Last night I had a dream that I’ve had before - not the exact same dream, but certain elements. It started with me flying, which was the first recurring element. I’ve had flying dreams since I was a teenager… free, effortless soaring through the air kind of flying. In these dreams, I can take off from any point and fully control where I’m going. I’ve flown over crowds, around buildings, through caves, over mountains, across the ocean. I can get away from something by just levitating and flying away. These dreams are always amazing.
In last night’s dream, I started off flying but later I was falling (I’ll get back to this). What’s interesting is the act of falling has become another recurring dream element in the past year or two. Specifically, falling into water.
Earlier this year, I had this very vivid dream of falling into a well of sewage water… yes, falling into shit. It was crazy. I can still feel the sensation of sinking into this cold, disgusting, stinky fluid, arms flailing in slow motion, my body extremely heavy and going down deep into the murky darkness, the view of the world above moving farther away to almost just a pinpoint. It took every ounce of emotional strength to not panic, to allow my body to fall as far as it needed to, knowing that as soon as it reached that point, I could start swimming to the top again. Which I did in the dream, and pulled myself out of the well, at which point I woke up.
Last night, the dream started with me going up into the air like a normal flying dream. Except I went really high, so high that I could see the topography of the landscape below. I was wearing some kind of ear piece and could hear people talking to me through it. Apparently, I was supposed to show up to an important event, but I had decided to take this detour for some reason. The people talking to me in the ear piece were concerned that a) I was going to be late for the event, and b) I was going to land in the wrong spot and possibly hurt myself, or worse. I kept reassuring them that neither would be the case. But… I wasn’t entirely sure. I was kind of winging it (no pun intended).
So, I was up there in the sky, not in as much control as usual, partially flying, partially falling, a combination of control and chance. I could feel strong winds carrying me this way and that, and could see myself heading towards spots that would be dangerous to land at the speed that I was moving - shallow rivers, forests, and fields. [I’ve never been skydiving but I imagine it feels similar.]
As I got closer to land, holding my breath with anticipation, trying to steer against the strong winds, I realized that I was heading towards a large body of water, one deep enough to be safe. A feeling of relief and surrender washed over me.
Sure enough, moments later, I hit this body of water and SANK… way down deep… because of the velocity I’d been traveling.
I should probably add that I’m a good swimmer in real life, and can hold my breath for a long time. I love being in water, the sensation of weightlessness, of being buoyant, and I love the mysteries of the underwater world. So, in these dreams when I fall into water, I might feel fear but only fleetingly. I never feel like I’m drowning, though I’m aware that the danger of drowning is always there. The overall sensation is that I know I’m in a dangerous situation, and the way to survive is to momentarily surrender, keep my wits about me (not panic), and then remember how to swim. If I do all those things, I’ll be fine. And that’s exactly what I did last night.
When I finally got to the surface again, I saw a vehicle on the shore waiting to pick me up. I walked out of the water and got into the back of this truck. The folks inside were relieved to see me, handing me towels and clapping my back, congratulating me on making such a brilliant landing. The truck took off towards the event. Then I woke up.
I’ll be thinking about the possible meanings of this dream on my drive back to NYC this afternoon. For now, I wanted to leave you with some images from my residency at Cill Rialaig in Ireland in April 2023. I took dozens of photos of the ocean. It felt like being on the edge of the world.
Flying dreams are so amazing. You are lucky to have such vivid memories of your dreams. From what you described there is a lot of information there to parse out. I had an amazing out-of-body/flying dream when I served in the army. I think it was a combination of being really tired and in a place that I didn't want to be. It was sort of a lucid dream, I suppose. I held on to that memory as long as I could and tried to make it happen again in other occasions. Eventually I even took on paragliding to achieve some of the weightlessness in real life but that's another story!
I had flying dreams often when I was a child. Would love to have them again!