Could you float down the stairs as a child?

[EbbyEbs]

Light hearted

Do you have a memory of floating down the stairs as a child? Someone mentioned it to me earlier and I have the same memory! anyone know what I’m on about?

Yep, I had this frequently. Here's one explanation for it:

According to dream psychologist and expert Ian Wallace, who has been researching dreams for over three decades, the earliest published report of the floating dream dates back to 150 A.D. and in Oneirocritica, the writings of Artemidorus, an ancient Greek astrologist. He says the primary reason reports of the floating dream, of which he claims to have “tens of thousands” in his archive, have become so popular among millennials is because of their access to publishing tools such as the internet. He says he has spoken to people born in the 1920s who also share the dream.

Wallace says the dream is the brain’s way of processing a new skill. “I’ve spoken to people who have had this dream that live in bungalows and yet they still remember floating down a staircase – that isn’t a coincidence,” he says. “Nearly everybody I speak to experiences the floating dream when learning a new important skill in their life and that’s because the stairs represent the step-by-step process of your brain turning a procedure into an unconscious process. Once you learn to ride a bike, it becomes an unconscious skill and the floating dream signifies the process of getting to that stage.”

Maybe a memory of being carried down them combining with a dream.

I’ve heard this is a very common memory because people are remembering the feeling of being carried up or down the stairs as a very small child, but just leaving out the person carrying them in the memory! Not sure if that’s true or not….

It's definitely a dream thing isn't it? I think dream memories and real memories get mixed up when you are a child. DS2 (4) often tells us about dreams as though they were real memories and gets cross when we don't remember because we were there. When I told him DS3 was starting to have dreams he told me "When DS3 goes to sleep, he will be gone." He was really worried that he would have physically vanished into a dream world!

Apparently another theory is that you remember being carried down the stairs, before you could walk but you mix that up with memories of walking. People who can remember floating down the stairs, did you live in the same house as a baby/toddler and also young child (primary age)?

My mum always talks about this! She says she knows it must be a dream but it feels like a memory. She says she can remember turning the corner at the top of the stairs and then floating down gently to the bottom.

OMG yes I have very vivid memories of doing it, only used to happen at my Aunties house though no where else. Ive never mentioned it to anyone because, well, what do you say!

Wow. Yes I do have this 'memory' but didn't realise until I read this thread! How weird...?!

As an adult I very often dream of being able to fly/float around the house.

I think it's your brain putting the memories of being carried to bed by a parent in to a different memory as a child. That's not the best way to word it but I've had a bad day and it's the best I can do 😂

I definitely remember falling down the stairs because I tried to float down as I clearly knew I had done before. I still remember the look on my mum's face when I said I thought that I would float 😂

Yes!!!

I did the exact same and now seem to have a memory of doing this in my grandparents! So strange!

I wish I had this memory but I really don't.

We used to slide down the stairs in our pillow cases though

I can't remember floating downstairs but I did believe I could levitate for years because I sometimes did it just before falling asleep.(Later found out this isn't levitating- it's myoclonic jerks....

OMG yes thank you for posting this - I have this memory too, from when I ran very quickly down the stairs - I often wonder what it is all about. It was only at a particular friend's house that this happened (I went there quite a lot).

I still have these dreams

Yes. Absolutely definitely yes, I still have a clear memory and I am in my late 50s. It happened in a house I lived in from age 3 to age 6, probably at the younger end of that timespan.

Not as a childhood memory but I had this as a childhood recurring dream.

I used to regularly dream this and sometimes still do!

I remember jumping down the whole flight of stairs at my grandparents. It’s very vivid. I often wonder if I actually did. But now reading this I’m realising that it was probably just a dream. It feels so real though.

Nope, because I'm not magic

Also I want to know more about the haunted stairs @Skinnermarink !!

) < closed brackets from previous post that got missed off!!

Also our cat said hello to me in the garden of that house. Not joking.

Yes going down so fast that you kind of just skated over the last half

Yea I had this dream and thought it was real and would then try it but it never worked lol

I wish I knew what you were talking about but no, no floating here.

Yes, up until I was about 9. I could float downstairs, hover on the ceiling and listen to adult conversations/watch the telly.