In my dreams as a child, I could never fly. Certainly not in the way that most people have come to expect. Now, if you are a fan of comic books and similar things, you will know that there are a few different ways that fictional characters “defy gravity”. You will also know that you can easily disappear into the rabbit hole of comparing various flight mechanisms and reviewing their pros and cons. I will not do that. Although I will say, my personal favourite is “get a pilot license” because that’s what Bats did. Coming in close second of course is the ability to generate anti-gravitons like Supes.
In any case, the most popular version of flight is a hybrid of levitation and propelled flight, where the person is able to casually disregard gravitational forces as well as actively direct their movements in any direction. I couldn’t do any of these things. And the reason: I was exposed to Newton’s law of universal gravitation too early. Generally speaking, I suspect I may have been exposed to too much math and physics as a child, and I expect there are many other ways it has manifested that I have yet to discover. I am sure my wife and children will have an absolute blast uncovering those.
You are likely not here for a physics lesson (ᵃⁿᵈ ʸᵒᵘ ˢʰᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵈᵒ ᵇᵉᵗᵗᵉʳ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᵖʰʸˢⁱᶜˢ ⁱˢ ᵃᵐᵃᶻⁱⁿᵍ) so I won’t write out the full version of the law. What you need to know is that the law states that all physical bodies with mass attract other physical bodies with mass. The strength of the attraction depends on their masses and how far apart they are. This explains your strong attraction to the earth (what you know as gravity) and your weak attraction to other people, cars, buildings, etc. If you are really interested, you should just read Newton’s Principia.
This law contains the ground work for explaining that once you are caught within a gravitational pull, particularly for very large masses like planetary bodies (Earth, Uranus, etc), for obvious reasons it is very difficult to get out. Think about it, even something as simple as “staying” in the air when you jump is spectacularly hard. Needless to say, I am not a fan of gravitation. Some other concepts I have beef with are friction and restitution. Generally, anything that is naturally occurring that I consider to be limiting.
My options for flight had become limited. I couldn’t simply levitate and disregard physical laws like some of you did (and probably still do) because that just wasn’t a real thing (or at least not to me at the time). Yes, I could have used a jetpack, or an aircraft, or even tried wings, but these were either not cool, I did not consider them to be fast enough. To find out what I did, click here to make a one-time donation to my… I kid. However, if you do like clicking links, and you felt betrayed by one missing in the last sentence, you can try this one. Thank me later.
And now for the anticlimactic ending you’re really after. To “fly”, I would first of all move upwards very quickly. Specifically, the target was to achieve the escape velocity of the earth, which is what you would need to be free of the annoying gravitational pull I described earlier. To be clear, I wasn’t actually trying to leave the earth, just wanted to move very quickly, become “free” of gravity and also arrive at a point that was high enough to begin gliding around as required. Whenever I remember this, I am amused by the fact that my brain was comfortable with so many questionable things, the most most obvious of which was accelerating in manner that would definitely lead to - among other things - sudden death. Incidentally, my childhhod love for gliding around so much is what led me to become a powered paraglider.
My dreams have since changed significantly. For example, I no longer dream every day, it now happens only about 3 or 4 times a week. I also no longer have dreams that contain oddly detailed predictions of the future. Unfortunately, the predictions were not accurate frequently enough for me to have chosen to become a seer for a living. But the level of detail was quite alarming. I read somewhere that some experts (ⁱ ʳᵉˢᵉⁿᵗ ᵗʰⁱˢ ʷᵒʳᵈ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵉˣᵃᶜᵗˡʸ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵉˣᵖᵉʳᵗˢ ⁱⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ʰᵒʷ ᵈⁱᵈ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵇᵉᶜᵒᵐᵉ ᵉˣᵖᵉʳᵗˢ ⁱⁿ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵘⁿⁿᵃᵐᵉᵈ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ﹖) believe that when your dream contains a prediction of the future, you can find yourself (consciously or otherwise) working to ensure that the prediction is false. To be clear, these dreams did not contain things that could be said to be good or bad, so I wasn’t running towards or away from them. For example, I may have dreamed about starting a new year in school and walking around one day to find that Matthew has accidentally spilled some coffee on Melissa’s white shirt. When I wake up, I remember the day of the week, the time of the day and the fact that Melissa was particularly upset because she was supposed to be going on a date with Chris after school. Note that at the time of the dream, these people aren’t even real! The only plausible part would have been starting a new year at school.
The real reason I have written this Medium post (which I understand is better than a blog entry, but much worse than an article) is because I have decided to start writing again. The vast majority of my writing in the past has been either academic (I doubt there’s a very large audience interested in my thoughts on how sustainable combustion in turbojets would work) or in the form of blog entries that were (in my opinion) not great. In any case, here I am, writing again. Or at least I should say producing written material that is published on the internet and visible to the general public.
Since you have gone as far as reading this entire thing (or scrolled all the way to the last paragraph, you wily fox!) there are some things I would like you to do:
- Tell me about your dreams and your thoughts on dreams
- Tell me what you think about my writing. What did you like? What did you dislike? What could be improved?
- Tell your friends about it
- Follow me on Medium
Thank you for reading!
