well then, i hope you had a chance to try the flying method from part 1 in your dream. if you tried but it didn’t work, don’t give up! it’s hard to intend a dream and sometimes it’s even harder to fly. but you can do it! anyways, whether that worked or not, i’ll tell you of another method. there are lots of different ways to fly, and that’s what this journal is all about. if one method doesn’t work, then another method will. so with one means or another we’ll get you soaring in the clouds in no time.
method ii – flap your arms frantically like an anxious little bird
that’s right. as the heading says.. well, the heading says it all really. this method is about connecting with your childhood instinct for magical thinking. perhaps, as a child, you would pretend you were a bird. when i was a little girl, i would always pretend and become all kinds of animals: a cat, a rabbit, ..a tigress! but sometimes an eagle or a little sparrow. if i was an eagle i would flap my imaginary wings gallantly and swoop-strike at my brothers or playmates. but as a sparrow, i’d flap my arms frantically as fast as i could while staring up at treetops longingly until my arms would get sore, and then i’d fall down in a tantrum.
so it’s a dream state that follows that kind of childhood logic. mimicking the animal, you become like that animal. it’s not always the most efficient method, but there is an intuition to it that makes this method particularly accessible. there is also something divine about using the dream state to reconnect to your inner child’s sense of wonder, a view of reality that we only had once but lost. acting in such a way while awake might be considered regressive, but in dreaming, there is an opportunity to reintegrate some of that wonder back into the whole of your psyche.
so, the method is utterly simple: you think for a moment, oh! i’m like a bird! but then start flapping your hands like they’re wings, vigorously with diligent effort. it might not work at first, but then keep flapping with all your might! it’s just elbow grease against gravity! but you can imagine your body feeling lighter and your arms starting to lift you up. then make a little hop from your toes and see if you can keep your body suspended in the air for a moment, and then a moment more. gradually you’ll see that you are lifting off the ground.
that’s it, you’re doing it! you’re really flying! <|:D
at this point your arms are going to get really tired, and you’re probably going to want to take a little break. but see if you can fly up to a tree, or lamppost, or somewhere else high up to perch for a minute. then you can rest a bit and then after you’ve caught your breath, you can try again with a head start.
after trying again, if you can get even higher up, then as soon as your arms get tired, try switching to soaring: stretch your arms out and think, oh! i’m like an eagle, or a swan!
then swoop around! feel your body being carried by the wind! by thinking it, you can make your body light and free, it doesn’t matter if, in waking life, you are on a diet and trying to lose weight; in the dreaming you can make yourself buoyant and nigh weightless. you see, the method of flapping your arms is just the catalyst to get you in the air, but after that it’s easier to switch to another mode of flying such as changing the direction of down, or you might find yourself spontaneously able to soar about with the power of thought like storm or superman.
anyways, that’s the best-case scenario. but be warned that this method doesn’t always yield such satisfying results. you may find yourself expending an exorbitant amount of energy only to hover a few inches off the ground. in the worst case, it may even provoke unwanted dream encounters—you see there is something in the symbolism of striving exuberantly against gravity. the hands or wings are mercurial, while gravity is saturnian. in the domains of dream logic, this means the activity of trying to fly with your hands could invoke the abstract notion of anxiously struggling against relentless uncompromising fears or forces.
or, to put more simply, it may provoke creepers to appear in your dream, who come and try to get at you, which could, of course, turn into the nightmare where flying becomes the only means of getting away to safety.
while writing this, dear reader, i felt very hesitant to mention this possibility, since the suggestion may be the seed of thought that generates such a nightmare. but i felt it better to take responsibility and warn you rather than let such a nightmare catch you unaware.
but in truth, you know, it is healthy to acknowledge the symbols of our fears and anxieties in our dreams. we shouldn’t try to suppress nightmares, which have something important to tell us about our unconscious fears, and the method of dream flight gives us a means to, if not directly confront our fears, allow ourselves space to see them from a higher perspective.
symbolically, flight is an expression of potentiality. when the gravity of life’s situations makes us feel constrained, or trapped, or even doomed, we can forget that space exists. but that space is always there, open and pregnant with infinite potentiality. no matter how terrible the situation seems, there is always possibility. we can quit our job. we can break off a bad relationship. dream flight symbolically reminds us of this fundamental potentiality. although we must eventually come to ground and deal with what comes, you can at least give yourself that perspective from high up in the infinite sky where you can see how everything below is very tiny.
Continue reading How to fly
Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3
Originally published by Sophie G. on Questionable Cave.
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