What causes falling dreams?

One theory for why we these dreams, is that were having a subconscious reaction to a physiological

event. We are falling asleep, and that means our bodies are going through a process that we act out
in our dreams.

As we begin to fall asleep, our heart rate begins to slow and our blood pressure begins to drop. As our
nervous system begins to quiet, our body temperature also slightly drops. This could cause us to
dream as if were experiencing this as a literal free fall, as if weve fallen off a building or from an

airplane without a parachute. We often jerk back awake during this event, which has caused some to
speculate that if we didnt come awake, our bodies would die the moment our dream selves hit the
ground. Thankfully, that has been proven to be untrue. Our physical bodies cant die as a result of
dying in our sleep.
A loss of control
Though the physiological event of drifting off into sleep may cause many falling dreams, it isnt the only
reason we dream we are caught in an out of control free fall. More often, perhaps, we dream of free
falling because some part of our lives is out of our immediate control. No matter how much we may sit
and plan out our lives, they rarely run as smoothly as we hope. Our careful plans are often disrupted
by events beyond our control. Perhaps if we lived in a controlled environment, there would be no need
for dreams of falling. Unfortunately, someone or something is always throwing a monkey wrench into
the works and we end up feeling vulnerable; we feel as if our lives are out of control. We feel
overwhelmed because we cant predict the outcome and we arent sure we can plan for it.
If youre having dreams in which youre falling and have absolutely no control over your descent, and
you wake from this dream panting, sweating, and feeling anxious, take a look at your life and see if
there are any areas in which something else is controlling your future.
An instructive example
It can happen in any area of life. Maybe youre gunning for a promotion, one thats an essential
building block to your entire future. Youve got it all plannedthe house, the car, the 2.5 kidsthen the

boss brings in someone from the outside and it looks like theyre being groomed for that position. It
throws everything off. The future is suddenly far less certain. You might feel anxious. You may worry
that you wont be able to follow your original plan. You may even have to consider changing companies

or even careers, necessitating throwing your entire plan away and creating a new one, but you dont
yet know where the chips will fall. Suddenly, youre having falling dreams. Of course, it neednt be
career plans that are throwing your life out of whack. Changes in family, taking on a new large

commitment, even feeling as if someone you depend on is letting you down can cause you to feel

anxious enough to experience a free falling dream. Dealing with these dreams means dealing with the
issues that may be causing them. Once youve determined the cause, you can deal with the feelings
that they bring.
The key may be remembering
If you remember your dream well enough to know why you were falling, it can help you determine what
area of your life is causing you the unconscious stress. Knowing that can help you deal with it and
overcome it. Reducing that stress will have many more benefits than helping you to stop the dreams.
Where you fall can be significant. If you fall from a building or onto a building, the building itself may
tell you what your stressor is. Is it your home, your office, or maybe a government building? Try to
remember what you fall onto or from to further examine where the stress comes from. If youre pushed
off a high surface you may be pushing yourself too hard. Consider the different projects you have
going. Is it too much? Should you let some go? If the person who pushed you is someone you know,
that person may be the cause of your stress. Once you know this consciously, you can concentrate on
the relationship and work out how to reduce the pressure.
There are many ways in which a person can fall and each of those ways can say something about your
situation. Try to remember the exact circumstances of your fall so you can find the triggers that set off
the anxiety in your life.
To help you with this, try an exercise before you fall asleep. Decide that if you dream of falling again
you are going be completely aware of the circumstances before and during the fall, and of the target
onto which youll land.
Once you decide to be aware of this in your conscious mind, your unconscious mind may respond by

helping you to be alert to all of the circumstances around your fall, and to remember them when you
wake.
When you become successful at examining your dreams, you can use those dreams to alter your life
change your life for the better.

GVU's 10th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dreamstop.com/falling-dreams/

Causes of dream. (How can we fall into dream)

The bottom drops out of your dreams, you start to sink and there's nothing to hold on to. You're
falling, falling, falling. Especially from a great height, the sensation can be terrifying. Or, it might be
quite an exciting thrill. Even a short fall can be such a surprise that you jerk awake. I suspect that loss
of equilibrium became a critical problem for us, as a species, when we started to walk upright. Some
say that fear of falling is a remnant of those times long past when remaining high in the trees was
necessary for our survival. We do seem to have a well-developed awareness of the end of the bed, so

that we don't tip over its edge every night. But that could be learned behavior since infants and toddlers
sleep surrounded by barriers so they won't roll onto the floor. At its best, fear of falling serves as a very
useful system, warning us about lack of balance in waking life. But if we take that fear into sleep, it can
be detrimental to our desire to fly.
A falling dream can, of course, be put through the interpretation mill to find symbolic significance.
But some falling dreams have no pictures attached! I think this is a case where it would be
advantageous to start, not with the imagery, but with the feeling. After doing reality checks on falling
dreams, I've concluded that I really can't appreciate the "meaning" of a particular falling dream unless I
first track down whatever stimulated the sensation. Falling dreams can be due to a replay of a vivid
feeling that occurred during the day. Because of the sharp sensations involved, the intensity might not
dissipate by the time we go to sleep. It might be a sensation occurring while we sleep. Or it can be
anticipatory or precognitive of a possible event to come.

Replay of An Actual Fall

Biking, climbing, equestrian and aerial sports have quite intense feelings attached to them. Your
falling sensation might occur if, during the day, you tumble off your mountain bike when it slips on
some loose gravel. The experience is embedded in your body just like those pebbles are embedded in
your knees. In some cases, the memory of an actual fall can be so vivid that, when the experience is
called up again, even the sensations come along for a ride. You fell down the stairs when you were
younger. Today, when you find yourself teetering at the top of the stairway, your warning system turns
on with a vengeance and doesn't turn off before bedtime. Sometimes it's easy to link your dream with
the fall, or its sensational memory, because the previous day's experience is so vivid. But don't forget
the familiar sinking sensations of controlled falls. Did you ride an escalator or elevator yesterday? The
fall or its recall doesn't have to impress your conscious mind much. It can be a peripheral event that is

repressed or a subliminal event that is not fully recognized. If your attention is directed elsewhere when
you quickly recover from a minor stumble, the tactile sensation of falling and your emotional reaction to
it might not be allowed full expression. Until you go to sleep.
Replay of Feeling Due To Loss of Control
If you have an empathetic personality, you experience whatever feelings would occur if you were
in someone else's place. Whether you watch the movies on TV, read a book, create imaginary
tragedies in your mind or listen to a lecture on a distressing topic, you can conjure up the feelings that
accompany the story. But most feelings of falling are your own. A teenager dreamt repeatedly that her
car had no brakes. She went over a cliff and started to fall. She associated the dream with her new
drug habit. This was an emotional reaction to a real experience, but one that had a sensation attached
to it. Where biochemistry is involved, loss of balance can be linked with feelings of vertigo. One woman
had falling dreams after her husband received a promotion. He was on the way up, but she didn't have
the same feeling of security about the situation. Quite literally, she "felt" the lack of the familiar sense of
bonding, not as a concept, but as a sensation of being set adrift.

Another boy dreamt of falling down

the school stairs the night after he presented a poor report card to his parents. His sinking feeling was
guilt over past failings plus concurrent loss of parental love and approval. The sinking feeling can also
be associated with loss of confidence, loss of status or fame, social mishaps, failure to complete goals,
financial and property loss and loss of either faith or inflated pomposity.

Concurrent Sensations
Illness, liquor, prescription drugs or changes in diet can induce interior falling sensations while
you slumber. You might react to a dip in blood pressure, a glitch in the brain, the movement of fluid in
the middle ear or a vague awareness of breathing. Relaxation followed by quick release of muscular
tension, a downpour of previously repressed emotions or an orgasm, especially just prior to sleep, can
provoke a falling dream. A subliminal sense of external physical movement or lack of gravity can result

in dream falls, too. My husband had a falling dream and awoke to find his feet dangling over the end of
the mattress. I had a falling dream during an earthquake. When he was a boy, a dreamer was sleeping
in a bunkbed when he had a falling dream that ended with him bouncing off the ground. He awoke to
find it coming true. He reacted so vigorously to the dream fall that he hit the bottom of his brother's
upper bunk.
Par For The Course
Feelings of falling may occur while you're abruptly shifting your state of consciousness. Don't be
surprised if you experience these sorts of sensations -- many people do. It's just a bump on the
journey. A quick switch from a lucid dream to the waking state can jolt you. So can a surprising image
that flies towards you while you're watching the hypnogogic theater. You can come back from an outof-body experience and land with a thump. The myoclonic jerk can occur as you sink into slumber.
After all, it's called "falling" asleep!

Worries and Warnings

To fear criticism or failure or loss of status can invoke a sinking sensation. Your job is in
jeopardy or your marriage is in trouble. Because you had a bad experience in the past, you have little
confidence in the future and the anxiety churns up similar falling sensations. The worry can also be due
to the fear of flying in an actual airplane or fear of falling down an actual ladder or cliff. Sometimes
you'll acknowledge such feelings; sometimes not. Either way, your body feels it. Dreamworker Ann
Faraday dreamt of falling off the balcony of her new apartment. After she woke, she examined the
guardrails and found them rickety and in need of repair. She'd seen the guardrails the previous day,
but had been too preoccupied to notice their condition. In this case, the visual fact and the possible
consequence registered on the back of her mind and was reintroduced in a dream.

References

http://www.dreamflyer.net/flying/dreams16a.html

5 REASONS WHY YOU DREAM

Wish Fulfillment
Have you ever noticed that your dreams always involve you? Don't worry; dreams are naturally
egocentric because they typically reflect one of your deep desires or concerns. In Sigmund Freud's
influential book, The Interpretation of Dreams, he suggests that dreams are the direct result of
repressed emotions and they might represent unconscious thoughts, wishes or desires. In dreams, your
subconscious can uncover the wishes that your conscious mind has learned to repress. Maybe that
dream about you driving a racecar made of cheese wasn't so foolish after all; it could just be your
subconscious desire to be the best NASCAR driver ever sponsored by Kraft.

Resolution
If you're puzzled over a particularly perplexing conundrum, the last thing you'll want to do is lose
sleep over it. In fact, you just might want to get more. We already know the positive effects of sleep
and dreams on memory, but dreams can also help us tackle everyday problems in life. When

approached with obstacles, we primarily pull on information we already know our memories to resolve
them. This makes dreaming especially helpful because it helps organize and consolidate memories,
making it easier to access when we're problem solving. Some scientists also propose that while we
sleep, our brains continue to process issues of concern in our waking lives and constantly attempt to
come up with answers and solutions. So if you're facing a particularly difficult quandary, go ahead and
sleep on it. It might actually help.

Information Processing and Memory

Research already supports the claim that sleep is fundamental to a well functioning mind and

memory. However, some suggest that the key to memory consolidation lies not within a few hours of
rest, but in the dreams we have instead. Most dreams incorporate recent events and occurrences
we've experienced. Perhaps you dreamt of that traffic accident you saw last week, or you might have

reflected on your weekly trip to the grocery store. These kinds of dreams might actually be your brain
processing and organizing the conscious and unconscious stimuli it receives throughout the day. After
your daily memories have been consolidated by your dreams, your brain gets a chance to refresh itself,
in a sense; dreams are the brain's way of "rebooting the system."

Coping Mechanism
When dealing with stressful situations, your dreams become markedly different, and sometimes
reflect your inner feelings. By displaying significant symbols and issues relating to your waking life, your
dreams are trying to establish relevance as an effort to cope with your inner turmoil. Psychiatry
professor Ernest Hartmann, M.D. suggests that dreams are directed by particular emotions, like stress
and worry. Varying emotions cause new material to be constantly "weaved" into the memory of the
dreamer in ways that help him or her cope with stress, trauma and other types of psychological anxiety.

Compensation
Although we might have fantastical dreams of flying, or getting pleasantly lost in a land called

Oz, these resplendent reveries really are not as abstract as one might think. Famed psychologist Carl
Jung believed that even our most fanciful dreams are methods of compensation for events that occur in
our waking lives. For example, a person who experiences unhappiness in their waking life may have

fantastically blissful dreams as compensation, so their spirits won't plummet into complete despair. On
the other hand, a person who is largely successful may also have dreams of failure or defeat to
compensate for feelings of invincibility and power. Jung also suggests that dreams may also reflect
underdeveloped parts of our personalities. This may explain the reason why the dream behavior of
some people is markedly different from the actions and conditions in their waking lives.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/sleep/dreams/5-reasons-why-you-dream.htm

.....CAUSEOFDREAM......
WHATISADREAM??
One theory for why we these dreams, is that
were having a subconscious reaction to a

physiological event. We are falling asleep, and

that means our bodies are going through a
process that we act out in our dreams.

HOWWEFALLINIT???