Heroes Not Zombies

I wonder if we have dreamed of being able to fly. I know that many people experience some kind of flight in dreams. If you listen carefully, their descriptions are quite different. Some people have the experience that they are flying like “Superman”, zooming here and there, able to go wherever they have the fancy to go. Others don’t have that experience of being in control but, rather have the feeling that they are being blown long distances by the wind. For yet others they find themselves following a winding road or river, tracing its twists and turns. And, for many, it’s not so much a flight, as a fall. In this latter case, it’s quite common for the dreamer to have the actual sensation of falling, so vivid that it wakes them with a start.

I take great pleasure from listening to, and watching, the birds in my garden. For much of my life I was either too busy in my medical career, or I lived in a top floor apartment without any outside space, but since I retired to rural France I’ve been blessed with a garden, surrounded, in my first house, by vineyards, and, now, by trees and fields, and I have the weather for most of the year to be able to just be outside….either gardening, strolling, noticing, photographing, swimming, or sitting reading….and I am surrounded by birds.

I’ve had a number of very special exchanges with particular birds over these last ten years or so, and I feel their presence more than I ever did. I don’t know if that’s a common experience, or peculiar to me.

What’s your experience with flying dreams? What place do birds have in your life?