I actually have at least four, possibly five different kinds of flying dreams. Most common is “seven-league-boots”: I can run down the street and only touch ground once per block or so, longer if I try to stretch it. This is pretty easy. Then there’s hover-walking: I can walk along as normal, but somewhere between six inches and a foot above the floor. This takes some amount of effort, and feels like trying to keep my balance on a slippery surface. Sometimes, instead of proper hovering, it’s just light-stepping: I can walk on snow without leaving footprints, for instance. Third, there’s levitation: I can control my vertical position more or less freely, but if I want to move horizontally while off the floor, I have to push off of something. Sometimes I start running, levitate a bit, and then coast, but I still have to ground occasionally or I’ll slow and stop. Finally, and most rarely, there’s Superman-style full control flight. Sometimes this requires particular postures, and sometimes it doesn’t require anything at all, and I don’t know whether those are fundamentally different.
I think the first type, the seven-league-boots, comes from bike-riding. Pedaling a bicycle is enough like walking that my subconscious can’t distinguish them, and just erases the bicycle itself. The others, I’m not sure of. Interestingly, I do not ever fly by swimming through the air, as some report. This is probably because I don’t swim much when I’m awake, either.
