Dreaming about
flying

Flying is the dream people bring up with a smile, and it's one of the few that many would happily have every night. Dreaming about flying is usually about freedom, either a weight you've just put down (exam season, a job you quit) or one you wish you could put down. Your mind gives you the simplest picture of that it has, your body rising off the ground with nothing holding it there.

But flying dreams come in a nervous version too, and many of us have had both. Some people fly beautifully, others can only get a few feet up, or keep catching on power lines, or fly in a panic with something behind them. How easy the flight was, where you were going and what you were leaving tell you more than the flying itself, and they're the part to write down first.

What dreaming about flying means

Flying dreams are less frequent than their reputation suggests. About half of people remember having one at some point,^[1] but in one man's record of more than 6,700 dreams, flying on his own came up in fewer than two dreams in a hundred.^[2] So when one shows up, it's worth asking why now, and the answer usually falls under one of these.

Freedom you've just won

The happiest flying dreams tend to come right after a release. You handed in the thesis, the house sale went through, or you finally said what you'd been holding in, and that night you're over the rooftops. If you woke up feeling light, the dream is mostly a mirror of that relief, and there isn't much more to dig for.

Freedom you want

When life feels cramped, a flying dream can be the opposite of your days. Why would your mind send you soaring in the middle of a grinding month? Because it shows you what's missing, and the reading is a wish for room, time or a way out. Look at what you flew away from, because that's usually the thing that's boxing you in.

Confidence and a new view

Flying gives you height, and height gives you perspective, the bird's-eye view where a problem that was huge on the ground turns small. And these dreams often come when you've just understood something or found a way through a situation. People who fly easily and steer well in their dreams often describe the same feeling about some part of their life (a skill they've mastered, a role they've grown into).

Avoiding the ground

There's a less flattering side to all that height, because flying is also a way to never land. If you spent the whole dream staying above everything, are you avoiding something on the ground? It might be a conversation, a decision or a feeling you'd rather not sit with, and the dream may be asking when you plan to come down.

Dreaming about flying without wings

This is the classic flying dream, and the one most people mean. You don't need wings or a plane or a cape. You simply decide to go up and you do, which makes it a dream about your own power, about what you can do without help. If it felt natural, as if you'd always known how, it tends to come at times when you're trusting yourself more. If you were surprised you could do it, the dream may be catching up with an ability you haven't given yourself credit for.

Dreaming about flying on a plane

Flying as a passenger is a very different dream, because someone else is at the controls. It's often about a transition you're in (a move, a new job, a change in a relationship) where you're on your way somewhere but not steering. A smooth flight suggests you're comfortable with that, while turbulence or a pilot you can't see tends to track a worry about who's really in charge. If the plane went down, that's closer to falling than to flying, and the airplane page goes further into the travel side.

Dreaming about flying and floating

Floating is flying's quieter cousin, and it usually comes with calm. Hovering near the ceiling or drifting down a corridor a few inches above the floor often turns up in periods of rest, when you've stepped back from the rush. If you were watching yourself from above, the dream may be about seeing a situation more clearly from a distance. But if the floating went on and on, it can also mean you feel cut off from what's happening around you.

Dreaming about trying to fly but not being able to

Plenty of people know the frustrating version of this dream, where you jump and come down, flap and stay low, or get a few metres up before you sink back toward the ground. These dreams usually line up with a goal that feels harder than it should, or a situation where you're putting in effort and getting no lift. And the obstacles matter, because power lines, ceilings and trees that keep you down are often a fair picture of the specific things in your way.

Dreaming about flying away from someone

Flight as an escape is common, especially from a pursuer, and it mixes the flying dream with dreams of being chased. Flying away is a creative escape, since you found a way out that wasn't on the ground. It often means you're good at getting out of trouble in waking life, sometimes so good that you never stay long enough to deal with it.

Dreaming about flying with someone

Flying alongside someone, or holding their hand in the air, is usually about a bond that lifts you. It can be a partner, a close friend or someone who taught you something. The dream often comes when that person is giving you courage you didn't have on your own. If you were carrying them, think about whose weight you've been holding up lately.

Dreaming about birds or bees flying around you

These searches are really about birds and bees, but they belong here because what flies toward you reads differently from flying yourself. Birds flying at you tend to bring news or a thought you can't ignore, and a swarm of bees around your head is often about busyness, many small demands buzzing at once. If you were calm among them, the dream is gentler than it sounds.

Flying in a lucid dream

Flying is one of the first things people try once they realize they're dreaming, and it works the other way round too. Noticing that you're flying, something you can't do awake, is one of the best cues there is to stop and ask whether this is a dream. If you'd like to learn, start with the guide on how to have lucid dreams, and once you're there, ten things to try starts with flying.

The usual advice once you're up is to stop thinking about how. But doubt is what pulls lucid fliers back down, so step off as if you'd done it a thousand times, or look at where you want to go and let the dream take you there.

Dreaming about flying according to Jung and Freud

Flying has been read in very different ways, from a wish in disguise to a counterweight to the way you live.

Jung: flying as a correction

In Jung's view a dream makes up for what a lopsided waking attitude leaves out, and that gives a flying dream a direction.^[3] If your days are heavy with duty (a desk, a caring role, a schedule with no gaps), a dream that lifts you off the ground is the other half of the picture turning up at night. If you live mostly in your head and your plans, the same idea reads a flight with trouble landing, or one that keeps hitting the power lines, as the ground asking to be counted. So how high you flew and how well you came down tell you which way your waking attitude leans. He also distrusted ready-made lists of meanings, so what flight is to you comes first.

Freud: flying as a typical dream

Flying was one of the handful of dreams Freud called "typical", shared by so many people that he gave them their own discussion,^[4] but even there he said your own associations come first. Take his general idea that a dream is a disguised wish, apply it to a flight that feels this good, and the question becomes what you wish for that you can't say out loud.

Other readings

Artemidorus, a Greek of the 2nd century who spent years collecting dreams from the diviners of market squares and festivals, ranked flights, and his ranking will look familiar. Flying upright a little above the ground was good, and the higher the better. Flying with wings was good for everyone (money for the poor, office for the rich), and flying where you liked and landing when you liked was best of all. Flying very high without wings meant danger and fear, flying with something chasing you was not good, and wanting to fly and being unable was the worst. He meant every one of these as a forecast of what would happen to the dreamer.^[5]

The spiritual meaning of flying in dreams

Two texts that are far apart in time and belief both give a flight a place in a dream, and they ask different things of it.

Flying in a hadith

Sahih al-Bukhari, the collection of the Prophet Muhammad's sayings that Sunni Muslims trust above the rest, reports a dream of Ibn Umar, one of his companions, in which a piece of silk in his hand carried him wherever he pointed in Paradise. The Prophet called him a righteous man.^[6]

Flying in the Zhuangzi

The Zhuangzi, a Daoist classic that takes its name from the philosopher Zhuang Zhou, uses a flight to ask a different question: you dream you're a bird soaring to the sky, it says, and can't be sure you aren't dreaming now.^[7] It's the doubt lucid dreamers use on purpose.

Questions to ask about your flying dream

Go back over the flight once more before you settle on a reading, since what made it easy or hard is usually the clue.

• Did you take off on purpose, or did it just happen?
• How high could you go, and what kept you down?
• Where were you going, or what were you leaving behind?
• Were you alone, carrying someone, or being carried?
• What in your life feels freer, or more cramped, than it did a month ago?

Oniri asks about the same sort of things before reading your dream, so a dream about soaring and a dream about barely leaving the ground don't end up with the same answer.