I am going to start with a dream that I vividly remember from when I was approximately six or seven years old. Up until I had this particular one I remember being able to fly whenever I wanted to do so in my dreams. I realize now that being able to control my flying in my dreams may have been lucidity, but everything changed with this dream: The dream occured on the street that I live on, which is a in a quiet, tree-filled neighbourhood, but in this particular dream it seemed more deserted than quiet. I remember taking a long look at the clear blue sky and then running down the street and leaping into the air. I was expecting to just take off and fly like I had always done before without problems - but I floated for only a few seconds and then just fell back to the ground. I became very upset and tried several more times to run and jump, but again I only floated for a couple of seconds and then returned to the ground. The more I tried the less I could fly and the more my frustration build. As I was failing at flying and becoming more and more upset, the sky filled with huge, dark grey thunderclouds and the wind picked up drastically. Everything became very cold and I remember feeling very frightened - but I continued to run and jump in vain attempts to fly. I just wanted to get away. The dream becomes fuzzy after that, but I do remember that I never did fly in that dream and I have not been able fly, or have any such control like that, in my dreams since then.
Updated 06-20-2010 at 10:34 AM by 6048
Morning of December 21, 1969. Sunday. In my dream, I am in the playground of West Elementary School (which I attended in real life at the time). I find myself with a book, which may be “Our World Today: Europe and Europe Overseas”, which is what I had been thinking about prior to sleep. (This was a very old textbook, for a higher grade, of which had not been used by the school in years and of which my teacher gave me after I read the word “banana” when it was hyphenated to the next line. I was thankful, but saw her act as a bit peculiar.) Later in my dream, I sense that it is a book of fairy tales or perhaps the Holy Bible (though it is not thick enough to be the Holy Bible). (This association was prescient, as I received a Holy Bible as a birthday gift from a friend of my mother’s, which arrived a couple days after my birthday. Otherwise, there is an influence from an episode of “The Jackie Gleason Show” seen prior to sleep, where he, as the Poor Soul, was whisked away to fairlyand.) After I hold the book for a time, while sitting on the concrete bench in the northwest corner of the playground, it pulls me into the air. I feel vaguely dizzy and experience an atypical flight, which is a sustained awareness of liminal space (although I am only semi-lucid). I go high into the sky and then swoop to the ground a few times while holding onto the book. Eventually, at least three classmates are hanging on in a ladder-like form, that is, each additional student hanging onto the ankles of the one above them. Toby is one of them as well as Tina, and then Bobby. At one point, I notice it seems to be just before sunrise, although there is enough daylight to discern some detail. Eventually, I deliberately fly up, and out of the dream state in the manner of which I had exited many dreams. In this case, I had tried to hold onto the book in order to wake up with it, but I woke while gripping my pillow. When I was very young, I occasionally had an absurd notion of pulling items out of my dreams, primarily books and coins, though only while still in the dream state and only in partial lucidity. As I grew older, I began to understand part of the reason for this. Both books and coins more distinctly represent emergent consciousness factors (though for entirely different reasons) and both change in appearance in dreams (often into surreal nonsense) after looking at them again due to the dream state being an illusion. Reading text in a dream is possible, as I have often read in dreams, but the text typically changes when looking at it again and typically becomes unreadable gibberish when my dream self’s imaginary visual clarity increases toward waking. In the case of coins, I learned it was an attempt to stabilize my emergent consciousness, both in the concept of coins gathering (coalescence factor, because when one starts dreaming, memories begin to distort and separate so that the conscious self identity is no longer extant until the waking transition) to become whole again (such as a one-dollar bill). Additionally, the heads on coins are static (unmoving), which represents the dream self’s absence of perceptual viability and intelligence. This dream is mainly a result of vestibular system ambiguity, which occurs in over twenty percent of the tens of thousands of dreams I have studied and resolved since early childhood. While unconscious and entering the waking transition, being horizontal in bed is in biological conflict with the misperception of the dream self, which results in an infinite variety of features and events associated with flight, falling, and rising. Over the years, through understanding the nature of the dream state, I have learned to maintain subliminal awareness in dreams that are otherwise not viably lucid, and I often effortlessly take to the air in dreams instead of walking (though the dream self has no physical body unless it wants to). Additionally, the human ladder is redundant autosymbolism (as to flight triggered by natural vestibular system ambiguity) as it also represents leaving the dream state (climbing back to the state of consciousness). Resupplemented on Thursday, 8 February 2018.
Updated 02-08-2018 at 08:08 AM by 1390
Morning of December 21, 1969. Sunday. I am in the high school auditorium (which was used for entertainment for students grades one to five, the elementary school being the next block over from the high school) and there is a large marionette stage of the kind where a square window opens at the front, near the top, to reveal a clown face during intermissions (while the stage was changed for the next act of the story), who talked about the events of the story. (These were excellent and detailed productions, my favorite being “Pinocchio”.) Although other schoolmates are present, I end up focused on Tina, who puts her hands over her eyes and says, “I’m dreaming”. My dream self not fully considering what she had said, I still end up floating in the air and slowly flying toward the stage. I notice the head at the top is more like a Greek bust. Instead of a marionette stage, I then seem to be in a television studio, with some distorted (incorrect) scenes from “The Jackie Gleason Show” of the previous night. I am somewhat wary as I do not want to draw attention or interrupt the filming of the show even though I am semi-lucid. I eventually learned that a stage was autosymbolism for being in the dream state, typically in semi-lucidity or apex lucidity. Flying (as well as falling or other movement) is a biological result of vestibular system ambiguity in unconsciousness. Over one in five of my dreams involve flying or flight symbols. (On a side note, the belief that falling dreams evolved out of primates naturally developing this as an alert factor based on falling out of trees, thus being possible prey, is actually pointless, since the vestibular system would naturally trigger this anyway by already extant biological design, inherent ambiguity of the same factor as flying dreams.) Resupplemented on Thursday, 8 February 2018.
Night of December 13, 1969. Saturday. Ralph the Carpenter from “Green Acres” (played by Mary Canfield) is in my room in the middle of the night. She needs to do work on my bed (obvious dream sign) but which is also a wooden airplane (flight symbol and typical autosymbolism for vestibular system correlation) that apparently flies. She apologizes for waking me after I absentmindedly look up at what sounds somewhat like hammering. The boards are at different angles including several over my head but apparently my airplane is still okay to fly. She says something about the school bus (or catching the school bus) at one point (even though it is the weekend - which I try to recall the nature of in the back of my mind) and something about my cat Snowball. Soon, I am aware my bed is flying - with not that much concern (or focus) over her probable incompetence, though that is only a very loose association as I do not feel much movement and I am seemingly still in my room in the same position. I hear a soft engine which sounds in the distance (or underneath me and not very loud) though it is somehow meant to be “my airplane” of which I am supposedly in. I am not doing anything (that is, I am not acting as a pilot) even though my “airplane” has eventually supposedly gone a far distance. I am in bed as I was, with my eyes closed wondering where I am going. There is the typical essence of indoor-outdoor ambiguity (somehow being simultaneously indoors and outdoors). I explain this dream type further in “Dreams of Type PRECONAV-VSCPCEL, 01-15”.
Updated 07-04-2018 at 03:25 PM by 1390
Night of November 16, 1969. Sunday. Dream #: 1,063-02. Reading time: 1 min 18 sec. In my vivid dream, I am riding my school bus in the morning, but I soon notice that it is now an airplane. I realize this because of the unfamiliar bird’s eye views that I observe and enjoy. I am seated in the middle of the right side, closest the aisle. There is a feeling of comfort and security as I remain passive to my surroundings. This “airplane” continues to maintain the appearance of the inside of my school bus. The “pilot” or “bus driver” is on the left as with my school bus. He is focused and does not turn to look back at any of my classmates at any time. Based on my views primarily through the front windshield, we seem to be going downward at one point at about a forty-five-degree angle though there is no wariness or fear. Mostly, there are scenes of ancient Greece, including the Oracle at Delphi and the Temple of Athena Nike. The imagery causes an eerie essence as if I am traveling back in time or at least seeing images of the distant past. There are only a few other students on board, and I do not recall seeing anyone I know. I remain unsure who the pilot is. Though he is in a formal outfit and wearing a cap, my real-life school bus drivers never wore a uniform. (I do not recall waking from this dream, which seemed to be in the middle of the night.) It became typical for me to imagine that I was riding in something other than my school bus when going to school, such as an airplane, rocket, train, a machine that chopped all the trees down along the way (after seeing “The Lorax”), and so on. This dream was before I maintained a consistent use of “opossum” (family DiDELPHIdae) in my ceremonial identity (and eventual Internet username) and the spiritual link with dolphins (family DELPHInidae). I was surprised to find “Delphi” in both.
Updated 02-06-2019 at 08:57 AM by 1390
Morning of May 23, 1968. Thursday. Dream #: 521-2. Reading time: 35 sec. My dream renders a scene from “Peter Pan.” A schoolmate, Tina, is walking the plank on a pirate ship. I think the pirate captain making her do this is a teacher from our school, though he is unknown to me. He stays mostly in the background. However, when she falls (after being pushed by the tip of a sword), she does not land in the water. She had been caught and carried off to safety by a magical force, creating a mysterious mood, with me being responsible, though my direct corporeal presence is not in the scenario. Later, I fly around above my town on my own, mostly in the dark, over various boats and buildings, including my school. Rescuing Tina from falling into the water is a typical vestibular system adaptation process. As a result, rather than experiencing the falling start, I begin flying around.
Updated 04-13-2019 at 08:26 AM by 1390
Morning of November 3, 1977. Thursday. This was one of the only times a dream seemed to be interrupted by a different dream in an atypical, somewhat startling fashion. I was in one dream and then another dream “broke into it” like a radio broadcast very suddenly “drowning out” another with a completely different degree of awareness. My second dream was much more vivid than the first (and with growing lucidity). In the first dream, I seem to be at a television studio yet not fully present (not disembodied, just not directly in the environment), the ceiling being about twelve feet high. The New Mouseketeers, all dressed in plain white clothes, seem to be involved in some sort of unlikely science-fiction movie or televised special (perhaps live) but they are also dancing on roller skates and moving past the camera several times without the camera panning in any way. When I look around, I mostly see very large white cubes, almost like steps (but too tall to use as steps and about three cubes high closest to the walls), but possibly containers. It seems fairly dark and isolated in some areas of the huge building (but not completely dark in any areas) and the otherwise featureless warehouse-like setting. Their dancing, motions, and singing (which I think the main line or title is “The World’s a Balloon”) becomes slightly annoying (almost perceived as bizarre) though they seem to be getting a bit more enthusiastic and practiced in their performance, almost frenzied in fact, but in a comedic sense. Suddenly, there is a clearer awareness of mood and location that jumps like a needle on a record and I am in a different dream flying over Key West almost as if I had been plucked from one dream (of a completely different level of clarity and awareness) and put into another. Even the depth perception seems quite different and somewhat enhanced. A very long bridge stretches out over the ocean as I watch the cars move over it as I fly along. It is extremely vivid though the ocean is a deep purple. Everything else looks normal including the sky. Dreams do have a tendency to jump from scene to scene in some cases, but this was actually like a different type of experience, like actually “changing channels” and a quite different mental awareness at the same time.
Updated 07-04-2017 at 04:19 AM by 1390
Morning of September 22, 1974. Sunday. Dream #: 2,834-02. Reading time (optimized): 1 min. My dream self becomes aware of imaginary kinaesthesia (as a result of vestibular system ambiguity during sleep atonia) before the illusion of riding in a vehicle begins to compensate for my status of being in REM sleep. (There is no “interpretation” in this as it is how my dream originates.) I am riding in the back seat of a taxi on Highway 17 in Florida in the late morning. It is going south to Arcadia instead of north to my home in Cubitis. The driver is an elderly black male (who had driven the taxi I had taken in real life a few days previously except that it was to ride home from school). The overpass crumbles and collapses when the vehicle is at the highest point, and the taxi plummets. However, as a result of being aware I am in the dream state, I simultaneously phase through the roof of the taxi and fly above the scene without concern. As I look at the setting below, the overpass has become rubble. The landscape seems miniaturized, and the taxi is now the size of a Matchbox Car. This viewpoint is not a result of flying high above the scene, as the distance is seemingly minimal. PRECOGNITIVE: Despite this dream resulting from the usual sleep atonia to myoclonus compensation, they dynamited this overpass on October 25, 1988, in real life, and removed the rubble. (Construction began in 1937. See the image if available.) I left Cubitis in 1978 to live in Wisconsin.
Updated 08-11-2020 at 11:15 AM by 1390
Saturday, 26 June 1971. 1,650-M2. 48 second read. I soar through the blue sky alongside an American black vulture, but I am unwary. He flies on my left until he dives. I expect him to attack the townspeople below. (There is a vague association with Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”) The mood becomes cheerful. The “palace” far below appears to be the DeSoto County Courthouse. I hear people cheering and see a ticker-tape parade. I see people carry the vulture down the building’s outer steps in a palanquin, as he immediately becomes their king. “Pomp and Circumstance” (“Graduation March Song”) plays. I zoom in. From the left, I see the vulture sitting inside the palanquin. The bird has knees like a human instead of bird legs and wears a crown. I rise into the blue sky as I wake up laughing aloud. Note: People called vultures “buzzards” when I lived in Florida, thus my original title. My dream begins with the physiological influence of vestibular-motor sensations (from REM atonia). It changes from spontaneous vestibular-motor responses to controlled and more defined. The vulture’s flying and diving transitions to his non-flight (becoming more human-like) and descending a staircase. A crown appears with increased dream state awareness. It reveals higher metacognitive management of the dream state.
Updated 04-19-2022 at 04:02 AM by 1390