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Floating Downstairs / Floating Down Stairs

This may or may not interest some of you. I'm a natural body-builder which is to say that I dont use steroids or anything else illegal to make gains, just good food, plenty of sleep, intense training and tons of protein.
However, I'm always interested in finding a new technique or routine that will stimulate better gains. Sometimes, I will try a supplement but find most are a waste of money.
What may be of interest to a few people reading this is that there is a supplement called GABA { gamma amino butyric acid}, it is NOT a drug, it is NOT illegal,It is NOT addictive and all the studies I've read about it declare it as harmless. In the UK, you can buy it from any decent health food shop. I get mine from GNC and its about fifteen quid for 100g. It is NOT suitable for females, though.

The reason I mention this ( you knew I'd get there in the end) is that it makes your dreams so vivid and powerful that you will not believe it. Everything is turned up a notch,I get flying dreams on a very regular basis. Ive never had a nightmare whilst using it ( I cycle it, one week on, two weeks off as to avoid getting used to it). Its hard to explain other than its like bolting a turbo-charger to your dreams. A benefit is that sleep is deeper and you wake more refreshed for some reason.

I would not recommend taking it if you dont hit the weights, all I am saying is that dreams, especially flying ones are 10 times more intense. I believe it works by stimulating the body to produce more growth hormone as you sleep. ( gaba is taken just before sleep). It may be possible that people who naturally have this "realistic" flying and floating dreams produce a bit more growth hormone naturally than the majority of us.
 
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FloatingFrancesFelixe

Hello, fellow floaters! I've been dashing around out-of-the-body for as long as I can remember (and, yes,the floating downstairs thing is also one of my memories from childhood); my parents are psychic types so we could always discuss this sort of thing comfortably. Since developing ME some 10 years ago, I've naturally spent a lot of time asleep and find that OOBEs have increased. I've managed to direct events to a certain extent, including "looking in" on friends but no-one has been aware of it. One time I "asked" during an episode, why/how can I do this? The answer that came in the dreamstate was that it was a matter of controlling gravitational pull! Maybe "we" could fly at one time? BTW, Benylin cough medicine produced amazing OOBEs for me but it's easy to overdo it and have nightmares that seem totally real and go on for ages so be careful if you try this at home! (and avoid it if you use Prozac or similar).;)
 
Astral Planing

Hey Frances! What you describe was what I spent a lot of the seventies trying to do, except then it was called Astral Planing.

I had several books at the time which all described various techniques to achieve it.

The one I used was where, to begin, you would try and remember your dreams and write them down in a book as soon as you woke. Then, when you became good at that , the next step was to get into that half waking/sleeping state and then imagine your ethereal self drifting out through the "Third Eye" in your forehead. You then had to try to "see" around your room. I'd get my girlfriend to leave something for me to try to find whilst planing, and several times I succeeded too. I can only recall seeing myself in bed once though and I felt quite paternal toward myself - if you see what I mean..

Then, when you'd become accomplished at this you'd have to try to actually travel somewhere else. You'd focus on the place in your mind, imagining some familiar feature of the place, and then just be there. I didn't succeed at this. I'd be floating around in the ether but could never "pull" myself down to anywhere. I did meet other planers sometimes though and we were all full of excitement like kids at a fair ground.

Was I dreaming, or was it real? It sure felt real at the time.

One thing that used to bother me with it though was this. You were supposed to be joined to your body by a silvery, fine, infinitely elastic thread or umbilical. I could see this thread on the other planers I met, but could never see my own. Supposedly if the thread ever broke then your body would have died.

I wish I'd carried on with it all, but I guess something else took my fancy and I didn't bother with it anymore.. shame, I could be having more fun asleep than conscious!! :p
 
Hello!!

I joined this forum for this thread!

It's so amazing that others have had the exact same experience as me. When I was a kid I would have frequent dreams of being at the top of the stairs, having that lunging feeling like I was afraid I was going to fall, and then in slow motion just floating all the way down!

And flying dreams...I guess that's what the floating dreams evolved into. I always take a few running steps, there is a sense of uncertainty as to whether it'll work, then I leap up and I'm flying.
It took me some practice, both in lucid dreams and regular ones, to keep from smacking into things. I used to be drawn to walls and things and I'd have to push myself off again.
After a while I could go higher and higher and at a certain point, I feel so free and nothing matters.
I'm often looking down at places where I had bad experiences, like school, feeling so ... well, smug at the fact I'm so far above it all now.

Needless to say, I find it hard to wake up some days!

One thing I often wonder is, how do I know how it feels to fly? It's not just floating, it's feeling the wind force on me, and riding thermals! I control how I fly. How the heck do I know what that feels like?
No idea, but I do.

Anyway, nice to be here! Nice to know I'm not alone!

:)
 
You have passed the test with flying colours, welcome to the club.;)
 
To the best of my recollection, I have never had a floating DOWN the stairs dream: All my dreams involved floating up them. I had them all the time when I was a wee one (when I was 3,4,5 I used to have lucid dreams all the time too, and very vivid recurring nightmares). I've done it only once since, aged about 20. Floated up the stairs in a distinctly disembodied state, but I heard my brother rattling about upstairs and I didn't want him to see me without my body on, so I fled back to said body, which was stretched out on the living room sofa. I always assumed it was a dream, but on reflection, I really wish I'd come face to uh, astral form with my brother to see if he actually saw or felt anything. (He actually was upstairs at the time, that part was no dream) Mothman, maybe? :p
 
Hello and welcome to Pinklefish, a fellow floater! Yeowee! ;)
 
The substances causing flying dream thing is interesting - Steroids give you flying dreams, I am talking about the ones you get when you have a serious asthma attack , probably Prednisolone , I havn't taken them but my daughter and sister have and both confirmed it .
I have never flown down the stars but when I was the age most people seem to have these experiences I lived in a haunted house that really terrified me , in fact stairs have always given me the wiggins . I always run up and down them as fast as I can even though I am at the wrong end of my thirties!
I do remember once hearing my mother on the phone( at the bottom of the stairs ) one night and going to the top of the stairs ( don't know why ) then suddenly finding myself halfway down the stairs with no recollection of how I got there . My mother looked at me strangely and got off the phone and made me go to bed then never mentioned it again .
 
I think this topic would make a really good subject for a Fortean Times article don't you reckon ?
 
Wow what a wonderful place to be! I just joined the Forum because a friend keeps nagging me:D but I didn't realise there were so many other folk out there who had experienced this!

I often find myself wondering if it really happened or whether I just imagined it..however I had one floating experience/OBE which was too undreamable to be anything but real... I found myself down by the canal near my home, floating above the water at dawn, and the mist was rising off the water...having never ever actually been by the canal side at 5am it was not something I'd ever seen in body!
I must have willed myself home because on the way I 'popped' into a house being demolished and can still remember the wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom altho the stairs were not climbable!

I often want to try and train myself to float, but I'm scared of something going wrong now I'm older...
 
FLYING HIGH

Louise Szabala

I have a very vivid memory from my childhood to do with flying or floating. I'm 25 this year and it still feels very real. I must have only been about four or five at the time of this incident and was living in a normal, reasonably modern house in Berwick upon Tweed in Northumberland.

I used to play on the stairs a lot ( maybe not too good an idea for a small kid!) and used to enjoy seeing how many I could jump down at once. I clearly remember jumping off maybe the 5th stair up and seeming to take a very long time to reach the bottom, almost as if jumping in slow motion...

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/flyinghigh.shtml
 
Yep me too, only in my liverpool childhood, not only could I levitate downstairs, also I could "fly between two chairs placed some distance apaart, although I suspect had I been observed I would not be floating at all, I suspect like the very real monster under the bed and the lucidly experienced vision of santa I once had, I was just a highly imaginative and suggestable 5 year old boy. :)
 
Couldn't believe it when I saw this story. I have memories of floating down stairs in a similar way when I was around seven years old. I would float gently down from around half way up the stairs, around the corner at the bottom and land on the living room floor. I can remember the sense of excitement before stepping off! The last time I can remember doing this I stepped off the landing and glided down thirteen stairs to the bottom!

For the past thirty years I have gradually resigned myself to the fact that it was probably all in my imagination. But now I am wondering....

Every now and then I get the urge to step off again - probably not the best idea!
 
I remember having dreams as a child of falling down the stairs and loving it because it never hurt. I used to dream of going head over heels and landing at the bottom.
Kind of gets rid of the myth that if you hit the bottom of the stairs in your dreams you die.
I don't ever remember them being anything but dreams but who knows?
 
Today I watched a mother tuck her young child under her arm to carry it a short distance. The sprog in question assumed a classic 'superman' pose and I found myself wondering if that was the source of "Flight" memories.
 
Freya said:
I remember having dreams as a child of falling down the stairs and loving it because it never hurt. I used to dream of going head over heels and landing at the bottom.
Kind of gets rid of the myth that if you hit the bottom of the stairs in your dreams you die.
I don't ever remember them being anything but dreams but who knows?
Click to expand...

Spooky! I used to dream the same thing when I was small! :eek:
It was so vivid too. I remember initially feeling quite scared and then as I carried on falling, thinking it wasn't so bad after all.
 
Hmmmm, wasn't it Douglas Adams who claimed the art to flying was to aim for the ground .... and miss!!!
 
I used to have repeating dreams as a child that I could levitate down stairs and move around in this way instead of walking. I'd simply lift both feet up and I'd be floating a few inches off the ground I could then float around like this at will. I still have the dream from time to time but I never thought it was more than just a dream.
 
I dream this constantly too, even now. I can leap off a flight of stairs and glide quite quickly but safely and gracefully to a sort of skidding halt at the bottom, and can cover quite large distances in a similar fashion on flat ground by running and jumping. These are not lucid or even semi-lucid dreams, just normal ones where I discover this ability ... or rather re-discover it, as in the dream I always have a memory of being able to do it previously, and a feeling of "I knew it was true" ... all very odd.
 
Yup, I used to have these dreams a lot .

Like pi23 said I would either jump downstairs and 'miss' the ground Douglas Adams style or just lift my feet and and kind of lean forward to start moving. I think I sometimes had to do a bit of arm-waving to get started, and then it felt a bit like ice skating downhill except just above the ground.
It's a shame these dreams seem to become less frequent as you get older 'cos I really used to enjoy them!

I remember that phrase of Douglas Adams' making a big impression on me when I first read it, as it somehow evoked the kind of dream experience we're talking about - the way that at the time it seems like the most natural thing in the world and you can't believe that you've somehow forgotten how to do it.

lizard23 said:
.....in the dream I always have a memory of being able to do it previously, and a feeling of "I knew it was true" ... all very odd.
Click to expand...

Weeeee!!
 
Its good to know that other people have the very same type of dream. In these dreams I have full control over it - I just lift both feet up and then float around at will - I can even go quite quickly - ususally weaving through crowds of bemused dream people. I've told several people about it before but they'd never had such dreams. The closest comparison they could give was dreams of flying but not controlled levitation/floating. Perhaps its more common than I thought then. Its one of my favourite types of dream - can't wait 'til they invent an anti-gravity belt so that I can do it for real!
 
Funnily enough I was having a conversation about this the other day.
I don't know if anyone's seen David Blaine's 'levitation' illusion - the one where he (apparently) lifts his feet a few inches of the ground and just *stays there*. That freaked me out when I first saw it becuase again, it reminded me very powerfully of these kind of dreams.
 
Yes AndyX - ice skating is a good analogy, especially for that skidding stop I mentioned ... sort of like if you were ice skating quite fast and then stopped quite suddenly with your feet at right angles to the direction you were travelling ... it'd kick up a bit of snowy spray if you were skating and be quite a flourish and that is what it feels like ..... and the arm-waving rings a bell too ...... and like pi23 I am very proficient at it and enjoy it immensely, like a kid showing off almost.
Obviously a fairly common experience ..... but did the dreams inform the childhood experience of the original IHTMer ... or did our forgotten childhood experinces inform the dreams .....
oooooooooooo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ooooooooooooooooooo!!

Actually I have a dim memory of some story, possibly heard on the radio, the gist of which was that women can fly and don't realize it because they are so oppressed etc (probably on Woman's Hour heh heh).
 
I suspect "childhood memories" (or even adult memories) are merely recollections of dreams. Dreams of flying are common. I had one a few days ago!! Without wishing to sound too Freudian, I remember reading somewhere that they are a sexual symbol. (Or maybe I dreamt it!!:) )
 
I have floating/ flying dreams as an adult and I can tell the difference between memories and dreams. I can remember many of the dreams I had as a child, also, there is a different "feel" to remembering an event and recalling a dream.
 
Both myself and my husband recall the same experience when we were children
 
When I was little I'd go outside before a big thunderstorm, whenit was windy, and run along the ground as fast as I could, then jump up in the air with the wind and move my body horizontal. I'd float about twenty feet, then have to go vertical and land on my feet.

I remember how hard it was to get horizontal and vertical in time, and how I fell all the time when I first knew I could do it.

I only went up about four feet, but once it was particularly windy and I got blown up about twenty feet and grabbed hold of a tree branch, snapping it off and falling down, as I was scared.

The tree still has a scar from the snapped off branch!

After I got about 12, I got taller and bigger and wasn't slight enough to 'fly' anymore.

I dunno whether it's real or not, but the branch is evidence that I had been up that high, however I got up there.
 
I'm very surprised to learn that other people have similar memories involving floating down stairs. I thoughts I was the only one.

I remember floating down the stairs at my grandparents' house when I was a very young child. I started with just a few stairs and then eventually worked up to an entire flight, wafting slowly like a balloon or a feather and touching lightly on the ground at the bottom.

At about the age of 5 or 6, I realized that I couldn't float down the stairs any longer. I remember standing at the top of that flight of stairs, remembering how I used to float and feeling sad that those days had passed. It was a powerfully nostalgic feeling. I understood that something had changed and that the "magic" of my infant years was now lost to me.

In retrospect, I don't believe that I literally floated down the stairs, but I also don't attribute the memories to a dream: the memories are different in character from remembered dreams. The fact that other people have experienced this phenomenon makes me wonder if extremely young children possess some ability to experience time differently than adults: to jump down a few stairs and somehow experience the fall as if it took much longer than it would appear if witnessed by someone else.

The mystery to me is, why stairs? I can't remember experiencing the floating phenomenon anywhere else, and it sounds like other people have similar memories involving stairs. An earlier poster suggested that we were carried down the stairs as infants and later mis-remember these experiences as if we were floating or flying. I question this explanation, because in my memories I am alone; in fact, being alone seems crucial to the floating process, since I wouldn't attempt it if anyone else were around. It was a very private thing. I also clearly remember standing on one stair, jumping, and landing again on the ground. So I don't think this memory originated in being carried down the stairs. Very odd.
 
I think part of this phenomenon comes down to memories of jumping down stairs - young children can be quite fearless and perform very gymnastic and athletic feats that we'd be scared to try now - like jumping down 5 stairs at once.
 
I also had a similar experience to this as a child of about seven years of age, but I was flying over the rooftops of the town where I lived at the time. I remember the day after feeling the exhileration[ have I spelt that right?] of the experience to such a degree that I tried to do it in my back yard and cut my knee. It felt so real, I was conviced it was possible. One of David Bowie's very early songs seems to be about this, its called-'Did you ever have a dream', and another one by King Crimson called-'Sleepless'.They all seem to describe a phenomenon called astral projection.
 
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