Dreaming about jumping
A deliberate leap, which distinguishes it from falling entirely. What dreamers report is a jump that goes further and slower than it should, and that over-performance is the opposite of every other motor report here.
Also searched as: jumping in a dream, a leap, jumping across, leaping off something
Excess is the report. Dreamers describe jumping further, higher and more slowly than is possible, and describe it as pleasant.
That is worth flagging because it runs against the pattern: almost every motor action in this database under-performs, and this one over-performs.
The slow descent is the most consistently reported detail and puts these reports next to the flying material, which many dreamers reach by jumping.
Jumping and then not landing is common and is one of the more reliable routes into a flying dream.
Common associations
- Over-performance, against the pattern.
- A slow descent.
- A deliberate act, unlike falling.
- A route into flying.
Positive readings
These are pleasant and belong with the flying reports, which are the most positively described experiences there are.
The jump that does not land is worth trying deliberately if you become lucid: many dreamers report it as the easiest way to start flying.
Difficult readings
Little. Jumping down from a height that becomes a fall belongs with the falling material.
Psychological perspectives
Why this one over-performs is not established, and the entry says so rather than inventing a reason.
One possibility is that a jump has no sustained motor requirement: it is a single command, and the dream supplies the arc. A run requires continuous execution and gets none, and a jump requires one push and then physics the dream is free to invent.
That fits the reports and it is a suggestion. It also explains why jumping leads to flying so readily: remove the landing and there is nothing left to fail.
Cultural and historical
Leaping appears in a great many traditions in connection with joy and with crossing, and it is not a heavily loaded image.
The modern association with taking a risk is idiom.
What the sleep science says
Well established: motor commands are not executed during REM, against which this over-performance is notable and unexplained.
Well documented: flying dreams and their positive emotional profile.
Not established: any meaning for jumping.
Your own context
- Did you go further than you could?
- How was the descent?
- Did you land?
- Did it become flying?
If this recurs
Log with the flying reports. Dreamers who get one usually get the other and the transition between them is the interesting record.
Emotions often reported
- exhilaration
- joy
- wonder
- excitement
- calm
- surprise
Specific jumping dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Did I go further than I could?
- How slow was the coming down?
- Did I land?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication During REM SleepPeer-reviewed research
Stephen LaBerge, Lynne Nagel, William Dement and Vincent Zarcone (1980) · Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cited for: The eye-signalling experiments that established lucid dreaming as a verifiable state rather than a self-report.
- 2.The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of the Dream ProcessPeer-reviewed research
J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley (1977) · American Journal of Psychiatry
Cited for: The activation-synthesis model: that dream narrative is partly the forebrain making sense of brainstem-generated activity.
- 3.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 4.Induction of Lucid Dreams: A Systematic Review of EvidencePeer-reviewed research
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich and Michael Schredl (2012) · Consciousness and Cognition
Cited for: That no induction technique has strong evidence of reliable effectiveness, and that the better-supported ones are cognitive rather than external.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of jumping have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- PlaceRoofRoof dreams are height dreams with a building underneath. What dominates the reports is the edge and the pitch: being higher than intended, on a surface that is sloping, with nothing to hold.
- ActionFallingFalling is one of the most reported dreams in every population studied. The jolt that often accompanies it, a hypnic jerk, is a well-understood physiological event, and it is frequently the cause of the dream rather than its result.
- ActionFlyingFlying is the most positively reported dream experience there is, and the most strongly associated with lucidity. Many people who realise they are dreaming try to fly, and many who fly realise they are dreaming.
- ActionKnowing you are dreamingLucid dreaming is one of the few things in this entire database that has been demonstrated in a laboratory rather than inferred from reports. Sleepers have signalled from inside a dream with prearranged eye movements, on cue, while verifiably asleep.
- ActionA gameGames in dreams have rules the dreamer does not know and cannot ask about, and everybody else appears to know them. That structure is the clearest statement of something the first-day, examination and competition entries each describe in part.
- ActionA secretDreamers report holding a secret of enormous importance and being unable to say what it is. The weight is generated and the content is not, which makes this one of the purest examples of the pattern this database keeps finding.
