When I was a kid, I didn't have flying dreams. I regularly dreamed I was falling. There'd be a yawning abyss, a great terrible drop, and I'd lose my balance. Down I'd go, and I'd wake in terror. If you died hitting the ground in a falling dream, or so I understood, you'd actually die in real life. So my friends had told me. It was common knowledge among children.
Then...it was in early adolescence...that changed. I had a falling dream, just pure stock standard plummeting to my inevitable demise, only with one major difference. I was annoyed at the dream, irritated that it was yet again going to ruin a night of sleep. I refused to wake up.
I fell, the ground came up real fast, but I didn't wake. I felt the impact, and I died.
Only the dream kept going, and I was elsewhere, as another character in a new part of the dream. This upended one of the primary tenets of children's dream folklore, but so it goes.
Upon waking, I wasn't afraid of falling dreams. I still had them, though. I'd crash to the ground, and just keep on going. I started trying to figure out if there was any way to change my downward trajectory. I could, spreading my arms and pulling up into a long glide. It was really kind of fun.
For a while, I'd flap my arms, which felt goofy, but worked.
Eventually, I learned that arm waggling wasn't necessary, that I could fly by simply *intending* in a particular direction. The feeling was, and still is, completely unlike anything I feel in waking life. I remember it right now, as I write this, but I can't *feel* it. It's a bit like pushing with my arms, and at the same time like pulling, but the tension is evenly distributed across my entire body. It's like no other feeling but flying. Up I'll soar, and it's delightful.
I'll swoop about with only the very slightest bit of effort, shouting gleefully down to those on the ground, often hoping that finally, finally, it's not just a dream. But it always is.
Flying usually comes so very easily.
But not always. Sometimes, I ascend, but only weakly, rising for just a moment and with great effort.
Or...like that recent night...I'll try to find that sense of intention, and it's just not there, like I'm attempting to move an arm that's completely numb. Oh, c'mon, I'll grumble, reaching about in myself, but ain't nothin' doing. I remain as earthbound as I am in waking life.
The ability is fickle, and not simply mine to command at will.
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