When I have flying dreams, it is an awful lot like swimming, except much harder. I often dream that I can only fly pretty much straight up, but Ihave to push against the air like I do water when I swim. I also move at roughly the same speed as I do in the water, if not slower.
I asked my fiance and his flying dreams are also similar to the sensation of swimming (minus the wetness).
I came to the assumption that likely most people dream of flying in this manner, as to most of us, this is the closest we’ve ever come to that sensation.
My flying dreams are also not like regular flying but they are different from yours. I jump up but I don’t land. I just stay up a foot or two above the ground and I can float down hills or things. I have those dreams very often.
All my flying dreams entail “skimming,” as I call it. I give a push, and I skim a foot or so above the ground, and as I notice I’m starting to lose “altitude,” I start holdeing my arms and trailing my legs to generate extra “lift” (dream physics).
No swimming in my flying dreams either. I have a variety of methods, sometimes like the skimming example, or sometimes like the mental process. It’s always fun, though!
My flying dreams are more frequent than any other, and it’s always like swimming. I take off, and get higher gradually, and it’s fun for a while, until I discover that I can’t stop. I just get higher and higher, out of control, and never land anywhere.
I had flying dreams on a regular basis from childhood until early 20’s or so; they’ve become rare since.
In the earliest ones I can remember (about 8 years old), takeoff involved running, and once I was airborne I could soar and swoop (which required holding my arms out like airplane wings) but also had to occasionally swim (doggie paddle) to gain altitude or move through narrow spaces. These dreams were generally very enjoyable.
After hitting the teenage years takeoff was by jumping (usually from a height, since I would fall a few feet before “flying” would kick in), and I needed to do a lot of swimming to pick up speed, hover, or gain / maintain altitude (if I stopped swimming while moving slowly I’d fall back to the ground, moving fast I could soar for a short while). For some reason these dreams tended to be stressful (i.e., someone was chasing me and I had to fly so I could hide in the trees). I still kind of miss them, since the flying itself was fun.
I have three types of flying dreams, or rather, I experience three distinct types of flying in my dreams, with more than one type ofter occuring sequentially in the same dream:
-Swimming in the air; yes, it’s just like swimming, except it takes a fair bit of vigour to get airborne, but after that, it’s really easy and this often leads straight into…
-Swooping - pretty much in Superman fashion; I just sort of fly forward in prone position with my arms outstretched forwards, and make banking turns by curving my body.
-Jumping. This is again sometimes a bit Superman-esque - i.e. I can clear tall buildings in a single bound (occasionally with a bit of swimming and/or swooping at the apex of the jump), but sometimes, I’m jumping down the side of a very steep hill and I’m just a fair bit more buoyant than I ought to be, so I travel a very long way on each bound; I always fear that I will injure my legs as I land, but never do.
Wow. I haven’t seen my flying method yet. I jump in the air like I would in real life but right before I hit the ground I swoop back up. To use a swimming comparison, its like diving into a pool and using some of the downward momentum to curve back up to the surface. Its alot harder to in air because once you’ve used all the momentum from falling to the ground to swoop yourself back up, you start falling again, so you have to do the same thing over again. Each time you just get a little higher. Once you’re used to it its’s pretty easy, but it always took some work and I had to relearn it every time.
Is anyone ever kind of bummed out when you wake up and find out you really can’t fly?
Every single time; you’d think after decades of repetition, the disappoinment would fade, but every single time, I am fiercely disappointed that it’s not real.
The one and only time I went ocean snorkeling, I thought, “This is like flying in my dreams.” It’s more floating than flying, although I do have to have the running start to go aloft.
Then again, I sometimes dream that I have to get somewhere, and I do so by swimming through the air. It’s not arduous, but I do have to paddle, more or less.
I’ve had several different types of flight in my dreams, but I’ve never had air-swimming. The most common is probably super-jumping: I can run down the street, my feet only touching down every block or so. In mid-jump I can decide “I don’t think I’ll land yet; I’ll wait until I get past that landmark”, but I can’t generally stay aloft indefinitely (if I do, it transitions into some other flight type). I think this comes from riding my bike, which is something I do often: It’s similar to a running motion, but much smoother, and you can choose to only “step” once every great distance.
Also common, is the ability to levitate. Typically, I start this by bending both my legs at the knees (without falling, of course), and holding my ankles in my hands behind my back (I have no idea of the origin of this pose). Once free of the ground in this manner, I can rise and descend as far as I’d like, but I can’t generally move horizontally. Occasionally, I’ll have the reverse of this, where I take off the same way, but can’t rise further, but I can propel myself forward.
Rarely, and most fun, I find myself with complete control of my movement. I can swoop, climb, dive, soar, loop-de-loop, etc., completely independently of any motions I might make. Of the dreams I remember, I can almost always do at least one of these types of flight, which is indeed a lot of fun.
Naw - I just go to the airport and rent an airplane
I used to dream about flying a lot - until I started flight lessons. Kinda weird, that.
Most of my flying dreams were either like swimming, or I’d actually have wings (feathered wings, usually brown like my hair color). But since I started flying airplanes I sometimes have flying dreams with me in the cockpit.
I still like the flying-with-wings or swimming-flying dreams best, though. Just don’t get them very often anymore. >sniff!<
My dreams of flying feel a lot like falling. There’s the sharp terror when I realize how high off the ground I am, and I’m moving a bit, and I realize I’m moving downwards, and I feel the wind, then I never hit the ground - I kinda skim a foot off the ground before I touch down with my foot to make another heart-stopping leap upwards.
It’s kind of fun, though I always wake with my heart pounding in my chest.
This is closest to my experience. I can almost float, but I sink slowly. I’m in a horizontal position and propel myself not by swimming but using my hands to pull myself along either literally or by slapping at the ground which also gives me some lift. My legs are not used at all and they don’t seem to sink to the ground either. I have actually tried to swim (breaststroke) in my dreams when “flying” and though it works, it is very slow. The pushing method propels me a bit faster than I can run. I’m often flying like this when tryin gto go very fast.
