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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 If I were allowed to perform one superhuman feat -- meaning an activity that would be a flagrant breach of the laws of physics as they exist in this physical 'reality' of ours -- it would be to fly. To lift off from the Earth under my own power and move in any direction I felt like going, at any speed I felt like, consciously, with complete control. That would be it for me. I can't think of anything that would feel more thrilling, more intensely delicious in just about every aspect, and I'm sure this accounts for my hankering to try hang-gliding or sky-diving. (Sky-diving! Once they pried my hands off the side of the plane's jump-door and pushed me out, I would be euphoric, inundated with the sensation of being in mid-air, the sky spread out above me, the Earth spread out below. And now that parachute technology has vaulted forward to include far more control and far less risk, they might not need to do much hand-prying to get me out of the plane.) Actually, now that I think about it, if I could be assured that I would die immediately on impact, falling from a great height would be a pretty good way to go. Yes, I'd probably scream like a drunken banshee all the way down, but that would be part of the entertainment factor, not just an expression of abject terror. Why am I going on about this? Because of a dream I had two nights ago. I love dreams -- amazing, wildly inventive stories I get to take part in every night. Even the creepy ones or the out-and-out nightmares -- I get to experience them, then I get to wake up. They fade away, they lose their scary vividness, life continues. Next night I go back to sleep, I have a whole slew of new adventures. (I also love daytime dreaming -- either purposely imagining adventures or futures I would love to experience, or drifting off into moments of escapist fantasies. But this is a slightly different breed of dreaming, one that deserves its own entry.) Part of the reason I've come to savor dreams is that during long stretches of this adult life of mine, the nighttime hours have passed without any sensation dreaming. For weeks and weeks, for months on end -- nothing, not even a feeling of distant awareness of dream activity. Blankness, nothing more. And then comes a night when I remember bits of one or two, vivid scenes of activity, whether banal or amazing, and I wake up happy, wide-eyed, enjoying my waking hours more, looking forward to further nighttime escapades. More recently, for whatever reasons, the sensation of dreaming has become a more normal part of my existence. Sometimes it's returning to the waking state remembering fragments of dreams, sometimes it's just the awareness of activity, of events and happenings taking place somewhere below my threshold of consciousness. It's a trend that's been gathering momentum during these last few years -- a time, coincidentally (or not), in which my waking life has become one of finding myself actually living some of my dreams. There are people who dream of flying frequently, or if not frequently then often enough that it's not something exceptional or rare. I've had some of those dreams myself, but mostly of a variety that's been strangely constricted in one of two ways: (1) either as an exaggerated form of running, springing upward with each step to tantalizing heights but always returning immediately to the ground (pretty much the way the Incredible Hulk used to cover ground in the original Marvel comics, in big, goofy bounding leaps), or (2) actually flying, horizontal to the ground, but unable to attain more than two or three feet of height. I have clear memories of dreams of both those types, the predominant feeling in both being frustration at being unable to cut loose. In one, I was flying from room to room within a house, unable to rise more than about two or so feet from the floor so that I had to wind my way between the furniture. Silly stuff. And the few occasions in which I've flown freely in dreams? I can count them on one hand. The first happened about twenty years ago, post-college, after returning to live in the northeast after a hilarious not-quite-year-and-a-half in L.A. During a weekend spent with a bunch of people in an inn near Ascutney, Vermont. The dream took place in a hospital, involved the feeling of being pursued and unable to find my way out. In the climactic scene, when it appeared that I'd truly been cornered, I remember running down a hallway, and as I ran my body began transforming, my arms turning into wings, my feet lifting up from the floor as my wings propelled me on, until I'd become an owl, flying through corridors and doorways, always up near the ceiling, above the amazed faces of the humans I passed, just high enough to avoid capture. The second happened maybe seven years ago, during a long interim period -- post-withdrawal from the wacky world of the theater, pre-Madrid. The dream took place during the American Civil War, another situation in which I was being pursued, this one with my life at stake, in extreme physical peril. I remember flying eight or ten feet above a small river, going as fast as I could, a pursuer with a firearm flying a couple of hundred feet behind me. I remember shots being fired and me being able to maintain enough speed that the bullets drew close but finally lost height and momentum, dropping into the water behind me. I went under a bridge, following the course of the river, staying ahead but gaining no ground, so that the sense of danger remained constant. Until finally, in a burst of effort, I began to surge slowly ahead, my body transforming as I pulled ahead into that of another person. A complete change so that I began experiencing the situation through someone entirely different. Pretty cool, both dreams, but in both cases harrowing experiences in which I didn't exactly experience freedom as part of the flying. That changed the third time, a couple of years back, during the course of days spent in London and Ireland. I spent a Saturday in August 2001 wandering around London with a bunch of folks from both the States and the U.K., mostly spent in the City, an area practically empty on weekends. At the end of the afternoon, we found ourselves hanging out on the lawn at St. Paul's Cathedral and someone came up with the idea of everyone getting quiet, sitting with eyes closed just to see what would happen. We did so, and I found myself experiencing the sensation of flying -- me, on my own, at some height -- vivid enough that I could hear the sound my clothing made from the wind, could feel the air moving against my face. I opened my eyes, looked around, tried to clear my thoughts off anything but quiet. Closed my eyes again, found the same flying thing happening. Interesting on one hand 'cause it felt so clear, but kind of hokey on the other hand 'cause what the hell was I doing in a group meditation on the lawn at St. Paul's, imagining myself flying? I flew out of London to Dublin the next day where a friend picked me up, we drove out to Kilkenny to take in some of its annual arts festival. My first night in our B&B there, I had the most intensely vivid dreams of flying I'd ever experienced -- as me, not changing into anything or anyone else, not limited by height, speed or any other factor. Free and taking full advantage of it. Amazing dreams that stayed with me during my waking hours for through the rest of a great trip west of Dublin. And that's been the extent of my flying dreams. Until two nights ago, when out of nowhere I had yet another exceptionally vivid dream, this one taking place on a small mountain. Me standing on a steep slope, trees all around, the land from which they sprung dotted with clearings and rock outcroppings. Nighttime. I had to get to another place on the mountain, a bit lower in elevation. And I simply lifted off, sailing out into the air away from the slope, my body remaining vertical, everything about the experience easy and natural, the sensation of being up in altitude and moving through the air as clear as if I were actually experiencing it. (Some might suggest that in some way I was -- I will not speculate on that.) I took an easy elliptical course that brought me around the curve of the mountain's face, my feet finally touching down gently. I stood looking back up from where I'd come, then turned around and moved off toward wherever it was I needed to go. That has stayed with me since I woke up yesterday morning. Strangely satisfying. What does it mean? Who knows. Whatever it's about, I like it. ********* Meanwhile, somewhere in England, a sportswriter for The Guardian seems to be experiencing more than his share of existential angst. rws 12:34 PM [+] |