Who flew?


sorabji.com: The Stalking Post: Who flew?
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By Nelly on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:33 am:

    So I just got back from New York, and I went to the Rubin museum where they had an exhibit of Tibetan art, about flying. Tibetan monks could do it, apparently. So that reminded me that I flew when I was a child.

    Example: when I was about 8 or 9, I can remember at dusk going out to the back yard, spinning around a bit and then running and at a certain point, stamping the ground and going up... I could float slowly down the street and my main worry was not being able to stay up high enough to avoid being entangled in the telephone wires. I didn't know how I did it, it seemed to be a matter of will but steering and altitude were sometimes mysterious. Somehow I managed to escape detection.

    So this is a poll. How many other sorabjiites had or have actual flying experiences? Ones that you were sure were not hallucinations. Extra points if substances weren't involved.

    By the way, at La Guardia they detected and confiscated the little travel toothpaste I had hidden in one of my shoes. You can't cheat.

    Didn't get to see Sorabji this time, he had flown the coop (or said he did)


By ... on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 08:21 pm:

    I got back to New York at about 6pm on Saturday. I expected to be gone longer, but was having an entirely unproductive time upstate, and I had to move this web site to another web server. I thought I'd be able to do that from there but there was no way. Sorry to miss you, but welcome to the always-growing club of people who don't believe anything I say.

    I've had dreams about flying for as long as I can remember, and it usually takes a few hours after waking up to realize I can't really fly. In those few hours I coast a half inch over sidewalks and moved from place to place with effortless ease before nearly falling over.

    I was talking to a friend about how the topic of shitting makes most people ill at ease. Friend said that Gandhi felt people should shit openly, since it's no less a bodily function than eating. I would turn it around the other way, though, since I've always felt that eating is a repulsive thing to watch and should be done in seclusion. This comment prompted my friend to recount the most ghastly experience of his life: watching someone eat a plate of spaghetti and being tripped out on acid while watching. He'd rather watch mothers eat their young than be reminded of that experience. He's never done acid since, but that experience forever scarred his capacity to watch others eat.

    Which I mention because I've never done acid or anything like it but I wonder if it makes flying any less hazardous.

    I usually fly one way at a time, which announces yourself as a terrorist and earns me the full cavity search from the pothead screeners at LaGuardia. Last time I went through LGA the screeners were roughhousing a bit and it almost developed into a full tilt fistfight.

    I almost got into a fistfight a few weeks ago. The bruise is gone.



By dave. on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 10:45 pm:

    i've had many dreams of flying. really, it's more like long jumping, like the incredible hulk or something. it's never the same dream but it always goes the same way. in the dream, for some reason, i end up having to jump a long distance. i get to the point in the leap where i realize that i'm going to fall short and i somehow engage something in my ass area that propels me just enough to land safely. it just seems so easy and obvious that i try it again, with even better result. now i'm jumping like 30 40 100 500 feet and i realize that there's no reason to limit it. i don't have to come down until i want to.

    i don't fly like superman, either. i'm mostly upright but my feet are out in front. and i can accelerate if i need more boost to clear obstacles like buildings, trees, or high tension wires. i can also turn it off if i need to make a quick descent and then, at the last moment, kick in the afterburner for a soft landing, like a lunar module or something.

    apparently, i can't steer. i have to land to change direction.

    anyway, fuck tsa and airline security. who needs that shit?


By ... on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:12 pm:

    i'm always flying upright, too. it feels more like swimming, with my feet as propellers using scuba type flippers. i have never used a Segway but i saw someone zipping around on one a few weeks ago, and i remember thinking that that looked like my flying dreams. thinking i should rent one for a week.


By dave. on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:47 pm:


By ... on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:54 pm:

    how do i post pictures here?


By dave. on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 12:15 am:

    send money order to:

    Mark A. Thomas
    PO Box 181
    New York, NY 10185
    USA

    15$ per picture.

    all sales final.


By Dr Pepper on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 02:03 am:

    Notice that... a 747 flying in the sky looks like a flying cock about to erect up in the sky.


By TBone on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 12:52 pm:

    I could fly when I was young. Well, float. I have clear memories of doing this, but I'm not sure how we can ever be sure that anything isn't a hallucination. I required intense concentration and few distractions. Consequently, I only did this when nobody else was around. I usually started by floating with my feet an inch or so from the ground. Then, when I felt stable, I'd go up higher. Control was very difficult, and movement very slow. It wouldn't have been useful for transportation.

    At the time, it didn't seem at all strange, and it didn't occur to me to mention it to people.


By agatha on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 01:47 pm:

    I never flew in reality, and I can't recall flying in my dreams, but I tried to fly on a multitude of occasions. The times I remember most vividly were because someone ended up getting hurt.

    1. My best friend Peggy O'Connell and I were trying to teach her twin baby sisters Kathy and Chrissy how to fly. We were instructing them to launch off of the fireplace mantel in as horizontal a position as they were able, with complete faith that they could fly. We were also sort of "spotting" them. One or the other got remarkably horizontal, then knocked her wind out when she landed on the ground. Mrs. O'Connell came downstairs and harshed on me big time, and then I went home.

    2. My sister and I tried on numerous occasions to fly off of a big rock in our front yard using umbrellas. Again, I espoused the "complete faith" approach of flying. I was convinced that mental outlook was the key to successful flying. Although both of us hurt ourselves more than once, we kept trying for many years.

    Another story about the rock: my mom would make us picnics to eat on top of it. I don't remember the food, but I do remember that she would always make us a pitcher of juice with chunks of fruit and ice floating in it. It was the best.


By Czarina on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 10:16 am:

    I can fly too. But not very sucessfully. And only as a child. My friend Linda and I were going to jump off the roof, each of us holding two ends of a sheet, and bounce off the trampoline and into the pool.

    My mean bitch older sister came out and saw us and ran to tell my mom, so Linda and I had to jump prematurely, before she got there.

    I think thats where we went wrong. Our jump wasn't to coordinated. We didn't have equal tension on the sheet, which rendered its parachute ability virtually useless.

    We crashed into each other on the trampoline, which knocked Linda mostly off the trampoline, and almost poked her eye out.

    Another problem was that our math skills weren't refined, and we did a very poor job of calculating our trajectory to the pool. We were way to far away from it.

    My mom comes out and see's Linda all bloody and crying, and blames ME for everything. Like it was all my fault. I could see my mean sister snickering, while I was getting yelled at, and Linda was getting babied.

    Note to self: Sheets do not make a good flying apparatus.


By Nelly on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 11:30 am:

    Tbone, yes, I did the inch off the ground thing too. Sometimes I could just leave off walking and kind of flow a few inches off the ground for a few steps.

    Why can't I do it now, I wonder? Seems like if I could just remember how....

    Agatha and Czarina, sorry you never got it. The umbrella thing, I tried too. The mechanics were wrong. We were all under the influence of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, no? Probably lots of childhood injuries caused by those movies.


By kazu on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 12:27 am:

    I would but for the nose bleeds.


    I'm serious.


By J on Sunday, October 15, 2006 - 04:44 pm:

    I use to dream about flying when I was in elementary school,I would be running on the playground and next thing you know I'm flying and everyone down there are freaking out that I could fly.It was a recurring dream probably caused by self esteem issues I had over being humiliated by a sadistic P.E. coach who knew I had asthma.


By Nelly on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 02:52 am:

    I dreamed about it a lot too. Don't know why I don't anymore. Too heavy, maybe.

    Coincidentally, I'm taking a dance class that uses poles.... well, we don't fly, we're lucky if we can get our little feets off the ground for a few seconds... but the instructor can, briefly, hanging on to the pole.


By agatha on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - 01:22 am:

    Nelly, you sassy librarian!


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