"Soaring" by Kurt Hare

I’m being lifted up in the air like a ballet danseur. My feet seem to lift high off of the ground. I’m gliding through the air and soaring into the night’s sky. I’m soaring into a whole new universe - defying the laws of gravity.

It’s joyful and exhilarating.
I feel a sense of euphoria.
The experience is liberating.
Whether I’m going to Egypt or Peoria
I’m on top of the world.

I can see the city lights from up above, which look like twinkling stars. Once I pass the cities and fly over the rural areas, everything becomes pitch black like you are almost in outer space. I get to soar with the airplanes, which seem to be moving faster than the speed of light.

If this is possible, maybe other things that seem impossible are attainable.

All of the sudden, I feel a weird sensation. I’m tumbling to the ground.

“Fantasy prone people are especially likely to recall dreams from the previous night.” D. Watson, 2003

I hear voices talking around me. Someone mutters, “Their car was speeding when they hit him.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I don’t know, but he needs to be taken to the hospital as soon as possible.”

I hear someone blurt out, “He’s been in a coma for over seventy-two hours.”

“Look, I think he’s trying to wake up.”

“Is he moving his hand?”

“I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.”
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

“What are lucid dreams?”

“They’re dreams where people become aware that they are dreaming. People even test their state of consciousness.”

“How?”

“If they can perform an unusual act like floating in the air, they know they are dreaming.”

“Is that what happened to that boy that’s in a coma?”

I struggle to wake up, but it feels like lead weights are on my eyelids. I want to tell them that I’m okay, but I slip into unconsciousness again. Then all of the sudden, I feel someone gently shake my shoulder, “Hey! It’s time to get up for class.”

“Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude…are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.”
Jonathan Swift, 1727

Hallucinations of the sleeping mind are vivid, emotional, and bizarre. It was such a lucid dream. I knew that floating in the air was absurd, but it felt so real.