Flying Dreams and Power Lines

an image and dream on the internet

I have “dreams”, maybe nightmares about flying over traumatic events in these nightmares I am not in control of my abilities to fly and I am forced to witness these traumatic events. This reoccurring dream has been happening since I was about six years old. I have developed the super ability however, to tell myself during these nightmares that it is a dream and am able to wake myself up from them. Often going back to sleep means going back to my nightmare meaning I will have night where the nightmare is repeated over and over as I keep waking myself up over and over. I hope writing this will be the real life equivalent of waking myself up from a “dream” maybe depression.

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I think this dream speaks for itself; this is another in what will become a series of blogs about flying dreams and power lines.

"Dream of Flying": Drawing your dreams

(Dream art on the internet, anonymous)

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I dreamt that I was going to a dance. I am in a town shopping, looking for something to wear. I’ve been in this town in previous dreams, along the main street; it reminds me of Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey. It is dusk and I am with my sister. We are going from shop to shop looking for dresses. I am in a dress shop, looking at skirts, there are other women in the shop as well looking for dance clothes. I can’t find anything that looks right. I am with a group of people in a large ballroom with a high ceiling. A man who looks like Johnny Depp is teaching us to fly. It feels great, so free and easy. I look at the wings and they are snowy white, just like a bird’s wing. We are back in town, time is running out and I feel under pressure to find an outfit to wear. I am looking through racks and racks of clothes. Finally I select a black skirt but I am not happy with it. The man comes into the shop and says that we must have a mask sewn to our face. Two girls begin to sew a clear plastic mask to my face. They make a face and they are apologetic. I tell them it is worth the pain to be able to fly.I am out on the street with the man and other people who are going to the dance. We are ready to fly to the ballroom for the dance. I look in the distance and I can see the ballroom. It is along the coast and it looks like the ballroom at the boardwalk. I feel something on my face and discover that I am bleeding from the sewn on mask. The man tells us it is time to go and I take off right away as I am anxious to fly. I rise quickly and lose sight of everyone. There are power lines to clear and I fly higher to try to avoid them. The higher I fly the more lines appear and it becomes dark and foggy. I fly higher and higher.

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The image certainly adds to the story, which is powerful in its own right. Dreams are often not pretty, or even easy to listen to, yet the expression of them is very important to the psyche and the paths on which it is moving.

Not everyone is this talented as this artist, yet at whatever level of art, drawing a dream is an important way to honor the importance of the dreaming process, and a path to healing.

Why do narcoleptics fly?

Clear-cut cataplexy coexisting with excessive daytime sleepiness points directly to the diagnosis of narcolepsy. The other 2 classic symptoms found in narcolepsy are sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. In sleep paralysis, a patient becomes transiently unable to move before sleep onset or just after awakening. Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are vivid, frightening dreams, often with a sensation of flying, that similarly occur at the time of transition from sleep into wakefulness or the reverse. (Mayo Clinic)

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In sleep paralysis… most sleep-related hallucinations are visual and incorporate elements of the actual environment. For instance, individuals may describe objects appearing through cracks in the wall or describe objects moving in a picture on the wall. The hallucinations may also be auditory (e.g., hearing intruders in the home) or kinetic (e.g., sensation of flying). ( American Psychiatric Association)

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So what is the explanation for why people with narcolepsy often experience sensations of flying, particularly at the beginning or end of the episode?

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Links

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Narcolepsy: New Understanding of Irresistible Sleep

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=1144&UID=

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Diagnostic Criteria for Narcolepsy

http://www.mindsite.com/dsm_iv/narcolepsy

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Source of Image

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http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/narcolepsy04/index.html

Flying in Dreams and the Myth of Icarus

Jacob Peter Gowy; The Fall of Icarus; 1650

One of Jung’s approaches to dreams was to amplify them through association with mythology. An association to flying in dreams is the myth of Icarus:

Icarus’ father, Daedelus, a talented craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos , the king for whom he had built the labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur. Daedalus, the master craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos’ Daughter, Ariadne, a clew of string in order to help Theseus survive the Labyrinth. Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the lake. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun which burned his wings. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.

(From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus)