Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




In My Dreams I Fly

Frog's Leap, Rutherford, California, USA

February 18, 2016

"If God had meant man to fly, he would have given him wings." ... 
"Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better."  ... Robert Lee Frost transcribed by  


I have two kinds of dreams - which is to say there are two distinct experiences I have when I'm dreaming. In the first, I know I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming, and when I wake up, I know I was dreaming. This kind of dream has an other-worldly surrealistic  quality to it. Yet it's like I'm watchin1 television: if I don't like what I'm dreaming, I can change the channel  (so to speak) and dream something else. Then there's the other kind of dream in which everything seems so real that I have no clue it's a dream. When I wake up, it comes as a complete surprise to discover I was only dreaming. It's in dreams like these, these super-realistic ones, that I can fly.

Man given wings: Vitruvian Icarus by Sean McCall
The strangest thing about flying in my dreams is that it isn't at all strange. It's seems quite normal. It's I know  how to fly. In my dreams, flying is as easy and as ordinary as walking. It's something I do effortlessly, simply, without giving the matter a lot of thought. Also, this experience of flying is a joyous, happy, energized experience (the actual word for this is it's an exuberant  experience) which feels so totally right  that there's no sense of it being in any way unusual or far from the ordinary.

Whenever I fly in my dreams, the most common position I put my body in is as if I'm sitting down with my legs stretched out in front of me - kind of like how you would sit to ride a go-kart (also a magic carpet). I steer by leaning my body to the left, and to the right. I adjust my elevation down and up by leaning forward, and back. On other occasions when I fly in my dreams, I fly in a much more traditional manner: by scooping the air with my hands and outstretched arms - kind of like I scoop water when I'm swimming the breaststroke (it's the closest I'll get to imitating a bird flying).

And on still other occasions, I can fly by deploying simple levitation  ie by literally defying gravity. I really don't know how to describe the way this works, suffice to say I'll direct it by the power of my will alone ie by sheer intention  - and this is effortless  intention. In those dreams in which I fly this way, you could say it's kind of like what Superman  does ("Up, up, and awaaay  ..."). Please notice it's only the comparison with Kal-el's  method of flying which works here for me in this description. I'm not implying any other similes whatsoever between me and the entire Superman legend per se.

I've made no attempts to interpret what flying in dreams means (I'll leave that to others to do). I just enjoy it whenever it occurs. And yet there's one thing on which this entire share pivots which I haven't said yet, and it's this: when I awake from a dream in which I was flying, I'd be a liar if I don't cop to a certain disappointment  upon discovering that back here in the real world  I can't fly, or I've lost my ability to fly, or I've become too muddled  to fly (in those dreams in which I fly, my whole experience and state of consciousness is always and ongoingly wide open, attuned, and crystal clear  - it's as if being that way is a prerequisite  for being able to fly).

It's on the back edge of this disappointment that you could surmise the entire fulcrum of transformation pivots. Should I be disappointed with my life (indeed, should I be disappointed with Life itself)  if I can't fly? Or is it just possible that transformation is keyed to something far more basic than that?  If God had meant man to fly, he would have given him wings, yes? And he didn't give us wings - so therefore we don't have wings, and so clearly  God didn't mean for us to fly. With that said, I've become committed to and totally enamored of something more fundamental than having wings and being able to fly: I've become committed to and enamored of being flightless  - I'm like a rhea or a kiwi  (it's how God means me to be) living a life I love, making a difference, and having it all work out, right here on the ground.
Werner Erhard may not be a palatable speaker for you if what you're listening for is for someone to tell you how to fly ie if what you're looking for is someone to tell you how to get someplace else other than this, or how to be some way  else other than this. It could just be that here on the ground the way we are, is the best place there is for us to be, and the best way for us to be, and it's only our yearning for wings and the ability to fly (figuratively speaking - if not literally) which gets in our way of fully appreciating the gorgeous, divine magnificence we already are, and the awesome freedom we already have, in spite of our never having been given wings.

In my dreams I fly - and that's pretty wild (and pretty cool too) to be sure. But the truth is I'm far more enthralled with, and way more in love with life here on Planet Earth where I can't. And when I get that ie when I live my life accordingly ie consistent with it, all of it works much better. Better still, it all gets so very much simpler.



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