Do you dream of flying?

I always understood that dreaming about flying was indicative of a spiritual connection, related to astral projection. According to Nerys Dee in her comprehensive Understanding Dreams, experiencing weightlessness and rising above the ground is thought to indicate the spirit leaving the body. She suggests people who can do this can usually rise above their problems when awake and rarely remain depressed for long.

Sounds good, huh? I can still remember the feeling vividly from my infant school, but that was a long time ago. It would be so good to do that now.

In researching it, I came across several other interpretations. Dreams about flying can mean:

• freedom from troubles (being free to fly as a bird)
• expansion or elevation of your spiritual life
• the release of sexual tension (according to Freud)
• a new perspective – the ability to look down and get a wider perspective of things
• a symbol of your own personal sense of power (if you can control your flight)
• freedom, success, independence and happiness (particularly if floating out of control)
• calmness and the peace in your waking life (again more floating than controlled flying)

So your flying dream may be telling you to let go of things, rise above petty problems or look at the broader picture.

The original beginning of Chrysalis had the following scene featuring Rory aged seven, but I cut it when I restructured the book to start from her as a teenager. I’d love to hear your flying dreams.

Rory had the distinct feeling she didn’t belong. Not merely to the class, but to the school, the town or even the world she lived in. She didn’t fit. Ever. Like the time some girls in her class were talking about their dreams.

“I had a pony with a long tail and ribbons in his mane.”

“I was a princess in a golden castle.”

“I had a genie who granted all my wishes.” Julie, as befits the playground bully, topped them all, and then fixed her stink eye on Rory. “Your turn.” The unspoken, “freak,” resounded. “What did you dream about?”

“I flew across the playground.”

“Oh, yeah. I had that dream, but it was ages ago.” Julie flicked her blonde pigtails and smirked at the others.

Rory tried to explain. “Except it wasn’t a dream. I really flew.”

“Of course it was a dream. Don’t be so stupid.”

Rory fell silent in the face of such blatant scorn, watching as they walked away with varying degrees of pity on their smug faces. It wasn’t a dream. At least, it didn’t feel like one. But it had happened pretty much every night for as long as she could remember. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the sensation exactly. She would lift off the ground, a few feet at the start, rising above the hopscotch grid. Soon, she flew above the climbing ladder, then higher and higher, looking down on everything in the playground as it got smaller and smaller.

One or two of the girls whispered and pointed at her when she walked by, but she took no notice, uncaring about not fitting in with kids of her own age. She didn’t have much in common with them, and her sunny nature was quite content with the amount of loving support she got from the grown-ups. Until the fateful Wednesday it all went horribly wrong.

The day began differently when she woke up feeling sick and shivery with a bit of a snuffle: a completely new experience. Her mother’s ever-present broth normally kept all manner of coughs, colds and other nasty bugs at bay.

A temperature of two degrees above normal had warranted a huge spoonful of cod liver oil, but then she went straight to school. The teacher wouldn’t listen when Rory said she wasn’t feeling well; there were no excuses dreadful enough to get out of times table practice. By break time, Rory was burning up and freezing cold all at once, so she went to First Aid. The secretary told her to come back at lunchtime as the school nurse came in late that day.

It seemed important for Miss Dale to impress the stern man visiting the history lesson. She asked the whole class to put their hands up if they knew two things about the royal family and got very cross when Rory couldn’t raise her hand.

“This is not acceptable, Rory. You need to pay more attention. Perhaps you should sit on the front table so you can listen properly.”

Rory tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t support her, and she collapsed back into the chair.

“Aurora Ballantyne, you naughty little girl. Come out here, immediately.” Miss Dale had her unhappy face on, but when Rory tried to tell her about the wobbly legs, no words came out of her mouth.

The next thing Rory remembered was being in bed with her mother holding her hand and crying softly. “Please wake up, sweetheart. I’ll never leave you again, I promise. Just please come back to me.”

“It’s all right, mummy. I’m here now and I won’t be going away for a long time. Malduc said I’ve got a lot of growing up to do first.”

Her mother looked worried, but the strange name wasn’t mentioned again for a long time.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more of Rory's story, Chrysalis is available on Amazon, and you can read it for free with Kindle Unlimited.