It was effortless, but I had to first put in effort to run as fast as I could — and then, once I’d worked my way up to top speed, I could stop running but keep moving at that speed (and without touching the ground from then on).
I can’t answer, because I’ve had several different and probably unrelated methods of flying in dreams. None of them ever involve flapping or swimming motions, but some of them involve leg motions, and sometimes it requires effort, and sometimes not (and when it requires effort, usually, the effort is more of the sort involved in balancing, not the sort involved in vigorous exertion).
I had dreams as a child of trying to fly and never succeeding. My “technique” was almost identical to that in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and that was many years before I read the books. Namely, taking a running start, throw yourself at the ground and just…miss. I managed a little bit of flight every now and then, but nothing spectacular. My dream always took place on my elementary school yard.
The trick is not noticing you have a bowling ball in one hand.
Should have used the rug.
Stranger
I’ve only had one flying dream that I remember, and that was like 30 years ago, but man would I like to have it again. In that, I could sort of swoop from height to height, without flapping my arms, kind of like using updrafts.
Boy, did I enjoy that dream.
I think we’ve had a poll like this before, and my usual method isn’t in here. I usually just walk off of something high up, and I’m able to keep walking. Levitation is closest, but I don’t seem to have the ability to just go up. But the bigger problem is that I often have trouble getting down, too.
I also have a bit where I’ll just kinda hover on the ground.
Running up hill, accelerating the whole way, reach the crest of the hill, keep going up as the other side of the hill slopes away.
One of the more interesting methods of flying in my dreams was not truly flying. Instead, I could jump really high and far, land and jump again. The ground would feel like a springy mattress beneath my feet.
I haven’t had such a dream in a long time. Wish I would again.
Sadly I haven’t had a dream where I could fly in many decades, but as a kid I still had them and had to take off at a high elevation, a mountain top or high building, and then just glide like an eagle or an albatross, with the difference that I didn’t use thermal lift, but could move in any direction by will, effortlessly. Similar to Superman, but not as fast.
Interesting that this thread just came out. Last night, I was playing…yes…Fortnite with my son, and there is a new game mode, Lego Fortnite.
In its creative mode, one can fly over the (very nice) landscape, and the little lego figure that is your avatar makes gentle swimming motions while they effortlessly fly over the land, at just about the right speed for dreaming.
I mentioned to him that this was very much like my dreamlike flight, soaring over the local neighborhood.
(FWIW, this flying mode is useful for building large buildings, since you can hover up high, close to your buildings. Such is a creative mode.)
I dream-fly two different ways, one is by sitting flat on the ground with my legs out, I can sort of lift myself up by pushing my hands down, then sort of push myself along in a mostly frictionless low altitude hover.
The other way is I can make a big leap and wind up waaay up in the air, and sort of hover there if I concentrate on it. I think some of the flights start off like a triple-jump in the Olympics, but I can easily jump 100’ in the air.
I’ve had weightlessness, levitation and flying. Never swimming that I can recall but that’s close to weightlessness. They all require some form of power for locomotion, sometimes tech, sometimes wind in my wings that I use to my advantage along with speed and height (I often have altitude to trade for speed or distance). For levitation. it does use energy though that energy doesn’t always come from me and sometimes I’m not the one in control of it.
I fly in some sort of power armor.
That’s one of my more common modes: I’m running, except each step is very long, so I only have to touch down once per block or so. And if I focus on it, I can hold off on that contact even longer.
I think it comes from bike-riding, which I do a lot of. And I don’t get the air-swimming flight others report, because I don’t swim much, and I’m not very good at.
I’m not in control of my flying dreams. I’m sitting on something, like a small wooden chair, and just float around. I don’t usually get too high, maybe 3 or 4 stories. If I start getting higher than that, I get panicky that I’m going to fall off.
Levitation was effortless. I just floated; however, I could only propel myself by grabbing things and pulling myself along or pushing. Think of a weightless astronaut.
I can’t recall a flying dream, but I did have a dream years ago that has stuck with me a little bit. I was in a bubble just floating in the sky. There were people in their own bubbles. I can’t remember if I could control the bubble, but I think I could.
That’s the closest I can get to a flying dream.
As others have already said, it has been a long, long time since I had a flying dream.
There were at least two types of flying I did in dreams. In one type, if I recall correctly, the flying was done simply by willing myself aloft and moving in the desired direction. It wasn’t totally effortless; I had to concentrate.
But the type I remember best and probably had most often was very much like swimming through the air (most like a breast stroke, definitely not a crawl). It involved effort, and if I didn’t exert myself enough, I would slowly sink toward the ground.
Either way it was fun !