I’m wondering if many people here experience the same flight problems than I. Generally speaking, while flying in LD’s, I don’t fly higher than the treetops and the buildings and houses roofs. What surprises me is, the altitude limit is precisely the treetops or the top of the roofs. What I also noticed is that the more I get closer to this limit, the more it’s necessary to me to make efforts to go higher. In short, this is exactly like planes which block at a certain altitude…
Of course, this doesn’t happen every times. I have some experiences in which I reached the level of clouds or even went in the stratosphere. But I do not think these experiences were "normal flight because I succeeded by fixing a distant point (stars, clouds, etc.) and it looks more like teleporting.
I would like to know if this altitude problem in lucid dreams is truly widespread. So, to make my own idea, I am also interested in your stories if it turns out that you don’t experience this problem of altitude, if you fly high without noticeable effort, or can easily fly higher than the highest point of the close dreamscape. Eventually, if some of the people who experienced this problem have their own little idea on its possible cause, their views are also welcome.
I have noticed this before. I don’t usually do much flying because of control issues and waking up, but I have noticed a distinct limit on at least one occasion. It was just at the treetop, of a special tree. It was in fact a very tall tree, and I was going to suggest that, if you can’t fly higher than the treetops you should make the trees taller. I think that part of the reason i wake up when I fly too high, is that I don’t know how to render the view. Perhaps this is a factor in the limit you experience.
It is a simple idea that could work, but I agree. I would rather not have to raise the trees. I could live with raising one tree only to set the altitude. it’s a cruth, like using a jetpack to get used to flying.
That I don’t know how to render the view. Today I disagree with what I said. I don’t doubt my brain, it can render it. But there is a mental block, I doubt it at the time.
I’ve searched on another forum where there were more LD’ers than here, I discovered that this problem was recurring and in many posts it was described exactly as I did: more and more efforts are required to fly higher, there is a limit which corresponds to the roofs and treetops. I asked the question quite in the same terms than above and the next day, someone replied he just experienced the problem and, searching the reason why in his LD, he thought it was a problem of “low-angle-shot” (this notion became confuse when he woke up and he couldn’t understand what he was meaning by this) ; another one said quite the same thing than you said before, that is he eventually got the feeling bird’s eye views were harder to render hence they woke him up.
Now, as for me, I don’t remember I’ve got this problem with bird’s eye view. I can remember two or three LD’s in which I was flying above a vast landscape and not experience any problem (for instance, the “cloak made of cats” dream I made a drawing from in the “Fruits” threads). So I agree with you about this probably not being due to poor brain rendering in certain circumstances (or else it’s possible we couldn’t see vast lanscapes IRL ).
I feel I need to precise the conditions in which I reached a certain altitude in the “cloak made of cats” dream, cause they are uncommon. In this dream I had not a great lucidity. To escape evil cats, I shouted a verbal command which propelled me into the clouds. Once in the clouds, I could fly easily, on a long distance and most of the time at a good altitude (I would say, 50 meters above the ground: the altitude effect is exagerated in the drawing). I don’t remember noticeable efforts with one exception: I experienced loss of altitude when approaching a hill top. Now I remember I made another Fruit drawing about flying high, the “fly for the sun” drawing: in this case, I don’t remember how I reached something like a 40 meters altitude. I experienced some difficulties when approaching the buildings roofs, there was also a loss of altitude.
Those examples may be considered as counterexamples. I think this problem can be circumvent by many tricks. Yet I’m wondering why this effort when trying to fly higher although it sounds like there is no particular reason why in dreams. I think it’s also worthy to notice that, most of the time, I’m flying at human eye height in LD’s.
I try to think practically about these things because figuring out why it happens is not an easy task. We know so little about how dreams work.
In Robert Moss’ Dream Gates he actually adresses this issue. That there are limits. He comes froma spiritual background and suggests the shamanic approach, which is to change shape. This will allow the dreamer to reach higher levels of dreaming or whatever. I don’t remember exactly. But it is a thing to try!
I never had this target - flying really high or even leaving Earth.
I think firsly I’d try to imagine that ‘behind those clouds’ there’s moon and space full of stars. But mainly the moon. Then I would sort of, like ‘aim’ to the moon and go vertically without putting any effort in the action itself, just think about flying up, not actually try to fly upwards. Thinking about what was the view through a window when I was on an airplane would help I reckon.
…but most likely all of that wouldn’t work and I would just fail.
It must be very hard to create such a ‘scenery’ in your mind like the outer layers of Earth’s atmosphere and cosmos, just from what you’ve seen in videos and pictures. I mean something like this or that. We’re used to ground, and gravity, and… I’ve never even had any ‘space dreams’.
You know what, this actually worked very well for me. Perhaps because I had a flight a few days before the LD and got to see the amazing scenery through a window of the airplane. Yeah, probably that had some influence in achieving this.
Everything on the ground became smaller as I was moving higher and higher. I didn’t feel any speed or altitude limit, unlike before (I usually have a ‘max speed limit’). While I was flying straight upwards through all the dense clouds I thought I should be leaving the atmosphere soon and see the Moon, etc. And I did. Some clouds started spinning and the Moon formed out of it. Same with other objects such as the Sun (which was really dim and small). So there it was. No altitude problem or anything. Just make a wish instead of trying to move with your body!
My two cents: I’d concur too, that this is a common occurence. When I was younger I used to fly all the time in my dreams, but I always felt a limit at some point. I could usually get fairly high, but I’d feel heavy suddenly, as if I couldn’t get any further. I also found the same problem when I started to get into and practice LDing. But, I managed to curb it somewhat. I can now pretty much fly as high as I want, anywhere I want. It does take time and practice, but flying in dreams does become easier the more you do it. It’s all about how high you believe you can get. Just know you can fly higher. If you float up and then feel barred, simply think, there is no logic here, I CAN fly higher. It can help to say it aloud: “I will go higher!” Another trick I use is simply to alter things in the dream to make flying easier, you don’t need to go all out and shapeshift. Just use the principles of density and gravity. As you stand and look up to the sky, just think “I’m as light as a feather in this place.” and you’ll probably begin to fly off without even thinking about it, concentrate on your belief of how gravity works on you in the dream too: “I’m dreaming, so I don’t need to obey gravity, it doesn’t exist here.” Remember that only your mind applies in the dreamstate, nothing else. There’s a scene in The Matrix that I think helps to understand this too. Where Neo and Morpheus are sparring in the dojo and Neo says: “You’re too fast.” and Morpheus replies: “Do you think that has anything to do with my muscles in this place?” The same is totally true of the dreamworld. The more you believe you can bend and break the rules in your favour, the more you will be able to.
I’m having a similar problem, except when I try to fly higher than the treetops, I just end up waking up, meaning I can’t even attempt to fly higher without risking loss of the entire dream. I’m thinking one way of solving the problem would be to incubate a dream or teleport so that I’m in an airplane or some other high place, and then jumping off. I then just need to try and not fall, and I should be able to achieve full high-altitude flight.
@Radioactive_Man: yes indeed, this “treetop limit” is a common problem, I gathered a lot of similar answers on another forum. Curiously, I notice while starting to translate my DJ that in many cases, I didn’t experience this. For instance, it may not experience it if I’m already flying when I become lucid. So, there are dreams when this problem occurs, and there are dreams in which it doesn’t at all.
There are of course many ways of circumventing this problem, and I think the principle is not to focus on altitude and efforts to fly higher. As many people said here, gravitation inversion, feeling a wind that lift you up, focusing on an objective, teleporting in clouds, etc. can do it.
But it wasn’t really the point of this topic, I was mainly wondering why this curious “treetop limit”.
It was a very clever idea but we don’t have any equivalent of this proverb in french. So I just discover it today and it couldn’t have influenced my LD’s or the LD’s of the people I asked on another french forum. (By the way, we have another proverb about stars I find also pretty: “Who seeks for the moon, don’t see the stars”.)
I think the main source of my ease is that I play many, many, many videogames where I can fly ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE… and videogames tend to have a huge impact on my dreams. So flying for me is as easy as pressing a button (or clicking a mouse).
(Btw, if you’d like to know, I’m referring to Second Life, City of Heroes, and even Super Mario 64 )
I also have been on a plane for more than just a few trips.
EDIT: and about the “treetop limit”, maybe it’s because movies/shows you watch, games you play, things you talk about, things you do, or your own thoughts about flying might not have ever gone beyond treetops or it is something you don’t think about during the day. I tend to think about flight a lot because I just love the idea and desire to be like a bird and just fly away (cheesy, I know)…
Yes indeed, I’ve been on a plane before. And indeed, once in a LD when I flew over clouds, it looked like viewed from a plane. I also think the “treetop limit” is due to a perceptual habit cause we generally don’t see things from a point of view situated above the objects where we can stand on (hmmm… sounds like I didn’t expressed it very clearly. hope you understand).
I don’t really seem to have a limit. I wonder if it has something to do with your flying style? I can fly with both arms forward, but when I try to go “Neo style” (Both arms back) I just start falling. I have no idea why this happens…
Hmmm yes i must admit i used to have the same problem many years ago, and every now and then.
But… mine was about a meter off the ground max two.
When i first started, it took incredible amount of effort to fly, i dont know why, my lucidity was well adjusted and I could do anything else you ask,… but fly.
The trick i learnt after trying out many other peoples suggestions which mind you did help, was to visualise flying while awake as clearly as i could. this would in turn make it much eaiser to dream and fly high fast etc etc
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