Do you remember floating down the stairs as a child?

[PornographicPriestess]

Last night my eldest DC (17) asked if I had any memories of floating down the stairs as a child. I do. Very vivid memories that I've never mentioned to anyone else. I don't know how old I was at the time, but we left that particular property (the memory is still clear in my mind's eye) when I was seven, so presumably it was prior to that.

DC also has their own memories of them floating down the stairs when they were young.

A quick Google suggests it's a common phenomenon, but it isn't something I'd come across before.

Obviously I can't possibly have floated down the stairs and it was probably a dream, but why on Earth do people remember that particular dream? It makes me doubt the reliability of my memory.

I casually dropped it into conversation with my ds (10) today and asked if it had ever happened to him. He said no.
To be fair, none of our staircases are straight. They are L shaped. I wonder if that makes a difference?
I will ask eldest ds when I see him.

I don't recall 'floating' but I remember aged 3 or 4 jumping from the top of the stairs several times because I thought I could fly. I survived it my Mum still talks about finding me tucked under the sideboard at the bottom where I'd landed

No but I had many vivid dreams of being able to breathe underwater.

I feel extremely left out. I want floating stair dreams.

As an adult do you all just close your eyes, blank your minds of thoughts and just fall asleep? I ask this as I have my own little theory; Most nights since being an adult I’ve often had thousands of thoughts going round in my head when I hit the pillow. Thoughts of things going on in my life at the time, making plans or reminding myself of what I need to do the following day, thinking of the past, thinking of the future, even making up stories in my head. There’s a lot of clatter there until I eventually drift off.

However, on some occasions I don’t think of anything, I sort of trance out and it’s during these nights I have experiences like that. I believe it’s during that in-between state where you’re not fully awake but not yet asleep where hallucinations or vivid dreams happen and the fact you’re still sort of awake makes it seem real. I believe young children are in the state every night, I can’t imagine they have minds full of chatter when their heads hit the pillow and that’s why they have such vivid flying ‘dreams’.

the theory of astral projection apparently also happens in this state, with many saying they leave their bodies and fly. I commented on the previous thread of an experience I had of floating down the stairs and seeing my mum in the kitchen reading a magazine when she was supposed to be at work. When I woke up and went down the stairs, she was indeed in the kitchen reading a magazine…

either I astral projected, or I heard her come home when I was in that ‘in-between’ state and dreaming. And that I dreamed she was reading the magazine because I’d already seen it on the table when I went for the nap.

The mind and dreaming is really quite fascinating as no one really knows what’s going on or how it all works. It’s all just theories but I believe there’s so so much that isn’t known about.

Oh not this again.
Never before have I thought that Mumsnet collectively was on glue...

I used to have this a lot as a child, it had always felt more like a memory rather than a dream. My legs were always bent up at the knees and I floated up and down the stairs. It happened once again when I was pretty drunk in a pub while at university. I had to ask a friend if I'd fallen down the stairs as I had such a strong memory of floating down just like I did as a child. I obviously knew it didn't happen but it felt so real!

No, I've never heard of this before!

I did used to walk around holding a mirror under my nose so I could pretend I was walking on the ceiling though...

That is funny.

Yes!! "Big small" feeling - my husband is only other person I've known who felt it too. It's almost a physical sensation of massive weight/largeness constantly swapping to a feeling of smallness. I feel it through my head and teeth. My husband visualises it as blocks. It's a sense of mass and scale, hard to describe. More common at night, only get it once or twice a year, lasts a few seconds to a minute or so.

I used to have this dream very often as a child.

Also, I used to fall down the stairs often and was bruised like a peach 🙄

I get something like this in dreams sometimes. I read about ‘Alice in wonderland syndrome’ on MN once and it’s similar.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome

That's really interesting, seems likely that our experience is similar, it's something neurological, although the micro/macro sensations happen together or in quick alternation for us, which is unusual according to the description of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. I get occasional migraines, although husband doesn't. We definitely got it more as a children.

There was a big discussion on this only a few weeks ago.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4630114-could-you-float-down-the-stairs-as-a-child

Oh! I get your husband's 'blocks version' if I have a fever. So hard to describe but utterly distinctive.

What?

I didn’t realise this was a phenomenon. I remember at the age of 3 or 4 desperately wanting to be able to fly down the stairs. I probably jumped a few in order to make myself believe I floated down the stairs.

I'm not sure what the 'What' is aimed at.

'on glue' is common Mumsnet parlance for being mad, doing strange things - as if you have sniffed glue.

And given that we for a second time have a large number of presumably grown women believing they could float as a child (not that anyone ever witnessed it), and with very few people questioning this, I have to wonder whether this is a joke, or a large number of Mumsnetters have been sniffing glue.

I'm aware of what the phrase means. I don't see anyone saying that they actually think they have floated down the stairs, just that they have all had a similar dream and are pondering the reason for it sticking in their memory.

I have already said that I hadn't seen the first thread.

I have this exact memory too. Arms out like Peter Pan flying down the stairs (never up.) sooooo weird!

I absolutely do! I can even remember the feeling in my tummy!

I hope I don't start this again now! I live in a bungalow 😂
I do wonder though if my sons will have this memory when they're older considering we have no stairs. Although they do now have stairs at their dads

Same!!

Sadly no floating down the stairs. Didn't live on a house with stairs until I was school age.

I do remember using pieces of boxes to slide down a grand staircase at a friend's house.

I dream about this regularly - had got to the point where I almost believed I could do it. Am disappointed it’s definitely a dream 😥