Swimming in the air

[dwai]

I had a strange dream a couple nights back. I was walking normally and then my steps started getting lighter like I was floating. And soon I was swimming in the air.

It felt like how the floating Jin feels...

 

Anyone had similar experiences/dreams?

Edited September 5, 2016 by dwai

[Kar3n]

...

 

Anyone had similar experiences/dreams?

 

 

Yes, once, almost a year ago.

 

I dreamt I was walking down my street, there were people all over the place, dressed like it was the 70's. One moment I was walking in a sea of people, the next, I started rising up, still moving my legs, until I realized all I had to do was think forward and I would head in that direction. I woke up when I made it to my house and saw my deceased parents standing near my front door, looking like they did when I was a kid.

[silent thunder]

yes, nearly exactly...

 

walking along outside in a meadow surrounded by trees, body begins to lose connection with the earth

I begin to take larger and larger steps until... swimming around in the air

[idquest]

You've achieved 'kong' (emptiness?).

[Taomeow]

Definitely has something to do with the light jin in my case.  I never had any flying dreams before -- just this one, recently, when I was specifically spending some time on the Double Jump Kick in Chen laojia (in my waking life) trying to get to that suspended/levitating state that requires stepping on air as though it's a staircase.  

 

The dream was brief.  I found myself jumping so high that I could see the curvature of the round sky, and looking at a mountaintop from above.  I saw the figures of two walking humans who had just made it to the summit.  I couldn't see who they were but had a sense they were a man and a woman.  The mountain was covered with snow, and the sky curving all around it was a milky wintery blue.  A voice inside my mind's ear said loud and clear, "On top of the world."  That was it.

 

I think I mentioned before, in some dream thread or other, that I have three kinds of dreams: the no-dream dark dream that feels nurturing and recharging and produces no images -- these are my default dreams, but it's not a "no dreams" state (I remember the difference), I do dream that I'm in that dark recharging place, and deliberately stay there.  Then there's mundane dreams -- I get them very rarely.  And dream-visions -- these are the rarest (a few years apart) and have a real-life-event impact, they change my perceptions, they are like an education to get, what you do with your education is an unknown but you've graduated from some program or other and know what the program was...  then you either apply what you've learned, or not.  So, this one was one of the dream-visions.        

[9th]

Plenty of times, in various forms.  Ive found it sometimes very easy and serene flying through the air, sometimes quite wild and crazy like a jet plane or something, also times where its the rising up into the air with a more "liquid" feeling - like it seems you are describing.

 

I had a lucid dream once where I became lucid as I was flying way high up, above clouds and so forth so I was looking down on the tiny houses below and all that - I was thinking to myself, "wow Im flying - thats pretty odd, I dont think that is normal" and BOOM, then Im lucid in the dream and (as usual in a lucid dream) it all becomes much more real seeming, basically as real as the "normal world", then I got really freaked out because of how high I was off the ground, just flying there.  I got a bit startled, thinking "whoa!!!" and due to this I started to drift back down, not fast but not too slow.  I immediately realized this as a mistake and was calming my emotions and so forth, and that seemed to correspond with the descent back to the ground getting slower and more gentle.

 

I touched down to the ground softly as if stepping down from a stair, and by then I was fully back into a very calm state, and feeling like I was rising again, which I did - but not before I came face to face with some kind of creature that is extremely hard to describe.  It looked like a giant cat (lion or jungle cat sized) but it was also very wolf or dog-like as well - it was a strange looking animal for sure.  Except it also had these very large, extremely intelligent seeming eyes - kinda like when you look into another persons eyes and how different that is from looking into a frogs eyes.  However as it looked at me I got the impression it was even way more intelligent than that - much more intelligent than people, and me as well.  We had a brief and mutually curious non-verbal greeting before I floated back up into the sky.  It was a super weird dream.

[dwai]

Plenty of times, in various forms. Ive found it sometimes very easy and serene flying through the air, sometimes quite wild and crazy like a jet plane or something, also times where its the rising up into the air with a more "liquid" feeling - like it seems you are describing.

 

I had a lucid dream once where I became lucid as I was flying way high up, above clouds and so forth so I was looking down on the tiny houses below and all that - I was thinking to myself, "wow Im flying - thats pretty odd, I dont think that is normal" and BOOM, then Im lucid in the dream and (as usual in a lucid dream) it all becomes much more real seeming, basically as real as the "normal world", then I got really freaked out because of how high I was off the ground, just flying there. I got a bit startled, thinking "whoa!!!" and due to this I started to drift back down, not fast but not too slow. I immediately realized this as a mistake and was calming my emotions and so forth, and that seemed to correspond with the descent back to the ground getting slower and more gentle.

 

I touched down to the ground softly as if stepping down from a stair, and by then I was fully back into a very calm state, and feeling like I was rising again, which I did - but not before I came face to face with some kind of creature that is extremely hard to describe. It looked like a giant cat (lion or jungle cat sized) but it was also very wolf or dog-like as well - it was a strange looking animal for sure. Except it also had these very large, extremely intelligent seeming eyes - kinda like when you look into another persons eyes and how different that is from looking into a frogs eyes. However as it looked at me I got the impression it was even way more intelligent than that - much more intelligent than people, and me as well. We had a brief and mutually curious non-verbal greeting before I floated back up into the sky. It was a super weird dream.

I've had many flying dreams (lucid as well as non-lucid) but this was different. Flying dreams are when I take-off from a dead stop and and whizzing around at high speeds. Sometimes in the middle of the flight I used to get scared and start free-falling until I was able to muster up enough presence of mind to resume my flight again. Those are as you described.

 

This one is weird because it reminds me of something my first teacher would tell us about Prof Cheng Man Ching having said. First we fight with gravity to stay upright and move. Then with time taiji feels like swimming in water. Eventually it feels like swimming in air...

 

Half lion half wolf? Chimera? Wow...wish there was an easy way for us to tap into and understand what the dream states actually mean...though I know it's moot in many cases. Like Taomeow said...with me too, some have been just dreams, some lucid (where I was in control but unable to break out of the dream matrix) and in others some teachers would visit and their teachings made lasting effect in my life...

Edited September 5, 2016 by dwai

[9th]

Sounds like you had a dream that crystallized a specific insight for you.. those are pretty special

[Brian]

Yes, I often have flying/floating dreams in which the mechanics of motion are very similar to swimming. Over the last few years, they increasingly are also lucid dreams.

[3bob]

reaching escape velocity is assisted by divine beings,

[blackstar212]

I had a strange dream a couple nights back. I was walking normally and then my steps started getting lighter like I was floating. And soon I was swimming in the air.

It felt like how the floating Jin feels...

 

Anyone had similar experiences/dreams?

Yes, I enjoy those dreams immensely. They come very rarely but I guess that is what makes them so wonderful.

[Brian]

Yes, I often have flying/floating dreams in which the mechanics of motion are very similar to swimming. Over the last few years, they increasingly are also lucid dreams.

Reflecting on this a bit, the swimming motion is sort of a stylized underwater "frog" stroke but that motion is often replaced with a kinda prolonged jump -- jump and hold, if that makes sense. In either case, the physical motion is more symbolic; a gesture coming out of intent rather than motive in itself.

[Taomeow]

In at least some cases, those are prenatal memories.

 

I know that early in the development the fetus doesn't sit inert but swims in the amniotic fluid when it is still small enough to have all that space to move freely. 

[Brian]

In at least some cases, those are prenatal memories.

 

I know that early in the development the fetus doesn't sit inert but swims in the amniotic fluid when it is still small enough to have all that space to move freely.

Very interesting!

[Taomeow]

Very interesting!

 

When I was pregnant, for a couple of weeks in the process I felt like a walking fish tank.  The swimming up and down and side to side, sometimes with hovering and then dives, sometimes with sharp turns, was something I felt very distinctly.   I don't know if many pregnant women feel it, maybe with twins the waves get amplified. 

 

This explains, of course, why infants don't have to learn to swim -- they are born remembering how because they practiced already.  My niece was one of the swimming babies, her parents started her "practice" in the bath tub a week after she was born.  She grew up as strong as a horse.