Research case · Flight & sky
Floating, burning objects in the kitchen
Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
I entered the kitchen and found objects floating in the air while catching fire. I realized that it might be a lucid dream and, because the room was dark, I tried to turn on the light, but it would not come on. I decided to go back toward the entrance and saw that, instead of the usual door, there was a glass door with light coming through from behind it. I decided to go that way. At a certain point, I found myself interacting with people I know in waking life. I understood that they would never behave that way in reality. On the one hand, I felt that I had control over the dream; on the other, I still felt at the mercy of events. I nevertheless believe that I experienced what a lucid dream is like and that I only need to learn how to "manage" and "control" it.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials — Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia, 2026. Supplementary Materials, Reports of Lucid Dreams, Report L3
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- Not stated · Italian
- Date
- Date unknown · contemporary study
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — De-identified lucid-dream report. The English text is the study authors’ translation from Italian; the calendar dream date is unknown. Chinese title and translation are AI-generated editorial drafts, not human-verified.
- Imagery
- Flight · Sky · Fire · House · Darkness
- Feelings
- Calm
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Flight
How did flying feel — effortless, effortful, frightening? Is there something in your waking life you would like to rise above, or see from higher up?
Jung · Compensation
Jung thought dreams often compensate for a one-sided waking attitude: they show the side we leave out. A flying dream can be read either way — lightness someone lacks, or a height they have climbed too fast.
C. G. Jung, “General Aspects of Dream Psychology”, Collected Works 8
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis gave flying and falling dreams a whole chapter, “Aviation in Dreams”, and explained flying mainly through breathing sensations during sleep.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VI
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The Lingshu says that when the upper body is in excess, “one dreams of flying”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.
Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”
Sky
What colour was the sky, and how far away? Were you under it, or up inside it?
Daoist classic Classical text
In the Liezi, King Mu of Zhou is carried up into a magician’s palace in the sky. He returns to find he never left his seat: “we were wandering in spirit,” the magician says — “why would the body move?”
Liezi, “King Mu of Zhou”
Roman philosophy Philosophy
In Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio”, the dreamer is taken up among the heavens and looks back at an Earth so small that Rome’s empire seems a speck.
Cicero, De re publica VI (“Dream of Scipio”)
Fire
Was the fire warming, destroying, or lighting the way? What, if anything, did it burn?
Jung · Transformation by fire
In the alchemical images Jung studied, fire is the agent of change: what passes through it does not come out the same.
C. G. Jung, “Psychology and Alchemy”, Collected Works 12
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The Lingshu’s counterpart to the water image: when yang is excessive, “one dreams of a great fire, burning and scorching”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.
Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”
Greek myth Myth & scripture
Prometheus steals fire for humans and is punished for it: fire as a gift that costs something.
Hesiod, Theogony; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Flying out of the bar Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- Already at the hospital, so no need to go Vienna, Austria · c. 1895
- Leaving the Kitchen During an Alarm Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- A samurai racing the temple clock to enlightenment Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- The land of Huaxu Legendary China · legendary; text compiled c. 4th century CE
- The pencil writing by itself Inn, location unstated · 5 November 1885