Thread: Need tips for flying in LD's

Hi, I have been LDing for a good few years now, but I've never been able to workout a consistent technique for flying. I have had LD's where I have flown, not many, but I have been flying in my dream before and during the moment I realise I'm dreaming and have just carried on and gone with it.

I had a good LD session a few nights ago and gave it a really good try, but I would get to a couple of feet off the ground and thump back down to earth. I had dream characters telling me to use happy thoughts like in Peter Pan. It seemed to kind of work, but what worries me is I have suffered depression and I'm generally not a happy person.

Could this be the reason or part of the reason I have always found it hard to fly in my LD's?

Flying in lucids can be difficult at first, mainly because it's obviously impossible in real life, so our brains are hesitant to let us do it in dreams. There may be some emotional or psychological reason why it's been extra difficult for you, but I wouldn't say it's impossible to do.

I would suggest checking out these two wiki pages for tips on learning to fly:
Flying Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
Dream Flying Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Will check them out, thanks.

When attempting to fly in lucid dreams, it's easy to make the mistake of just putting physical effort into doing it.
Originally, I made that mistake and it would get me a few feet off the ground, before it got too difficult and I fell back to Earth.
The trick is to believe that you will be able to fly. Jump off the ground, thinking "I'll just keep going up." shut out any negative thoughts, and know that you can fly. This method works for me every time, because you're convincing your brain that, despite normally being unable to fly, it is able to in a dream.

I usually start with jumping - which feels very different in dreams, kind of like jumping under water - and then I find myself jumping higher and higher every time.
Eventually I will stay in the air and be able to move around = flying.♪

Another thing that once worked for me was to jump off a building and then close my eyes, and open them again.
This made me feel more like I was "floating in the air", which made it easier to adjust to the feeling of flying.

Thanks people. I have a few things to try now. Cheers.

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ramblings.html

This has some ideas about dream control, and there are a few podcasts in here (starting with this one) that talk about dream control as well:
http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...ml#post2137027

Just do it. Realize that it's not about technique but about will. I've never had any doubts so I just fly at any time.
You know what... i have a thought. Try to fly when you are awake. I don't mean jump off the cliff but when you are sitting at the table for example. Do not move your body but only WILL as hard as you can. Maybe it will help.

He-he... I wonder what kind of brain activity is going while you are flying in LD or trying to take off when you are awake

Straight. Have you ever had difficulty doing something in a dream?some adv dream control that eluded you? If so, then you should know that saying "just do it" is like telling someone to just "do better on a test" "just play better." "Just be better."

Yes, it is the truth that they just need to do that thing, but telling someone to do something is different than telling them how to do it. This is the problem with "walk control" the idea that you just do something without thinking in a dream. If it is not explained, it is just super frustrating for the person hearing everyone tell them that it is easy and they are the only one to struggle. I know that you mean well and are trying to help, but I believe that further explanation of how to just do a thing is needed.

In order for something to just be done in a dream, it must be done without thinking of the thing. I call this "walk control" controlling using the same method that you use when you walk. Go walk somewhere real fast and come back. How much did you think about technique or anything? If you are a healthy biped, it is probably easy and you think more about the destination than what you are doing. That is what people mean by simply doing it. Don't make a big deal about it, don't study it. Do it with that much thought. Having a destination in mind might even make it easier. Just think about where you want to go and start heading there. Don't worry about how. Most of the time flying or teleporting will be the ways you find.

The big problem with this is that it takes the ability to forget about past failures while attempting, because your expectations can be altered by what you want, but are mainly dependent on experiences. If you are not practiced in meditating, this can be a hard thing.

Other ways are more creative and less roundabout.

Item control
Eat a pill. Grab a wand. Use a machine. Any of this can make flying something that is to be achieved, not something that you should already have. This will make it easier so that when you get said object, you now expect to fly.

DC control.
Have a dc teach you how to fly. maybe even someone like goku or superman. This should increase the idea exponentially by just believing in them. (Dont believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you)

Previous power control
What are you good at? TK? Use that on your body. Fire, water, wind, or earth? Use that to push you into the air. Summoning? Summon something with wings or something that can teach you to fly. Items? Create an item to fly. Teleporting? Teleport to a plane and jump out of there.

Creativity is the best form of dream control. With it you can do anything with anything.

In one hand, I agree. In the other... what if reaching of fly (or anything else) through some special objects/beings/actions creates strong connection to them and makes it hard to disconnect later. As Pavlov's dog. But maybe it isn't bad...

Originally Posted by Straight

In one hand, I agree. In the other... what if reaching of fly (or anything else) through some special objects/beings/actions creates strong connection to them and makes it hard to disconnect later. As Pavlov's dog. But maybe it isn't bad...

In my opinion a skill attained is a skill attained. It took me 70 distinct lucid dreams of trying to fly in order to fly. I used walk control, anytime i want to fly now I can with ease. Every once in a while i will fail for one second or two and I just go right back to the thought process of when I first learned.

I usually jump off a higher place, It has been years and I still hesitate before jumping. I fear that I might lose dream control, fall and feel pain (that never happened). One of my favorite dream scenes is the paraglide take off. Safer

As your brain gets used to what it feels like to be flying, experiences will be easier and better. I think the key is to put a smile on your face, enjoy the adrenaline rush, love that funny feeling in your tummy. Happy flying!

A couple times I thought I couldn't fly and didnt. But then one time I thought I couldnt, and some kid came floating by. I thought heck if he can fly I can too...and I did. My approach now is to just jump into a prone position. Commit yourself. My grandson is learning to swim but sometimes he tries without committing himself by getting his body horizontal. I tell him he can't swim vertical... he has to commit by going horizontal. Some principle of being committed.

Here are a few tips that you may or may not have heard;

1. Confidence and expectation. Expect to be able to fly and know that physics has no effect. Say to yourself "I can do anything, I can fly"
2. If you can levitate, levitate as high as you can and then fly ( glide ) down.
3. Use a device such as rocket tubes or maybe imagine your feet are rockets.
4. If you can start flying or as above gliding, use a swimming motion. I use this method to speed up.
5. Look at something very far in the distance. Then "zoom in" rather that flying to the object. Use this in conjunction with # 2 above if you can.

Hope this helps...........

I still have trouble with flying as well mate, I've flown loads of times so know I can do it but it's a little hit and miss.

I know people's Lucid's are different so was just wondering if you have very vivid, waking life quality Lucid Dreams the majority of the time?

If so that could be the reason, I've found when I have slightly lower quality Lucid's I can fly with absolute ease, however the majority of mine are waking life quality and it's in these that can be a real struggle to make my brain accept it's possible, even though I know for a fact it is.

Flying was my first major goal in LDs when I started, and it took me at least a good several months of sheer hardheaded persistence to succeed for the first time (using whatever method), and another couple of years or so (and many dozen LDs) before I was able to fly, or at least float around, in more or less every LD. Over time, my attempts slowly began to succeed more and more often until the success rate finally reached 100%.

Even now, it's not perfect; I never can seem to transport myself from place to place with flying any faster than I could walk or run, and I always reach a “ceiling” on how high I can go before I have to resort to climbing or jumping to higher objects to get any higher. These limitations have continued to stump me for the last decade.

But Sensei brings up a very interesting point, and one that actually started to occur to me recently. I noticed that my LDs where flying works out better than average often seem to be ones where I'm strongly focused on my goal or destination so that I'm not remembering that I need to “overcome this speed/height cap”. My thoughts that there's always this restriction that exists in my dreams and that I need to figure out how to “beat” it may well be causing it to exist in the first place.

This is slightly off topic but the other night I was having this same trouble and I asked another guy in the scenario why I was having such troubles and his reply was interesting to me. He said "well, there is still gravity here." It made sense ;D

I have sort of a weird method of flying in dreams, but it always works. When I fly in dreams it feels very similar to when I scuba dive or swim.

I jump and then take a deep breath to make myself 'buoyant' to stay above the ground, then I'll gradually rise. Imagine the air around you is like water and you're swimming upward. Sometimes I actually make a swimming motion with my arms and legs like I'm swimming up from the bottom of a pool. Once I'm up past tree level it gets easier and I'll level out and then just mentally project where I want to go and my speed, etc.

Based on my own experience, I would second Sensei’s advice: use the skills you already have in creative ways. I couldn’t get the hang of flying in dreams for a long time, but it was easy for me to manipulate light and color. One day—in one of those dreams where you feel more awake than in waking life— I turned to my shadow on the wall and willed it to grow wings. Since my shadow had wings, then obviously I must have them too, and since I had wings, I must be able to fly… and so I was. There wasn't any room for second thoughts. And once I had a method that made sense to me, I never had a problem flying again. Interestingly, it didn’t seem to prevent me from being able to fly without them later on, once I had more experience with lucid dreaming. I still prefer the wings, though: being attuned to the movement of air makes me feel like I'm a part of the dream in a way that floating around like a disembodied spirit doesn't.

I almost never fall to the earth
but I often get stuck in the sky
last time it happened I had to put up my hands like a movie director framing a scene and do a zooming effect to get myself moving back towards the ground

sometimes you just can't fly, once in a lucid I tried to fly and failed, I should have been thinking I need a gentle slope, instead I was thinking I need a canyon, and due to the power of expectation a convenient canyon appeared right next to me, with no hesitation I dove straight into it, I was thinking this is great I'm building up speed now I'll just pull up and fly, I angled myself a bit and bam! hit the cannon floor at about 70mph. This convinced me I couldn't fly in this dream not a good thing as I was stuck at the bottom of a 90ft deep canyon, luckily I just held up my arms and made myself 90 feet tall , this didn't work either as I was so massive I was destroying the dreamscape, but I grabbed the edge of the canyon and slid my hands together until I was 6 feet tall and climbed out. It could have been a painful lesson that you can't always fly, but since I didn't get hurt I'm sure I'll try diving off another dream object some time

What works perfectly for me is to make swimming motions. It just happened in one dream. I could not fly higher than one meter, with the breaststroke swimming motion I could fly as high as I wanted. I still use this to take off, after obtaining a bit of height I can just float or soar through the sky. It is still my favorite thing to do as soon as I get lucid.

Originally Posted by AchTea

I had dream characters telling me to use happy thoughts like in Peter Pan. It seemed to kind of work, but what worries me is I have suffered depression and I'm generally not a happy person.

Could this be the reason or part of the reason I have always found it hard to fly in my LD's?

No.

The reason, I think, is that flying is "Ecstatic,Thrilling,Rushing" It is literally impossible to be depressed when ur flying at 3000.0 Mph.

I think what they pointed is that you need this feeling. I've had the same problem with flying. I'm trying to make it a chore. Oh I must fly, So what do I do.. I must make a precise method and follow it to the T.. You see. I lifted off many times and fallen many times instead of just ... Flying and going with the feeling of flying! .. The times where I had the most control in dreams was when I was enjoying the living F*CK! out of them. This is true for flying as well. When you go supermanstyle ... Watch Neo in the Matrix. He has so much thrill and fun. He is in his element when he finally learns to fly. I think this is what you should do. Make flying your element. Be in this moment fully. Don't think about where you are going or wheter or not you are going to fall. Or do think about where you are going... if that is your goal. Just fly and feel the wind on ur cheeks!

I'm not sure if OP is still following this thread but my advice would be to think of a game or movie that was meaningful to you as a child and replicate the way that they begin/continue flying.

For me, I begin flying by jumping and taking bigger and bigger jumps. Eventually I become airborne and once I am I continue flying by 'swooping' to gain momentum. I didn't really ever question this method but once I began to read this thread I realized that this is exactly the way that one flies in Super Mario 64, pretty much my favourite game as a child.

Give it some thought and see what you come up with!

Originally Posted by AchTea

I had a good LD session a few nights ago and gave it a really good try, but I would get to a couple of feet off the ground and thump back down to earth.

Hey, AchTea, I know exactly what you mean! It's been the same for me in many dreams - been able to push myself from the ground and float a bit, but feeling kind of weighted and not been able to fly high or fast. Just slow soaring. It can be extremely frustrating. I can only speak from my experience here, but once I'm frustrated, I can't get things to work in my dreams. Control generally gets kind of tedious then. It's a lot easier if I don't put too much effort into it and feeling happy can certainly help