My dreams of flying are always like swimming too… everyone stares at me in my dream as i float about 6-8 inches above ground… I never dream of just flying without the swimming movement of my arms/hands. I just figure that I must of been an angel in my past life to always be flying now. rrr rrrr
I just concentrate and move in the direction I want while in the standing position. I have to concentrate harder to stop quickly or move faster. I have no swimming sensation, but my face can hurt when I wake up, from what I assume is squeezing my eyes tightly shut in my sleep when I dream flying. I also concentrate in the same way to reverse the dream and give it a new outcome if something doesn’t work out right.
I’ve had a bunch of different types of flying dreams. None felt at all swimmish though. The best ones are sort of like Superman. Some are just directed levitation. And some involve hanging onto some object that is flying.
I find that I can’t go through doors though. I can’t will the door frame to go behind my threshhold of peripheral vision for some reason.
Well… I’ve dreamt of flying like that. Sometimes when I dream of flying there’s no effort to it at all. I’ve dreamt of having wings. And sometimes when I dream of flying I dream I’m at the controls of an airplane.
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This Zombie probably never belonged in General Questions. Off to IMHO.
samclem MOderator
For me it is a lot like swimming and I have to try really hard to keep off the ground, frantically waving my arms and legs to propel upwards.
However, I remember that I asked my friend about her flying dreams and she said hers are not like that at all. She just levitates with no effort. Weirdo.
In the fairly rare instances I have flying dreams, this is how I fly. It’s kind of similar to how Mario flies in Super Mario 64 with the winged cap, and I always thought that’s where I got it from.
I’ve had flying dreams, always fun. For me it’s like floating, but moving at high speed, often just a few feet above the ground, sometimes up in the clouds.
I don’t move when flying. I always use strength of will. Flying requires a lot of concentration and a strong mental effort, but no physical effort.
Rather than flying, in fact, I float, generally upright. I will myself into rising above the ground, into moving, etc… No need to do any motion with my limbs.
I often fly/float about 15-20 meters above the ground. Never just a couple of feet above it, and never at great heights, either.
I used to have flying dreams a lot - sometimes it is like swimming, but other times it could be like jumping and staying up, or flying and swooping like superman, or flapping my arms like a bird and hovering straight up off the ground - or any combination of the above.
Sometimes I reach down, grasp my ankles and lift. In dream-world this causes me to float.
Occasionally I’ll realize I’m dreaming and will intentionally make myself fly through simple mind control. Usually to impress the chicks.
Remember this toy? Where you pull the rods apart and the ball falls downwards, but miraculously rolls up along the rods? But then it threatens to slow too much, so you have to open the rods again, and let it drop down again a little, and that makes the ball move up again? That’s what flying is like for me.
No swimming-flight for me.
My flying dreams invariably involve actually being a bird of one sort or another (or, rarely, some other flying creature). The experience has generally tracked with how much I know about birds and flight–when I was a kid, it was just flapping wings. Later, it involved more gliding, riding thermals, and such. Now it sometimes includes kinesthetic details, like keel muscles straining in a steep climb.
I also have jumping dreams, but they’re completely different, and never turn into flight. They mostly consist of bounding in low, flat arcs, covering about 10-15 feet in a jump. It’s sort of like my “normal” running gait as modified by low gravity.
Mine is pretty much like this. I’ll often start out as Chronos describes by walking/running and taking longer and longer strides until I decide I don’t need to touch the ground at all and start going up. Something I get that nobody’s mentioned yet is the fear of flying to trees or power lines. There always seems to be power lines that need dodging.
You’ve probably had the experience of running at a good pace and briefly hitting top speed for a short while before dropping back down to a good pace. My flying dreams start off with that sort of run – except that, once I’m running as fast as possible, I can maintain that speed indefinitely; my feet are no longer touching the ground (though it’s pretty danged close), and I no longer need to bother with swinging my legs either, since, y’know, flying.
This is what my dream flying is like. No physical effort, just intense concentration to push energy out the palms of my hands. And then I start floating downward when the energy runs out, so it’s like lifting weights, but with mental energy, not physical muscle power.
I almost always run into power lines and trees on my way down.
I’ve had a recurring flying dream as far back as I can remember, and it’s just like swimming. I have to stroke with my arms and kick with my legs. I’m looking down, watching everything on the ground get farther and farther away… At some point I realize that I’ve lost control and can’t stop rising even further. I get a panicky feeling as everything recedes under me . . . then I wake up.
More like swimming in my dreams is always like flying. So they’re both the same experience but it’s a positive experience. Anytime I dream I’m underwater, I can travel very quickly and breathe underwater. So it’s just like flying really.
My dream flying style also altered significantly after reading the HHGTTG series. I’ve flown casually about interior rooms, I don’t have to flap my arms around or anything like that. But I do like to do “dips.” And I’ve flown outside, but never to great heights.
I used to fairly frequently dream I could “fly” - but it was more of a trick in some obscure way. Not swimming, though the action was I suppose a bit like treading water. A repetitive tensing of the muscles somehow cancelled out gravity’s pull, allowing me to scoot about (upright) about ten feet off the ground. At times, sliding around on my feet somehow in open air. Don’t know what they were sliding on… ley lines or something, I guess. 
They were never super liberating “free flight” dreams - more like a little cheeky trick I could manage to show off a bit. (Sort of like how I used to slide down flights of stairs as though they were smooth inclines, touching only the leading edges of each step — shchooooooop… schoooop… schoooop… “Got the the bottom before you suckers.”)
I dream of flying often.In my dreams it seems more like I’m floating.I’m usually floating on my back,with my hands resting behind my head, without a care in the world! Everyone is looking up saying how the heck is she doing that? Lol ! I think I do remember some swimming styles now that I think about it,not my legs, but my arm! It seems to happen in my dream when I wanna go somewhere quick or find a different way home! I also get that bathroom dream where every bathroom I find is filthy & disgusting & I can’t go! Lol