INTRODUCTION

I think I had the flying dream below when I was in my late 20s (in the early 1980s)... most likely after my husband abandoned me and our kids, but I don't think that was relevant to the dream. Symbolically I think the dream had to do with how we limit ourselves with our fear.

FLYING TO SAFETY

I was with a group of adults and children fleeing someone... or something. We found a cave with tunnels high enough for us to walk easily. We went in, but soon heard that whatever we were trying to escape had entered the tunnel after us. So we kept going further and further back looking for a place to hide.  

We came upon a chasm that was too far to jump across, but we knew if we could get across we would be safe. I looked at it and decided to teach everyone how to fly across it. I am sure this is related to previous flying dreams. I knew the hardest part would be to convince the adults. So I talked to the children, then flew across the chasm, came back and convinced them to try. They saw me do it and I told them something like "If you know you can fly, you can fly" so they did and we all stood on the other side telling the adults to come with us. I left the children on the other side and went back to convince the adults that they could fly across but they were all afraid.

I woke up trying to convince them with the children on the other side calling for their parents.

BACKGROUND

I had a lot of flying dreams as a kid. Falling dreams too--when I fell I always hit the bed with a whump when I woke up. It really felt like I had fallen onto my bed. I remember a boy in fifth or sixth grade telling his friends "If you ever dream you're falling, and you hit or land, then you're dead." I was just passing and laughed at him, telling him "You're being silly, because I always land." Such falling dreams, I believe, were me returning from an out of body experience (I later learned to do that awake...)

--JahaRa2010

EDITOR'S NOTE

In the early 1970s, dream researcher Ann Faraday suggested that falling dreams were often practice for flying dreams, and those (especially in serious dreamworkers) were precursors for out-of-body, astral, psychic or shamanic dreams--whatever labels you prefer (for me these overlap so massively I can barely distinguish them). My dreams, like JahaRa2010's, fit that idea of falling dreams as flight-training, and flight dreams as soul-training. That's already evident in this dream I think--note how she leads and protects the group, taking responsibility like a proper shaman. And how the grownups are the timid ones needing help.

--Chris Wayan

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