Dream Flying and Dream Theory

Many people have had dreams in which they are flying, without an airplane, of course, just flying like Superman. Me too!

I actually had to learn to fly in my flying dreams.

I remember in my earliest flying dreams (in my teens or twenties) I would have to run along the ground and flap my arms to lift off and I would have to keep flapping my arms to stay up in the air. I used to always laugh at how stupid the dreams were when I woke up. And yet the vision of being at treetop level was so real and authentic. Even then I wondered, "Okay, sure, I can't really fly, but how the heck does my mind know how to create the perfect illusion that I am 30 feet off the ground?"

Those early flying dreams were actually the best ones, I think, because they had a "showing off" element to them. "Look at me! I can fly!" Usually I could fly while nobody else could. Now in my flying dreams (which I don't have very often any more) people just sort of ignore my flying abilities, so it's not as exciting to dream I can fly, although I still enjoy soaring around in the sky.

My theories about dreams have varied. I come up with new theories from time to time (and then promptly have a dream that disproves the theory).

One of my dream theories is that there are two "modules" in the mind that I call the "Questioner" and the "Imager". If you are not familiar with current scientific thinking about how the mind works, I'll just say that the common supposition is that the mind consists of separate "modules" each of which perform some specific function. That's why brain injuries can cause the loss of specific abilities while leaving the rest of the mind functioning normally.

So I am supposing that dreams are partly caused by the interaction between a "Questioner" module and an "Imager" module. The "Imager" module generates the scene and then the Questioner module causes it to be modified and a new scene to be generated.

Let's say something strange happens in your dream, then the Questioner asks, "How or why did that happen?" whereupon the Imaging module provides the next scene in the dream to answer that question. The Imager has no inhibitions and will just imagine anything that seems to answer the question. The Questioner, on the other hand, can be sceptical sometimes. If the Imager gets too bizarre or frightening then the Questioner will wake you up. And you will think: "I had a nightmare."

The Imager will do anything for a thrill. The Questioner is always looking for reasons why things happen. The Imager doesn't need a reason. The Imager will just answer the Question in any way it happens to think of. Whatever the Imager comes up with, the Questioner will question it. So a new image becomes necessary to answer the new question. And the dream goes on until you exit dreaming mode or wake up.

You can analyze one of your own dreams to see how this works. Usually you will find that the link from one scene of the dream to the next scene can be expressed as a specific question.

I used GOOGLE to find someone's dream. Here is part of it:

10/12/02 A Great Adventure

I drove my son down to Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement
Park because his friends went down without him. I am
in the park walking around, going into buildings and just
perusing. One security guard stops me and tells me I can't go
into one of them.

I go into another building. It looks like office space -- where
people are working. I think I shouldn't be here as well, but no
one stops me. Workers see me and smile, but no one stops me.

I decide it's time to go home. I get into an elevator. When the
door opens, someone says, "Hello." I look over and see a group
of people in a conference room setting and it seems as if they
are watching a presentation on the wall behind me. The doors
of the elevator open and I leave.

The dream continues, but let's look at just these few scenes. I'll set this up as what the Imager produced followed by what the Questioner asks.

My son's friends go to the park without him - What do you do?
I drive my son to park - What do you do after he gets out of the car?
I try to walk into a building - Is that allowed?
No, a guard stops me - What do you do then?
I go in a different building - Don't you get stopped again?
No, this time it seems to be OK. - Then what do you do?
I decide to go home - How?
I get into an elevator - What happens in the elevator?
I see people in an office watching a presentation - But aren't you in an elevator?
The elevator doors open and I leave - (next question)

Notice that no matter what scene the Imager creates, the Questioner has a question about it.

And no matter what question the Questioner asks, the Imager creates a scene that will answer the question.

You might try this analysis on your own dreams. Somehow I think it might be as meaningful as one of those so-called "dream dictionaries" that claim that everything that occurs in a dream is a symbol of something else.

My belief is that a lot of what occurs in a dream is just routine creative activity and is very similar to the process a writer uses when he writes a story. It's just that the dream machinery has no ultimate goal, is uncontrolled, and thus often produces nonsensical sequences of events. Which is also what can happen to out-of-control writers who have no ultimate goal.