Milwaukee, WI
Last night I had another dream about skydiving, or rather this time, base-jumping. I was with my mom in some large ambiguous city. The air was still, the sun was bright and there was no one around but her and me. Strangely, she seemed to be of the opinion that it’s about time I try something like this, and she was there to cheer me on. I geared up on the ground next to my jump-site, and listened to her pep talk before being mysteriously transported to the top of the tallest building in this dream city. I felt pretty focused and fearless about the jump, because not long ago, my dreamself had learned to jump out of planes in the Hiro Nakamura School of Skydiving. I confidently stepped to the edge of the edifice, looked down and saw my mom very far away and tiny down below, and I pushed off. After a much shorter freefall experience than in my previous dream a few weeks ago, I had to pull the ripcord, but struggled to find it. I grasped hurriedly all around my shoulders and waist and could not feel it and did not know where it was. By this time it was too late anyway, so I stopped the flailing search. I was not scared to smack the concrete below; I just resigned myself to the impact. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I was laying on the ground. At this point, I faintly awoke briefly, and then immediately went back to sleep and back to the dream.
I didn’t feel an impact. My dreamself didn’t have a memory between the closing of my eyes and reopening them once on the ground. I saw my mom nearby who appeared to be nonplussed by the whole incident. Unharmed, I brushed myself off and looked at my equipment. Everything was fine and intact. I could not figure out how I never found the ripcord. Maybe the wind was blowing it around? But I still never even felt it in order to try and pull it. My mom walked over and cajoled me into trying another jump like she was my coach or something. I recombobulated my dreamself and again mysteriously made it to the top of the building. I faintly awoke again, and can remember thinking that I hoped my dreamself would execute a clean jump this time, then again fell back into the dream.
I wanted to try again, but I could not bring myself to jump. I walked to the edge many times, but did not make the plunge. I paced around the rooftop wondering, thinking, how could I have survived the last one, and how, if I wasn’t able to pull the ripcord again, would I survive this one? I was pretty fearless for the first jump, but not so for this second attempt, though I was more frustrated than anything… and upset with myself for my lack of faith. My dreamself thought, “I have done this before, I can do it. Why couldn’t my equipment just work? I wouldn’t feel so unconfident.”
I walked to the edge over and over, but never was able to bring myself to trust that I would be successful in executing the dangerous feat. I could see my mom below, watching me, waiting for me to push off. There was another person down there now too, a man I do not know in real life. Not long after noticing him, he showed up at the top of the building with me, and in a kind of laissez faire manner was trying to encourage me to make the jump. He said he’d jump with me without a parachute, all I’d have to do is hold on to him, and we’d both be fine. I thought this was crazy. How could I trust my equipment to work for the both of us? He used some other unimposing motivating techniques, but none were very convincing. As my indecision wore on, I could feel the chance that I would finally jump decreasing. I stood at the edge and looked down. Disappointed in myself, I had apparently decided at this point I was not going to make the jump. I hung my head, and cursed myself for not being able to overcome my inhibitions. Then I woke up for good.
My first thought upon waking up was why couldn’t I do it, why couldn’t I just run off the edge of that building and fly? I had already done so once in the dream, and many times in the other dream from a few weeks ago. The first jump in this dream was not a pleasure cruise. It was full of effort and struggle to find and pull the cord to land safely. In the previous dream, I had a similar problem finding my ripcord, but there were people flying next to me, so without much concern I glided over to them, grabbed a hold, and we all landed safely together. I could not seem to bring myself to jump alone in this dream. And the thought of being responsible for the fearless unknown man who wanted to jump with me, using no equipment save his own two arms, was inconceivable to me. My zealously overprotective mother was mostly unvocal, yet completely supportive of me jumping off of tall buildings with low confidence and questionable equipment. That may have been the most unusual thing about the whole dream: my mother not batting an eye at my attempt to fly.
Maybe it was not my equipment that was the problem. Maybe it was my informal and inadequate training from the prior skydiving dream, which ended with a hair-raisingly problematic jump. I never solved or fixed what went wrong there before waking up. Maybe I have the right tools, or tools that could work, but I just don’t know how to use them so I don’t trust them. Whatever the case, it’s clear I haven’t yet learned how to fly on my own. In much of my adult life, I’ve felt very unprepared for the chance things that I’ve encountered. I have been reluctant to take a leap of faith right into chance, enjoy the flight, and see where it lands me. One of my greatest difficulties is choosing a path in life and then following it. I’m bound by thoughts of “But what if it takes me somewhere I don’t want to be? What if I do irreparable harm to myself, or the future I want for myself by taking this leap?”
I think this dream is trying to show me my tendency for (or addiction to?) dependency. I have long thought, and never shared, that I suspect I have a deep-seated fear of success that keeps me from actualizing my potential in anything I do. I’ve relied on credible excuses, but excuses nonetheless, to make up for the shortfall. “Oh, but the parachute I was given had no ripcord.” I tell myself and others that I’ve already worked through and overcome resenting and blaming externalities for my present circumstances. But it would seem this dream wishes to tell me that I still have some work to do. I am the only force in my way, so why not get over myself and jump already. If I could navigate myself free from these binds, I might possibly grow wings and make the need for a burdensome parachute pack obsolete, and the struggle to find and pull its ripcord irrelevant. I think this dream’s message to me is that I must fly alone in life. After all, flying is a lonely exercise. If I could put this lesson into unwavering practice, then I would love the loneliness. I would revel in solitude and be blessed by it. And then, who knows where I’d be…
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor pverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” –Henry David Thoreau, Walden
