IN MY DREAM...

...I was present at a party given in the rooms of the Royal Society in Burlington House. Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Ramsay, my brother-in-law Sir Arthur Rucker, and many others whom I knew, were there. They were standing together in a little group, and my brother-in-law asked me to explain to them my method of flying. I could not explain how it was done, only that it seemed to me much easier to fly than to walk. At his suggestion I made some experimental flights--circling round the ceiling, rising and falling, and showing them also the gliding or floating movement near the ground.

They all discussed it critically as though they were rather 'on the defensive' about the proceeding, looking upon it, I think, as a new and doubtful experiment, rather savouring of a conjuring trick. Then Lord Kelvin ... said that he felt the power of human flight to be less surprising, less baffling than the others seemed to think it. "The law of gravitation had probably been in this case temporarily suspended." -- "Clearly this law does not for the moment affect you when you fly," he said to me.

The others who were present agreed to this, and said that this was probably the solution of the puzzle. An assistant was standing behind the group of men, and in order to show them that flying is not really difficult, I took his hand, and begging him to have confidence in me and to trust to my guidance, I succeeded in making him fly a few inches from the ground.

SINCE THEN...

...when I fly, if people notice the flight at all, which is very seldom, Lord Kelvin's explanation always seems to satisfy them.

I have sometimes fancied in the middle of a flight that I am losing my power to fly; I have begun then to drift downwards in the air, and have failed to rise again easily. At such moments the "word of power" comes into my mind, and I repeat to myself "You know that the law of gravitation has no power over you here. If the law is suspended, you can fly at will. Have confidence in yourself, and you need not fear." Confidence is the one essential for successful flight, and confidence being thus restored, I find that I can fly again with ease.

SOURCE: Mary Arnold-Forster's Studies in Dreams (1921)

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