Flying

The Jungian reading

Ascent is transcendence — rising above a constraint, a role, a limitation that has pressed too long. But Jung insisted on reading the whole picture: flight that leaves the earth entirely is inflation, spirit unmoored from body and fact. Struggling to stay airborne mirrors a freedom recently won and not yet secure; serene soaring after a hard period often marks real integration. His test: can you land? The dreamer who can descend at will has gained height; the one who cannot has merely escaped.

The Freudian reading

Freud traced flying dreams to the child's bodily memory of being tossed and swung by adults — pleasure in weightlessness — and read adult versions as wish-fulfillment, frequently erotic in origin. The wish is not always to fly; it is to be above: above judgment, above consequence, above the crowd that stays on foot.

What modern research says

Flying is a staple of lucid dreaming — often the first thing new lucid dreamers try — and its frequency rises with lucidity practice. Vestibular activity during REM feeds the sensation. Content studies find flying dreams associated with positive affect and with waking periods of achievement or release; they are among the few common dreams people wish to have again.

Questions to ask yourself

— Am I rising above my situation — or refusing to touch the ground of it?

— What exactly lies below me in the dream, and what is its waking name?

— Could I land if I chose to — in the dream, and in the life it mirrors?