Floating Downstairs / Floating Down Stairs

[Analogue Boy]

I have to fess up and say that when I was about 5, I did it too.

I'd be asleep and then aware of standing at the top of the stairs and then jumping and falling slooooooooooowly and landing softly on the floor (14 steps below).

I accepted it as being out of the body as I then used to walkaround the downstairs of the house in darkness, which as a 5 year old and put to bed early, I never really saw.

I also remember sitting on the roof and just watching the cars go by.

Until now, I thought I was pretty unique in seeing/doing this but it seems it's a pretty natural occurance.

BTW...on a slightly similar subject, does anyone remember the Omni magazine flying club? There was a series of letters from people who learned to control their dreams and would always take off and fly. They usually mentioned how hard it was at first and were just doing moonlike jumps but after a bit of practice were soon looping the loop and soaring everywhere.

 

[Bannik]

Last night I had a dream in which I discovered I could fly. I would flap my arms around to stay in the air, which took some effort but it was worth it. I would shift direction by swinging my legs up, almost like being on a swing, or by swirling them underneath me like a propeller. Now that was a fun, pleasant dream and surprisingly real and long-lasting. Part of it took place during the daylight, but it continued into nighttime as well.

This was my first flying dream!

 

[Bannik]

They usually mentioned how hard it was at first and were just doing moonlike jumps but after a bit of practice were soon looping the loop and soaring everywhere.

I was doing the moonlike jumps last night too, initially. Even they were fun! I could feel the tension in my muscles as I did it and I could hear and feel the wind whip across my face as I was while I was in the air.

 

[KayeOttic]

Last night I had a dream in which I discovered I could fly. I would flap my arms around to stay in the air, which took some effort but it was worth it. I would shift direction by swinging my legs up, almost like being on a swing, or by swirling them underneath me like a propeller. Now that was a fun, pleasant dream and surprisingly real and long-lasting. Part of it took place during the daylight, but it continued into nighttime as well.

This was my first flying dream!

Haha! Great story. Flapping your arms - if only it was that simple, eh?
My first flying dream was odd (no surprise, I suppose) because it seemed like a perfectly normal thing I was doing.
I was flying at around seven or eight foot in the air. Enough that I was just outside of my mum's reach as she shrieked, "get down at once". I have a vague recollection of her threatening, "wait 'til your father gets home!" I may just be projecting there though, because I heard that a lot. Regardless, I can still recall that dream, and a small handful of others from that period of my childhood.
I remember her and a couple of my brothers, and maybe one of my sisters all looking up as I flew about, just above them. I wish I could recall how it ended because it really did seem like a perfectly normal activity for a kid my age to be doing.

 

[djshadow]

This is a fascinating thread. Found this thread ages ago, and quite like the Shadow people & Top Hat Men threads I thought at the time, wow this stuff happened to me too!

Mentioned prevously my childhood memories are kinda vague. However I do seem to remember as a very young child floating down the stairs. Not lots of times, just sometimes.

The problem with these memories - By all accounts I used to sleepwalk a lot & I may be misinterpreting the memories. In other words some part of my brain can remember sleepwalking, but as I was not fully awake it seemed like I was floating. That aside.

My recollection of this - Floating vertically, only an inch or so off the stairs. Almost from the very top of the stairs all the way to the bottom. Or getting about half way down, then grabbing hold of the banister & launching myself to the bottom - but in slow-motion. The former seems more clear though.

The other connected incident, which seems now like a one off (unlike the floating downstairs) I still kinda recall to this day. Or at least it seems like a clear-ish memory. Age - under ten years old. A group of three or 4 of us were playing up & down the street. One of us had a bike (I think) another a skateboard, or maybe 2 skateboards. We were just swapping between the methods of transport & going up and down the street fooling about.

I think I was running at the time, just trying to keep up with the others who had transport. At one point, arms sticking out, running full pelt, I felt as if I was floating. Cant recall thinking this is odd at the time, or after putting much thought to it.

It just seems like a really happy memory now (warm fuzzy feeling inside when I think of it), although I do not think I was really floating down the street in full view of my friends and any passers by.

The strangest think about it though - I cannot remember any other time this seems to have happened when outdoors running about.

I am maybe romanticizing the general concept somewhat, but I like to think that as a child, the floating whilst running about is a milestone moment. A time in a child's life when they have a kind of epiphany, maybe before their innocence starts to go. Maybe they have one last glimpse into the magic what, as adults, we tend to ignore or have been conditioned to dismiss because of cultural expectations.

 

[Krepostnoi]

I am maybe romanticizing the general concept somewhat, but I like to think that as a child, the floating whilst running about is a milestone moment. A time in a child's life when they have a kind of epiphany, maybe before their innocence starts to go. Maybe they have one last glimpse into the magic what, as adults, we tend to ignore or have been conditioned to dismiss because of cultural expectations.

That's a beautiful, albeit depressing, thought, thank you. It reminds me of gazing into my children's eyes during the first few days or weeks of their lives, and being convinced that they held all the secrets of the universe. (Another odd detail: it seemed to take their eyes months to settle down into being one particular shade). Of course, by the time they could speak, they had either forgotten or weren't telling

 

[djshadow]

That's a beautiful, albeit depressing, thought, thank you. It reminds me of gazing into my children's eyes during the first few days or weeks of their lives, and being convinced that they held all the secrets of the universe. (Another odd detail: it seemed to take their eyes months to settle down into being one particular shade). Of course, by the time they could speak, they had either forgotten or weren't telling

Very well put & an interesting comment Krepostnoi. I am intrigued to know if any other posters on this forum have experienced anything similar from their childhood. Especially a one-off event of an esoteric, but happy nature.

I tend to take an agnostic stance about religion. If anything I more lean towards the simulation theory - which is, in my mind no less plausible than some omnipotent god. But your comments about your children reminded me of this particular page on this website...

http://www.themeaningoflife.org/0Introduction.htm

 

[Recycled1]

Thank you for that link. I shall return to it again and again.

 

[djshadow]

Thank you for that link. I shall return to it again and again.

You're welcome - I like that site too. Especially the bit further on about landing on earth and staying for a while. Sounds cool the way he wrote it.

 

[living-in-ithilien]

Yes I used to to dream of floating downstairs. I'd be on the landing, and just very easily jump up and float down. The stairway in my case was completely enclosed, with a door at the bottom, usually always open that led into the dining room. I never had any incidents of sleepwalking, and I never dreamt I flew anywhere else except down the steps. It is so weird to find out other people had the same dream or experience as children. I remember the feeling was lovely, and it seems normal, like something people innately knew how to do, but had forgotten.

 

[living-in-ithilien]

I also have these dreams about a strange kind of running, bounding many feet into the air with each step. Sometimes I go so high I get scared of the impending plummet to the ground. I read somewhere that a certain Native American tribe used this form of locomotion, with great gliding steps to get from one place to another (possibly in Gould & Pyle's 'Anomolies and Curiosities of Medicine' - not sure.) I wonder if drugs were involved? (Not by me, but by the 'Indians')

Alexandra David neel ( think I have the name right) wrote about her experiences as a lama in Tibet. She saw a monk moving across the vast landscape in such a way...with bounding floating type. steps. He was in a trance state, and she was warned by her crew not to disturb him. Moving like that was a way to cover ground, when needing to cover many miles. Can you imagine being in that setting, a high plateau in Tibet, everything foreign to you, and seeing something like that. She described many incidents of magic. Drugs were not involved. The events were visible to others, and we're not just perceived by the actor in an altered state.

 

[tillybean1]

I can't find the thread about out of body experiences and I didn't want to post this as a new thread so I'll post it here (Mods please move if you can find that thread!)

My Husband and I were having a chat the other night when he revealed to me that he used to be able to "travel" outside his body. I really can't remember what we were talking about before, but he has never mentioned anything about this despite many conversations about weird stuff that happens, so this took me a bit by surprise! His experiences sounded very like very lucid dreams, but he says that he "Flew" out of a sales meeting (I'm sure his co-workers would have noticed if he had fallen asleep! Believe me, the head goes back, the jaw slackens and the snore comes out!). He said that he used to have these experiences quite a bit and that he once had a conversation with his niece, who said that she had experienced the same thing.

He hasn't had any experiences recently, I think that this happened twenty-odd years ago, but his memory was very vivid. He remembered that the first time it happened he felt scared that he couldn't come back to his body, but he did and then after that it was interesting to see how far he could move. He was not ill at this time and he wasn't a child either. He has never taken any drugs that might alter..anything!

Any more than that I can't report at the moment. I asked him if he had ever flown down the stairs as a kid, but he said "No"!

I am totally intrigued and I will ask more questions.

 

[GeorgeP]

Yes I used to to dream of floating downstairs. I'd be on the landing, and just very easily jump up and float down. The stairway in my case was completely enclosed, with a door at the bottom, usually always open that led into the dining room. I never had any incidents of sleepwalking, and I never dreamt I flew anywhere else except down the steps. It is so weird to find out other people had the same dream or experience as children. I remember the feeling was lovely, and it seems normal, like something people innately knew how to do, but had forgotten.

Hey, first of all may I say your avatar is beautiful

Secondly, I recall a break time discussion with a colleague were we moved onto dreams in which we could fly or hover above ground. I told my buddy that when I experience it I have to focus on my stomach muscles in order to rise higher. He shocked me by agreeing with me and described to me the very same way Ive achieved it in my dreams. When Ive found myself downstairs in the dark (in a dream) I do the tummy trick and find that I can rise further above ground and then move off with no worry for heights or obstacles around me.

 

[living-in-ithilien]

Hey, first of all may I say your avatar is beautiful

Secondly, I recall a break time discussion with a colleague were we moved onto dreams in which we could fly or hover above ground. I told my buddy that when I experience it I have to focus on my stomach muscles in order to rise higher. He shocked me by agreeing with me and described to me the very same way Ive achieved it in my dreams. When Ive found myself downstairs in the dark (in a dream) I do the tummy trick and find that I can rise further above ground and then move off with no worry for heights or obstacles around me.

This is interesting because as a child I always thought the soul's location was in the tummy. There must be many related and possibly accurate beliefs from childhood that go unshared.

 

[GeorgeP]

This is interesting because as a child I always thought the soul's location was in the tummy. There must be many related and possibly accurate beliefs from childhood that go unshared.

I dont doubt that there is. Its a wonderful experience and one that I enjoy, you often find yourself wanting to climb higher just to dive downwards and then swoop up again. It becomes a form of airborne dancing that requires the tummy and a mix of visual and willed direction. It my be a semi lucid experience for in one dream its was daylight, houses, cars and people going about their business. Whilst I hovered in the road and began my stomach exercises. No one in that dream took the blind bit of notice of me as I moved around

 

[JimELUCIER]

I used to have the 'floating downstairs' dreams as a kid, only for me to realise them when I was about 10 and fell downstairs at a neighbours' house and crash through the glass door at the bottom of the stairs. I didn't even get a scratch, although I went straight through the bottom pane of one of those '60s doors with the three glazed panels. And I did 'feel' the floating sensation from my dreams as I fell in reality. Not scared, just floating.

I think you might like the movie "DARK CITY." In the movie a young boy is raised to adulthood on reoccurring dreams of this kind.

 

[JimELUCIER]

That is the case with what happened to me (see the 'Night Terrors' thread).
I could almost swear that I was awake after during these instances. I would step off the top stair and go completely rigid and feel a warm, tingly sensation all over my body. I would see each stair disappear beneath my feet, and would be floating a couple of inches above them. All the while my arms would be tight against my sides. There was absolutely no sense of panic at all. The reason I feel that I was awake is because I can remember being told off by my mum for opening a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps so early in the morning before having my breakfast just after I 'landed' at the foot of the stairs. I then said to her that I'd floated down the stairs.

The levitational value of Tayto Cheese and Onion?
Not for me to say...!

Food related dreams are endless, and fascinating. Strange how our subconscious minds try to tell us what food we should be eating, and what food we should not be eating. Stairs are the most mystical of all our creations. They are so metaphorical.

 

[hunck]

Food related dreams are endless, and fascinating.

No, they're really not. They're only interesting to the dreamer himself.

Stairs are the most mystical of all our creations. They are so metaphorical.

I have some stairs in my house & can assure you there's nothing mystical about them whatsoever. We even have some where I work & I have been up & down several times today with no mystical occurrences. Within a dream I guess they could be interpreted as metaphorical but again this is of no relevance & little interest to anyone but the dreamer.

 

[escargot]

Freud saw structures such as lift shafts and stairways as representing sexual thoughts. Stairs are associated with transcendence in various philosophies and religions.

It's not about the stairs in one's house. It's about the stairs in one's head.

 

[escargot]

Why we dreamed about floating down stairs when we were kids


Dream psychologist and expert Ian Wallace...

says the dream is the brain’s way of processing a new skill. “I’ve spoken to people who have had this dream that live in bungalows and yet they still remember floating down a staircase – that isn’t a coincidence,” he says. “Nearly everybody I speak to experiences the floating dream when learning a new important skill in their life and that’s because the stairs represent the step-by-step process of your brain turning a procedure into an unconscious process. Once you learn to ride a bike, it becomes an unconscious skill and the floating dream signifies the process of getting to that stage.”

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Why we dreamed about floating down stairs when we were kids


Dream psychologist and expert Ian Wallace...

nah.

Is there any evidence to back this up?

 

[Enid Coleslaw]

I have a memory of being able to float down the stairs as a kid. I also "remember" that I somehow knew I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that I could do it kind of like there was a voice in my head telling me it was supposed to be secret. It's weird because I don't have many clear memories of my younger childhood, but this memory which can't really have happened is crystal clear.

 

[catseye]

Freud saw everything as representing sexual thoughts.