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When asleep and my dreams turn to flying this is very close to what it's like. I skim above the ground in a series of huge leaps held aloft by an indescribable motion of my upper body. In dreamland I know what I'm doing is impossible but at the same time it can be scary as I sometimes think, "Oh shit, I pushed too hard and went too high that time."

There was an aviation writer who described the same thing in an article he wrote some years ago so I know I'm not the only one who has this dream . . .

http://www.youtube.com/...45_8ejTGAw8&eurl

NickD
BASE 194

I've had a very similar experience...... a few times, though it's been a while and I couldn't attach it directly to something I was doing that day.

It's sometimes so realistic that I wake up and it feels like my stomach as gone "weeeeeeee", and my head is outside somewhere else.

Maybe it's because we are not natural flyers, not born to be anywhere but firmly on terra firma; or maybe we were once upon a time, and evolution has brought us down with a thud? Who knows........

I used to have those exact dreams as a kid, but without any 'indescribable motion' of my arms. Sometimes I'd realize that I was dreaming without actually waking up, and then I could jump as high as I wanted and not get scared because I knew I was only dreaming

I haven't had one of those in a while though

Mine is soooo much smoother with fewer and lighter touches of the ground. Indescribable is the right word but the less I think about it the better the flight gets. Mine takes the roll your shoulders forward of a high lift track and the fingers spread like an eagle's wingtip feathers.

It's been too long since I had one. Alas, powered flight has supplanted my dreams of body flight.

jon

spooky, are we sharing the same dream? Maybe thats what has led us to what we do. Maybe, if the human race survives , flying might be on our path of evolution, we've just made a short circuit.....Has anyone read 'jonathon Livingstone Seagul' ?

Andy

I read JLS in the early 1970s and it's definitely the original BASE jumping handbook.

It was also a favorite of Carl Boenish, and if you read Carl's early stuff you'll hear "Jonathan" in his words. JLS should be required reading for all new BASE jumpers. Although if Tom Aiello started handing out JLS in his classes I can only imagine how the "flock" would deride him, LOL . . .

Here are some quotes from the book and the author Richard Bach. The first one, about "perfect speed" was picked up by skydivers back in the "Ten Man Speed" days and even those who never read the book heard it hundreds of times.

-“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”

-"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other."

-“Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.”

-"Listen, everybody! There's no limit to how high we can fly! We can dive for fish and never have to live on garbage again!"

-"I only wish to share what I've learned - the very simple fact that it is right for a gull to fly!"

-“When you have come to the edge of all the light and step into the darkness of the unknown believe that one of the two will happen to you. Either you'll find something solid to stand on or you'll be taught how to fly!”

-“Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. 'Nothing' is the worst thing that can happen to us!”

-"How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!

-"What he had once hoped for the Flock, he now gained for himself alone; he learned to fly, and was not sorry for the price that he had paid."

NickD
BASE 194

Right on Nick!

I never met Carl and only met Jean briefly when she put a roof over my head when I needed somewhere to stay one weekend many years ago. I believe if it wasn't for Carl , I wouldn't be leading the life I am. He was and still is an inspiation. The real life 'Jonathon' keeping me on the flight to find that perfect speed. I wish more of this generation could hear his words.

Andy

ps. best regards to Jean

I readJ LS in the early 90's before I started skydiving, and picked it up again before I started BASE. Definitelty an inspirational read......

Freaky. I had this experience as a kid. Very windy day. I was in the yard across the street from my house. I could lean forward and lift off the ground briefly without even jumping. Kept doing it and learned to get higher and higher. Scary but I just kept doing it. Never happened again. To this day I swear it was real, not a dream.

Here's another quote that I saw quoted supposedly from Jonathan, but I searched the text and couldn't find it.

"Up here, above the fog, in the lonely dark emptiness, there is no Life and Death. There is infinity and a moment in between, when we fly so full of life and so close to death that they become one."


P.S. Personally, besides few inspiring quotes, I find Jonathan too predictable. Once you know what he is up to, you know all that is coming up. Yawn. He totally lacks that Calvin19's "hopeless" element that makes BASE so beautiful and human. Jonathan Livingston is a robot, a flying drone. He's dead - alive.

 
I'm not saying you don't have a right to your opinions but I don't think you want to be dishing Jonathan on here. If you start offending people like that you're going to wined up ranked right up there with Maggot.

Lee

I read the book in highschool for a class,
11th grade english honors I think, but I
personally really did not like it...

Of course that was almost 20 years ago
and before I jumped so maybe I'd dig it
more now.

I would imagine it depends on when you read it. I was very young, not so jaded, and had just starting skydiving when I read it. And while we're not talking Moby Dick here - JLS was/is a classic for its time . . .



NickD
BASE 194

I reread JLS a few times in the last few months. I tried to make this book cover my avatar (without text) but I couldn't for whatever reason.

Definitely something that lifts my spirits when I need it.

Bach is my favorite aviation author. well.. i like all aviation authors.

JLS is brilliant. its simplicity to gap between adolescent and adult feelings is amazing.

Illusions (Bach) is better, in my opinion. if you guys have not read it, you should.

 
I think West With th Night is on par with Bach's writeing.

Lee

Speaking of aviation writers, before Erin Gann, before Gordon Baxter, and before Richard Back there was this guy. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Probably in your local library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...e_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry

Read his book, "Night Flight" . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ht_Flight_%28book%29

My palms get sweaty just thinking about it . . .

NickD
BASE 194

 
Did you read Flight Over Arris?

Lee

If you want to read a classic "Fate is the Hunter" Ernest K Gann.

That's how mine are...starts with leaning into the wind - the more you lean into it, the stronger the wind get's until you lift-off. It's also what I liken flying a "jet pack" would be like. It took many dreams to "control" it, and is done with extreme concentration in a part of my mind that takes a few minutes to access when the dream starts. I can fly, at will, anywhere I want after that.

I haven't had a falling dream since learning how to skydive, but I remember being able to know I was dreaming and started to enjoy the "nightmare"

Jon