Dreams of Flight

Recently I've had two extremely vivid dreams of flying. Both were joyous experiences. When you're having a particularly enjoyable dream, do you fight in your subconscious to keep the dream alive and control what's happening? I do.

I'm not going to bother trying to explain the dreams in high-def detail because, well, dreams are surreal. They're more about feelings than imagry. Describing surrealism and emotions in literary terms are a difficult and time-consuming task.

The first dream involved a high school classmate named Julie with whom I have had no contact since the day I graduated over two decades ago. In this dream I was the manager of a construction crew that had just finished building the world's tallest skyscraper. The building's owner showed up on the final day of the project, quite coincidentally with Julie in tow. She was a reporter covering the completion of the property. As a reward for a job well done, the building's owner told me that his private jet was going to take me and Julie for an aerial tour of the building.

I don't know all that much about private jets, but I'm fairly certain they can't perform maneuvers like I experienced. Before you filthy-minded people get on the wrong track, I have no idea why Julie was in the dream, nor did she have a starring role other than that I was proud to have her on the plane because she was excited and happy.

The plane defied real-world gravity by rocketing straight up above the cloud layer, stalling out, plummeting back toward the building, swooping around it in impossible G-force-defying circles, doing barrel rolls, and generally treating me and Julie to the world's greatest roller coaster ride.

I awoke to find myself laughing out loud and beaming from ear to ear, forced myself to go back to sleep, and resumed the dream. The second round was far less vivid, and the dream was off into the ether.

My second dream occurred last night. It was so engaging, so enjoyable, and so deceptively life-like that I talked about it with my boys this morning as I drove them to school. In this dream I had discovered that I could fly if I built a tiny airplane (think of a child's ride outside of your local grocery store or Wal-Mart) and held in my hand a paper origami model plane. While I could only fly about 100 feet off the ground, and at a very slow speed, I spent hours cruising around my former hometown. I visited a particular street (Moore Lane), even though I never lived there. Across from the area I was circling was a marsh, and so I puttered in that direction. I flew too close to a few tall trees and saw nesting eagles.

In my dream I had a moment of fear that somebody might have seen me coming too close to the eagles because they're endangered or protected or whatever they are these days. But the eagles didn't seem to mind. They were just as curious about me as I was about them.

The dream started getting "dream weird" at this point. The paper origami plane (which I had to hold out in front of me in order to fly) became unstable. I had to keep re-folding it in order to stay aloft. Eventually I couldn't keep it together and coasted in for a landing on another road in my former home town. I wasn't upset in the least bit ... I was thrilled at the experience, and immediately wanted to start making a better, new-and-improved, more durable version of my origami paper plane.

For anybody wanting to pop-psycho-analyze these dreams, bah. Dreams are dreams. My mom was always quick to whip out her book about the interpretation of dreams whenever I shared one with her. I find those interpretations to be much like the circus Tarot card reader -- full of generalizations which could fit anybody's life.

I'm looking forward to bedtime tonight. Maybe I'll pilot the F/A-18 Hornet.