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Mrs H. O. Arnold Forster – Studies in Dreams

My first recollections of flying dreams go back to when I was a very little child, when we were living in London. The flying dream, when it first came, was connected with the sensation of fear. Half-way up the dimly lighted staircase that led to our nursery a landing opened on to a conservatory. The conservatory by day was a sunny place full of the pleasantest associations, but with the coming of darkness its character changed altogether. In the night-time anything might be imagined to lurk in its unlighted comers; decidedly it was safest always to hurry past that landing, and even past the other landings which, though they did not open on to any such dark spots, were not places where a child cared to linger alone.

In some of the first dreams that I can remember I was on that staircase, fearful of something which I was especially anxious never to have to see. It was then that the blessed discovery was made, and that I found that it was just as easy to fly downstairs as to walk ; that directly my feet left the ground the fear ceased — I was quite safe; and this discovery has altered the nature of my dreams ever since. At first I only flew down one particular flight of steps, and always downwards ; but very soon I began to fly more actively. If anything began to alarm me in my dreams, I used to try to rise in the air, but for some years I was unable to rise to any great height, or to fly with real ease. It was only gradually that the flying dream ceased to be connected with the sensation of fear and escape. For a long time it was often an effort to fly; every year, however, made it easier and more sure. By degrees 'bad dreams’ left me. When once I realised that I could always escape by flight, the sense of the something unknown, to be escaped from, became a thing of the past; but the power of flying grew and has steadily improved all my life.