dreams of flying and falling—their peculiar vividness—dreams of flying an alleged survival of primeval experiences—best explained as based on respiratory sensations combined with cutaneous anaesthesia—the explanation of dreams of falling—the sensation of levitation sometimes experienced by ecstatic saints—also experienced at the moment of death.
dreams of flying, with the dreams of falling they are sometimes associated with, may fairly be considered the best known and most frequent type of dream. they were among the earliest dreams to attract attention. ruths argues that the greek conception of the flying hermes, the god who possessed special authority over dreams, was based on such experiences. lucretius, in his interesting passage on the psychology of dreaming, speaks of falling from heights in dreams;[100] cicero appears to refer to dreams of flying; st. jerome mentions that he was subject to them; synesius remarked that in dreams we fly with wings and view the world from afar; cervantes accurately described the dream of falling.[101] from the inventors of the legend[130] of icarus onwards, men have firmly cherished the belief that under some circumstances they could fly, and we may well suppose that that belief partly owes its conviction, and the resolve to make it practical, to the experiences that have been gained in dreams.
no dreams, indeed, are so vivid and so convincing as dreams of flying; none leave behind them so strong a sense of the reality of the experience. raffaelli, the eminent french painter, who is subject to the dreaming experience of floating in the air, confesses that it is so convincing that he has jumped out of bed on awaking and attempted to repeat it. 'i need not tell you,' he adds, 'that i have never been able to succeed.'[102] herbert spencer mentions that in a company of a dozen persons, three testified that in early life they had had such vivid dreams of flying downstairs, and were so strongly impressed by the reality of the experience, that they actually made the attempt, one of them suffering in consequence from an injured ankle.[103] the case is recorded of an old french lady who always maintained that on one occasion she actually had succeeded for a few instants in supporting herself on the air.[104] no one who is familiar with these dreaming experiences will be inclined to laugh at that old lady. it was during one of these dreams of levitation, in which one finds oneself leaping into the air and able to stay there, that it occurred to me that i would write a paper[131] on the subject, for i thought in my dream that this power i found myself possessed of was probably much more widespread than was commonly supposed, and that in any case it ought to be generally known.
people who dabble in the occult have been so impressed by such dreams that they have sometimes believed that these flights represented a real excursion of the 'astral body.' this is the belief of colonel de rochas.[105] césar de vesme, the editor of the french edition of the annals of psychical research, has thought it worth while to investigate the matter; and after summarising the results of a questionnaire concerning dreams of flying, he comes to the conclusion that 'the sensation of aerial flight in dreams is simply a hallucinatory phenomenon of an exclusively physiological [he means 'psychological'] kind,' and not evidence of the existence of the 'astral body.'[106] the fact, nevertheless, that so many people are found who believe such dreams to possess some kind of reality, clearly indicates the powerful impression they make.
all my life, it seems to me, certainly from an early age, until recently, i have at intervals had dreams in which i imagined myself rhythmically bounding into[132] the air, and supported on the air, remaining there for a perceptible interval; at other times i have felt myself gliding downstairs, but not supported by the stairs. in my case the experience is nearly always agreeable, involving a certain sense of power, and it usually evokes no marked surprise, occurring as a familiar and accustomed pleasure. on awaking i do not usually remember these dreams immediately, which seems to indicate that they are not due to causes specially operative at the end of sleep, or liable to bring sleep to a conclusion. but they leave behind them a vague yet profound sense of belief in their reality and reasonableness.
dream-flight, it is necessary to note, is not usually the sustained flight of a bird or an insect, and the dreamer rarely or never imagines that he is borne high into the air. hutchinson states that of all those whom he has asked about the matter 'hardly one has ever known himself to make any high flights in his dreams. one almost always flies low, with a skimming manner, slightly, but only slightly, above the heads of pedestrians.'[107]
beaunis, from his own experience, describes what i should consider a typical kind of dream-flight as a series of light bounds, at one or two yards above the earth, each bound clearing from ten to twenty yards, the dream being accompanied by a delicious sensation of easy movement, as well as a lively satisfaction at being able to solve the problem of aerial locomotion by[133] virtue of superior organisation alone.[108] lafcadio hearn, somewhat similarly, describes, in his shadowings, a typical and frequent dream of his own as a series of bounds in long parabolic curves, rising to a height of some twenty-five feet, and always accompanied by the sense that a new power had been revealed which for the future would be a permanent possession.
the attempt to explain dreams of flying has led to some bold hypotheses. freud characteristically affirms that the dream of flying is the bridge to a concealed wish.[109] i have already mentioned the notion that dreams of flight are excursions of the 'astral body.' professor stanley hall, who has himself, from childhood, had dreams of flying, argues, with scarcely less boldness, that we have here 'some faint reminiscent atavistic echo from the primeval sea'; and that such dreams are really survivals—psychic vestigial remains comparable to the rudimentary gill-slits not uncommonly found in man and other mammals—taking us back to the far past when man's ancestors needed no feet to swim or float.[110] such a theory may accord with the profound conviction of reality that accompanies these[134] dreams, though that may be more easily accounted for; but it has the very serious weakness that it offers an explanation which will not fit the facts. our dreams are of flying, not of swimming; but the ancestors of the mammals probably lived in the water, not in the air. in preference to so hazardous a theory, it seems infinitely more reasonable to regard these dreams as an interpretation—a misinterpretation from the standpoint of waking life—of actual internal sensations. if we can find the adequate explanation of a psychic state in conditions actually existing within the organism itself at the time, it is needless to seek an explanation in conditions that ceased to exist untold millenniums ago.
my own explanation was immediately suggested by the following dream. i dreamed that i was watching a girl acrobat, in appropriate costume, who was rhythmically rising to a great height in the air and then falling, without touching the floor, though each time she approached quite close to it. at last she ceased, exhausted and perspiring, and i had to lead her away. her movements were not controlled by mechanism, and apparently i did not regard mechanism as necessary. it was a vivid dream, and i awoke with a distinct sensation of oppression in the chest. in trying to account for this dream, which was not founded on any memory, it occurred to me that probably i had here the key to a great group of dreams. the rhythmic rising and falling of the acrobat was simply the objectivation of the rhythmic rising and falling of my own respiratory[135] muscles—in some dreams, perhaps, of the systole and diastole of the heart's muscles—under the influence of some slight and unknown physical oppression, and this oppression was further translated into a condition of perspiring exhaustion in the girl, just as men with heart disease may dream of sweating and panting horses climbing uphill, in accordance with that tendency to magnification which marks dreams generally.[111] we may recall also the curious sensation as of the body being transformed into a vast bellows or steam engine, which is often the last sensation felt before the unconsciousness produced by nitrous oxide gas.[112] when we are lying down there is a real rhythmic rising and falling of the chest and abdomen, centring in the diaphragm, a series of oscillations which at both extremes are only limited by the air. moreover, in this position we have to recognise that the circulatory,[136] nervous, and other systems of the whole internal organism, are differently balanced from what they are in the upright position, and that a disturbance of internal equilibrium always accompanies falling.
it is also noteworthy (as, indeed, wundt has briefly remarked) that the modifications produced by sleep in the respiratory process itself tend to facilitate its interpretation as a process of flying. mosso showed that respiration in sleep is more thoracic than when awake, that it is lengthened, and that the respiratory pause is less marked.[113] that is to say that both the aerial element and the actual rhythmic movement of the ribs become accentuated during sleep.
that the respiratory element is the chief factor in dreams of flying is clearly indicated by the fact that many persons subject to such dreams are conscious on awaking from them of a sense of respiratory or cardiac disturbance. i am acquainted with a psychologist who, though not a frequent dreamer, is subject to dreams of flying, which do not affect him disagreeably, but on awaking from them he always perceives a slight flutter of the heart. any such sensation is by no means constant with me, but i have occasionally noted it down in exactly the same words after this kind of dream.[114] it is worth while to observe, in this connection, how large a number of people, and especially very young[137] people, associate their dreams of flying with staircases. the most frequent cause of cardiac and respiratory stimulation, especially in children, who constantly run up and down them, is furnished by staircases, and though in health this fact may not be obvious, it is undoubtedly registered unconsciously, and may thus be utilised by dreaming intelligence.
there is, however, another element entering into the problem of nocturnal aviation: the state of the skin sensations. respiratory activity alone would scarcely suffice to produce the imagery of flight if sensations of tactile pressure remained to suggest contact with the earth. in dreams, however, the sense of movement suggested by respiratory activity is unaccompanied by the tactile pressure produced by boots or the contact of the ground with the soles of the feet. in addition, also, there is probably, as bergson also has suggested, a numbness due to pressure on the parts supporting the weight of the body. sleep is not a constant and uniform state of consciousness; a heightened consciousness of respiration may easily co-exist with a diminished consciousness of tactile pressure due to anaesthesia of the skin.[115] in normal sleep it may, indeed, be said that the conditions are probably often favourable to the production of this combination, and any slight thoracic disturbance even in healthy persons,[138] arising from heart or stomach, and acting on the respiration, serves to bring these conditions to sleeping consciousness and to determine the dream of flying.
dreams of flying are sometimes associated with dreams of falling, the falling sensation occurring either at the beginning or at the end of the dream; such a dream may be said to be of the icarus type.[116] jewell considers that the two kinds of dream have the same causation, the difference being merely a difference of apperception. the frequent connection between the two dreams indicates that the causation is allied, but it scarcely seems to be identical. if it were identical, we should scarcely find that while the emotional tone of the dream of flying is usually agreeable, that of the dream of falling is usually disagreeable.[117]
i have no personal experience of the sensation of falling in normal dreaming, although jewell and hutchinson have found that it is more common than flying, the latter[139] regarding it, indeed, as the most common kind of dream, the dream of flying coming next in frequency. a friend who has no dreams of flying, but has experienced dreams of falling from his earliest years, tells me that they are always associated with feelings of terror. this suggests an organic cause, and the fact that the sensation of falling may occur in epileptic fits during sleep,[118] seems further to suggest the presence of circulatory and nervous disturbance. it would seem probable that while the same two factors—respiratory and tactile—are operative in both types of dream, they are not of equal force in each. in the dream of flying, respiratory activity is excited, and in response to excitation it works at a high level adequate to the needs of the organism. in the dream of falling it may be that respiratory activity is depressed, while concomitantly, perhaps, the anaesthetic state of the skin is increased. in the first state the abnormal activity of respiration triumphs in consciousness over the accompanying dulness of tactile sensation; in the second state the respiratory breathlessness is less influential than a numbness of the skin unconscious of any external pressure. this difference is rendered possible by the fact that in dreams of flying we are not usually far from the earth, and seem able to touch it lightly at intervals; that is to say that tactile sensitiveness is impaired, but is not entirely absent as it is in a dream of falling.[119]
[140]
in my own experience the sensation of falling only occurs in illness or under the influence of drugs, sometimes when sleep seems incomplete, and it is an unpleasant, though not terrifying, sensation. i once experienced it in the most marked and persistent manner after taking a large dose of chlorodyne to subdue pain. under such circumstances the sensation is probably due to the fact that the morphia in chlorodyne both weakens respiratory action and produces anaesthesia of the peripheral nerves, so that the skin becomes abnormally insensitive to the contact and pressure of the bed, and the sensation of descent is necessarily aroused.[120] it is possible that persons liable to the dream of falling are predisposed to a stage of sleep unconsciousness, in which cutaneous insensibility is marked. it is also possible that there is a contributory element of slight cardiac or respiratory disturbance.[121]
in a dream belonging to this group, i imagined i was being rhythmically swung up and down in the air by a young woman, my feet never touching the ground; and then that i was swinging her similarly. at one[141] time she seemed to be swinging me in too jerky and hurried a manner, and i explained to her that it must be done in a slower and more regular manner, though i was not conscious of the precise words i used. there had been some dyspepsia on the previous day, and on awaking i felt slight discomfort in the region of the heart. the symbolism into which slightly disturbed respiratory or cardiac action is here transformed seems very clear in this dream, because it shows the actual transition from the subjective sensation to the objective imagery of flying. by means of this symbolic imagery we find sleeping consciousness commanding the hurried heart to beat in a more healthy manner.
although, in youth, my dreams of flying were of what may be considered normal type, after the age of about thirty-five they tended, as illustrated by the example i have given, to take on a somewhat objective form. a further stage in this direction, the swinging movement being transformed to an inanimate object, is illustrated by a dream of comparatively recent date, in which i seemed to see an athlete of the music-hall, a graceful and muscular man, who was manipulating a large elastic ball, making it bound up from the floor. on awaking there was a distinct sensation of cardaic tremor and nervousness.[122]
it may seem strange that dreams of flying, if so often[142] due to organic disturbances, should usually be agreeable in character. it is not, however, necessary to assume that they are caused by serious interference with physiological functions; often, indeed, they may simply be due to the presence of a stage of consciousness in which respiration has become unduly prominent, as it is apt to be in the early stage of nitrous oxide anaesthesia, that is to say, to a relative wakefulness of the respiratory centres. it would seem that the disturbance is frequently almost, or quite, imperceptible on waking, and by no means to be compared with the more acute organic disturbances which result in dreams of murder, although it may be of nervous origin.[123] in some cases, however, it appears that dreams of flying are accompanied by circumstances of terror. thus a medical correspondent, who describes his health as fairly good, writes in regard to dreams of flying: 'i have often had such dreams, and have wondered if others have them. mine, however, are not so much dreams of flying, as dreams of being entirely devoid of weight, and of rising and falling at will. a singular feature of these levitation dreams is that they are always accompanied by an intense and agonising fear of an evil presence, a presence that i do not see but seem to feel, and my greatest terror is that i shall see it. the presence is ill-defined, but very real, and it seems to suggest the potentiality of all possible moral, mental,[143] and physical evil. in these dreams it always occurs to me that if this evil presence shall ever become embodied into a something that i could see, the sight of it would be so ineffably horrible as to drive me mad. so vivid has this fear been that on several occasions i have awakened in a cold sweat or a nameless fear that would persist for some minutes after i realised that i had only been dreaming.' this seems to be an abnormal type of the dream of flight.
it is somewhat surprising that while dreams of floating in the air are so common and clearly indicate the respiratory source of the dream, dreams of floating on water seem to be rare, for as the actual experience of floating on water is fairly familiar, we might have expected that sleeping consciousness would have found here rather than in the never experienced idea of floating in air the explanation of its sensations. the dream of floating on water is, however, by no means unknown; thus rachilde (mme. vallette), the french novelist and critic, whose dream life is vivid and remarkable, states that her most agreeable dream is that of floating on the surface of warm and transparent lakes or rivers.[124] one of the correspondents of l'intermédiaire des chercheurs et des curieux[125] also states that he has often dreamed of walking on the water.
it is not only in sleep that the sensation of flying is experienced. in hysteria a sense of peculiar lightness of the body, and the idea of the soul's power to fly, may[144] occur incidentally,[126] and may certainly be connected both with the vigilambulism, as sollier terms the sleep-like tendencies of such cases, and the anaesthetic conditions found in the hysterical. it is noteworthy that janet found that in an ecstatic person who experienced the sensation of rising in the air there was anaesthesia of the soles of the feet. in such hysterical ecstasy, which has always played so large a part in religious manifestations, it is well known that the sense of rising and floating in the air has often prominently appeared. st. theresa occasionally felt herself lifted above the ground, and was fearful that this sign of divine favour would attract attention (though we are not told that that was the case), while st. joseph of cupertino, christina the wonderful, st. ida of louvain, with many another saint enshrined in the acta sanctorum, were permitted to experience this sensation; and since its reality is as convincing in the ecstatic state as it is in dreams, the saints have often been able to declare, in perfect good faith, that their levitation was real.[127] in all great religious movements among primitive peoples, similar phenomena occur, together with other nervous and hallucinatory manifestations. they occurred, for instance, in the great russian religious movement which took place among the peasants in[145] the province of kief during the winter of 1891-2. the leader of the movement, a devout member of the stundist sect, a man with alcoholic heredity, who had received the revelation that he was saviour of the world, used not only to perceive perfumes so exquisite that they could only, as he was convinced, emanate from the holy ghost, but during prayer, together with a feeling of joy, he also had a sensation of bodily lightness and of floating in the air. his followers in many cases had the same experiences, and they delighted in jumping up into the air and shouting. in these cases the reality of the sensory obtuseness of the skin as an element in the manifestations was demonstrated, for ssikorski, who had an opportunity of investigating these people, found that many of them, when in the ecstatic condition, were completely insensible to pain.
the sensation of flying is one of the earliest to appear in the dreams of childhood.[128] it is sometimes the last sensation at the moment of death. to rise, to fall, to glide away, has often been the last conscious sensation recalled by those who seemed to be dying, but have afterwards been brought back to life. those rescued from drowning, for instance, have sometimes found that the last conscious sensation was a beatific feeling of being borne upwards. piéron has also noted this sensation at the moment of death from disease in a number of cases, usually accompanied by a sense of[146] well-being.[129] the cases he describes were mostly tuberculous, and included individuals of both sexes, and of atheistic as well as religious belief. in all, the last sensation to which expression was given was one of flying, of moving upwards. in some death was peaceful, in others painful. in one case a girl died clasping the iron bars of the bed, in horror of being borne upwards. piéron, no doubt rightly, associates this sensation with the similar sensation of rising and floating common in dreams, and with the feeling of moving upwards and resting on the air experienced by persons in the ecstatic state. in all these cases alike life is being concentrated in the brain and central organs, while the outlying districts of the body are becoming numb and dead.
in this way it comes about that out of dreams and of dream-like waking states, one of the most permanent of human spiritual conceptions has been evolved. to float, to rise into the air, to fly up to heaven, has always seemed to man to be the final climax of spiritual activity. the angel is the most ethereal creature the human imagination can conceive. browning's cry to his 'lyric love, half angel and half bird,' pathetically crude as poetry, is sound as psychology. the prophets and divine heroes of the race have constantly seemed to their devout followers to disappear at last by floating up into the sky, like elijah, who went up 'by a whirlwind into heaven.' st. peter once thought he saw his master walking on the waves, and the last vision of[147] jesus in the gospels reveals him rising into the air. for it is in the world of dreams that the human soul has its indestructible home, and in the attempt to realise these dreams lies a large part of our business in life.
