment before you take off.  Ask yourself, “Why do I choose to fly?” or maybe better, you could request that the dream “Show me why I need to fly” or “Fly me to where I need to go.”  Notice how your flying dreams may be a cooperative effort between your conscious and subconscious.  Your decision to fly, along with the scene made by your dream “creator” may be just as interpretable as any non-lucid dream.