I Can Fly

Yes, it’s true. I can fly!

And I don’t mean “…in a plane” or “run really fast.” When the mood hits me, I can take off from the ground and fly like Superman. I can fly wherever I want as fast as I want. I don’t need wings, rockets, wires or even a cape.

There is, however, one catch. I need to be sleeping.

You see, for quite a few years now, I’ve been trying to get a handle on my dreams to the point where I can control at least one or more parts of them. It wasn’t until just a few months ago that I felt confident that I somehow cracked the cerebral code necessary to manipulate my dreams to the point where I could seize and maintain control over something.

I’m sure that tons of people can do as I do when they sleep, but this was a personal victory for me because I didn’t do any research or studying to figure this out. I just kinda willed it to happen and eventually, it did.

In my case, my biggest desire was to be able to fly like Superman whenever I wanted. For years, I’ve have the occasional, sporadic and totally unpredictable dream about flying over trees or buildings and such, but I never knew when I’d have those dreams again or how to continue having them whenever I wanted.

My dreams, much like my nightmares, seemed to be controlled by a part of my brain that I couldn’t quite reach using conventional thought. Most people who have regularly occurring dreams will tell you that everything feels real when you’re in the dream, but a quick analysis of the logistics of some of the things you saw in the dream after you're awake reveals that, had you been awake during that time and saw what you saw, there’s no way you would have accepted what you saw as normal.

That’s where I started.

I didn’t need to figure out that what I was experiencing was not real. I just needed to gain an awareness of the fact that what I was experiencing was abnormal. Once I was able to do that, I just needed to convince myself that, since my dreams didn’t obey the laws of nature or physics, I didn’t have to obey them, either.

So, if I fly in my dream, it’s because I’m choosing to do so; not because it's a random subconscious thought playing itself out. If I stay grounded, it’s probably because I’ve got enough interesting stuff going on at the time that I don’t feel the need to fly away. This may seem dumb, but being able to fly whenever I want has been so liberating and stress-relieving! There's not another feeling quite like it (IMHO).

Just the other night, my nightmare involved being chased down my own street by a cockroach the size of a house, scuttling towards me at a frantic pace. My wife called out to me and screamed, “Go on! Fly! FLY!” I remember thinking, “Oh, yeah! Cockroaches can’t fly.... but I can!” Sure enough, in mid-run, I took off and flew so high and so fast that the cockroach made one huge jump to reach me and missed.

Knowing that my wife was now in danger, I swooped back down and scooped her up before the cockroach could get her. I flew so fast that we reached the Prudential Tower in Boston in mere seconds. And so, my nightmare-turned-dream ended with us sitting on top of the tower, looking out over Boston as my wife remarked how happy she was that I learned how to fly.

So, no longer content with only having one of Superman’s attributes, I’ve moved on to flying AND having superhuman strength. In two of my most recent dreams, I was able to use both abilities. It makes me wonder just how far and how much I can learn to control in my dream world. Time will tell.