Fall Fallen Falling Fell

Some dream researchers suggest falling is one of the main themes in dreams. In the sample used for this book, the words fall; falls; fell; falling, occur 72 times in a 1000 dreams. The words find; finds; finding; found, occur 297 times. Whereas the words connected with looking and seeing occur 1077 times.

Falling indicates a loss of confidence. a threat to usual sources of security such as relationship, source of money. Also falling can link with your social image such as loss of face or sustaining beliefs. It often involves tension, loss of social grace or moral failure – such as falling into temptation.

Sometimes it is about coming down to earth from a too lofty attitude or even sexual surrender. Apart from insecurity, falling might at times point to the dropping away from or pulling back from outer worldly activity. We can in fact ‘fall’ in love, with all its pleasures and pain, its ups and down. And as the idioms show at the end of this entry you can fall in many other ways.

During our development or growth we ‘fall’ from our mother’s womb when ripe; being dropped by a parent must be our earliest sense of insecurity and we fall many times as we learn to stand and walk. As we explore our boundaries in running, climbing, jumping and riding, falling is a big danger. At times it could mean death. Learning to walk down stairs is a great achievement for a baby, and has very real danger and fear of falling. See: stairs.

Out of this we create the ways falling is used in dreams. By learning to meet our insecurities, perhaps by using Secrets of Power Dreaming we can dare more in life. This is in essence the same as meeting the fear of falling off our bike as we learn to ride. If we never master the fear we cannot ride.

Example: ‘I am sitting in a high window box facing outwards, with my son and a friend of his on my left. I feel very scared of falling and ask my son and his friend to climb back into the building. I feel too scared to move until they shift.’ Trevor N.

At the time of the dream, for the first time in his life, Trevor was working as a full time freelance journalist. His wife was out of work and his frequency of sales low enough to cause them to be running out of money. The building behind felt like a place he had worked in on a nine to five basis, so associated it with security. Falling was fear of failure, getting in debt, dropping into the feelings of self doubt and being incapable and feeling inadequate. In fact it was just a fear, and he went on to develop secure work.

Example: ‘I was on a road which led up to the hospital I was put in at three. I felt a sense of an awful past as I looked at the road. Then I was standing on the edge of a precipice or cliff. My wife was about four yards away near the road. I stepped in an area of soft earth. It gave beneath my weight and I sank up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable and the whole area would fall. I was sinking and shouting to my wife to help me. She was gaily walking about and made light of my call for help. I cried out again. Still she ignored me. I shouted again for her help. She took no notice and I sank deeper, the ground gave way and I fell to my death.’ Barry I.

Through being put in a hospital at three without his mother, Barry had a deep seated fear that any woman he loved could desert him. The cliff edge depicts the edge upon which a lot of his life is lived – a point of insecurity about relationship. His fall is the loss of any sense of bonding between him and his wife out of this fear. His death is the dying of his feeling of love and relationship, and the pain it causes. Understanding these fears Barry was able to leave them behind in later dreams and in life.

Example: I am falling down a cliff. In the dream, I know if I hit the bottom I will die. (I’ve been told by dream ‘experts’ that this is so.) I hit the bottom – my body is splattered on the ground, but ‘I’ am floating through the air thinking ‘How strange! I’m supposed to be dead! But I’m alive and free.’ Ingmar Bergman.

Example: ‘Near where I stood in the school gymnasium was a diving board, about 20ft. off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling backwards standing up.’ Barry I.

The school is a learning situation. Once we learn to fall ‘flat on our back’ – i.e. fail – without being devastated or ‘hurt’ by it, we can be more creative. Dreams like this take falling into realms beyond fear. The following examples illustrate this.

Example: ‘As I prayed I realised I could fly. I lifted off the ground about three feet and found I could completely relax while going higher or falling back down. So it was like free fall. I went into a wonderful surrendered relaxation. My whole body sagging, floating in space. It was a very deep meditative experience.’ Sarah D.

Sarah has found an attitude which enables her to soar/dare or fall/fail without being so afraid of being hurt or dying emotionally. This gives a form of freedom many people never experience. This does not arise from denying or suppressing fears.

Example: ‘I was standing outside my mother’s house to the right. The ground in front had fallen away. The house was about to cave in. I felt no fear or horror. Instead I was thinking about new beginnings and the possibility of a new house.’ Helen B.

Helen is here becoming more independent and leaving behind attitudes and dependency.

Example: I saw that I was lying on a bed. … Observing my bed, I saw I was lying on plaited string supports attached to its sides: my feet were resting on one such support, my calves on another, and my legs felt uncomfortable. I seemed to know that those supports were movable, and with a movement of my foot I pushed away the furthest of them at my feet – it seemed to me that it would be more comfortable so. But I pushed it away too far and wished to reach it again with my foot, and that movement caused the next support under my calves to slip away also, so that my legs hung in the air. I made a movement with my whole body to adjust myself, fully convinced that I could do so at once; but the movement caused the other supports under me to slip and to become entangled, and I saw that matters were going quite wrong: the whole of the lower part of my body slipped and hung down, though my feet did not reach the ground. I was holding on only by the upper part of my back, and not only did it become uncomfortable but I was even frightened. And then only did I ask myself about something that had not before occurred to me. I asked myself: Where am I and what am I lying on? and I began to look around, and first of all to look down in the direction in which my body was hanging and whither I felt I must soon fall. I looked down and did not believe my eyes. I was not only at a height comparable to the height of the highest towers or mountains, but at a height such as I could never have imagined.

… I thought of what would happen to me directly I fell from my last support. And I felt that from fear I was losing my last supports, and that my back was slowly slipping lower and lower. Another moment and I should drop off. And then it occurred to me that this cannot be real. It is a dream. Wake up! I try to arouse myself but cannot do so. What am I to do? What am I to do? I ask myself, and look upwards. Above, there is also an infinite space. I look into the immensity of sky and try to forget about the immensity below, and I really do forget it. The immensity below repels and frightens me; the immensity above attracts and strengthens me. I am still supported above the abyss by the last supports that I have not yet slipped from under me; I know that I am hanging, but I look only upwards and my fear passes. As happens in dreams, a voice says: ‘Notice this, this is it!’ And I look more and more into the infinite above me and feel that I am becoming calm. . . .I see that I no longer hang as if about to fall, but am firmly held. I ask myself how I am held: I feel about, look round, and see that under me, under the middle of my body, there is one support, and that when I look upwards I lie on it in the position of securest balance, and that it alone gave me support before. And then, as happens in dreams, I imagined the mechanism by means of which I was held; a very natural, intelligible, and sure means, though to one awake that mechanism has no sense. I was even surprised in my dream that I had not understood it sooner. It appeared that at my head there was a pillar, and the security of that slender pillar was undoubted though there was nothing to support it. From the pillar a loop hung very ingeniously and yet simply, and if one lay with the middle of one’s body in that loop and looked up, there could be no question of falling. This was all clear to me, and I was glad and tranquil. And it seemed as if someone said to me: ‘See that you remember.’ And I awoke. Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 1879

Tolstoy’s dream is a wonderful example of the subtle balance between fear and confidence that goes on in each of us constantly. Not only does it illustrate the loss of confidence, but also how it is regained – by fixing on a different mental image. The strange and fascinating thing is that the immensity above and the immensity below are equally awe-full. Perhaps the difference between fear and confidence is that although we may be faced by the same situation, when there is a movement from the feeling of falling, or being out of control, to the feeling of rising or flying and therefore being more in control, our relationship with the world totally alters.

Example: I am walking along a road with my family. There is a large pit ahead and my mother falls into it. I wake feeling very disturbed. A few weeks later my mother died. Sarah B.

Here the pit obviously deals with Sarah’s sense of her mother’s impending death. This enabled her to face the event with greater balance when it happened.

Example: If I but let go, and let the moan of pleasure cry out, and fall, and fall, and fall, into that immensity and fall until there is no more falling – for we fall only in space in moving from one place to another; but here there is no beginning or end, no landmarks to pass or space to cover – then I will have gone wonderfully, ecstatically mad. I would be so mad I could love you; so mad I could give everything; so damn blissfully crazy I need never again hold on to anything, to anyone, to any moment, any past, any future – any – any – anything!

Occasionally: If we use fantasy and thought to get away from the ‘real’ world’ or if we use entertainment, alcohol, socialising, to escape from inner pain and conflict, when these distractions are taken away and reality breaks through again there is a sense of falling and threat. So falling may depict this fear of being faced with our own inner feelings.

 

A person falling: Wish to be rid of them; or anxiety in regard to what they represent.

A child or son falling: See: baby; son.

Falling into an abyss or pit: Fear of failure; fear of meeting ones own depths of feeling and the hidden side of oneself; anxiety about some form of death. It can often be a way of facing fears involved in falling, and can be met by imagining yourself falling into the pit or abyss. See FallingSecrets of Power Dreaming

Fear of falling: This may refer to anxiety about falling into old patterns of behaviour or past depression and difficult feelings. But of course it can still link with the other definitions of falling such as failure or lack of confidence.

House falling down: Personal stress; illness; personal change and growth due to letting old habits and attitudes crumble. Sometimes it is about leaving an old way of life behind and starting a new one.

Going fast to an edge and falling: Could mean overwork and danger of breakdown of health.

Seeing things falling or falling on you: Sense of danger or change in regard to what is represented.

If you imagine things falling at you, your instinct is to feel careful or suspicious that you might get hit. This suggests you feel anxious about ideas or events that you feel will badly influence you – maybe public attitudes or opinions.

See: house; abyss; chasm. See also: flying.

Idioms: break your fall; fall apart (at the seams); fall asleep; fall behind; fall between the cracks; fall between two stools; fall flat on my face; fall for; fall for that; fall head over heels; fall ill; fall in line; fall in love; fall into a trap; fall into my lap; fall off the wagon; fall on deaf ears; fall on your sword; fall short; fall through; fall through the cracks; fall to pieces; let the chips fall where they may; pride goeth before a fall; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; the bigger they are the harder they fall; the wheels fall off; wheels fall off; fall-out.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I actually fall in my dream, and if so what did I feel?

Was I near a hole or an abyss, or at a great height, and what was the outsome?

Did someone else fall?

Where you hurt in a fall?

See Avoid Being Victims –  Characters and People in DreamsExploring Dreams Techniques to use Facing Fear


Comments

-Sari Thach 2016-10-09 15:35:53

I just woke up from a strange dream. I usually remember significant dreams. I hardly dream of my son who is now 3, but he appeared at the finale of my dream. I dreamt that I had just gotten back to my room and my mother was on the bed listening to her phone, and my son and I were playing around and he jumps on the bed and uses the blanket to cover his face and was laughing hysterically which he does also in reality because he’s quite a happy boy. Suddenly my disappears after the last jump with the blanket flattening and the window behind him that was hardly cracked open made me fear and I was thinking in my dream, I don’t even know how high up we are and maybe he’s ok, so I walked to the window in a panic and opened it, stuck my head out and saw that he landed face up and lifeless while I was watching him from about three stories up. I turned to my mom and sobbed like never before and told her he had fallen out the window as I rushed out the door crying louder than a rushing ambulance .. and I woke up with no desire to go back to sleep.. it was so scary and that vivid memory of my son flat on the ground lifeless Won’t leave me.

-Anonymous 2016-10-09 8:54:36

As I opened the door on my way out of a room I bumped into my “crush” (he’s been since years back but we don’t know each other.) As I bump into him I fall backwards and he just stands there looking at me while I start to scream hysterically, he then enters another room right next to him, (the other side of the hallway). Can you please help me understand the meaning of this dream? XX

-Juana 2016-05-25 12:34:26

What’s this dream mean… me and mom were climbing down this high ass ledge like a cliff thing after shopping with baby gelix and leah they were in strollers mom climb down first and I tried to hand her baby felix next she grabbed the bags instead i was trying to hold on to leahs stroller and felixs and baby felix fell out his stroller and straight down on his head and when he was falling I screamed to mom saying catch him and she didnt drop the groceries so she didn’t catch him…. after I got leah down I grabbed bby felix and screamed for everyone around us to call 911they were all just sitting there at tables just watching us trying to climb down this cliff thing then I woke up both children are my niece and nephew

-Theresa Honsinger 2016-04-12 12:45:08

I had a dream. It was a sunny day. And my step son had a flying bicycle. He wld ride it higher and higher into the sky. At one point I said to my husband in my dream that I think Pierce is going to high. Then my step son started to chase a ln airplane in the sky on his bike. As he got higher and higher i said he is gunna fall…my husband replied he was ok. Next thing i know he was falling…very fast. And landed onto a building but we cldnt find him. I frantically searched for him in my dream. Then my husband and my Uncle George (who I rarely see) appeared. Said Pierce was fine and was at the hospital. My husband said he fell 2,800 feet. In my dream i was stunned he survived. I still felt uneasy in my dream. My Uncle then told me to calm the fuck down and stop worring that the kid was fine. I then woke up.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-04-18 8:17:39

    Dear Theresa – Your dream starts with believing in yourself and in the things you can achieve. Your step son is a symbol for your ambitions and potential and your future self that you can develop; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/potential/
    You explore your boundaries and horizons and it is at this point that fear, insecurity and an inner conflict becomes visible; “I said he is going to fall…my husband replied he was ok.”
    Your inner husband and your inner uncle George are okay with leaving their comfort zones and exploring where their boundaries are; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/
    Falling (down) can be a part of learning and exploring your boundaries.
    Another dream in this entry shows that falling can be perceived different;
    “Example: ‘Near where I stood in the school gymnasium was a diving board, about 20ft. off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling backwards standing up.’ Barry I.
    The school is a learning situation. Once we learn to fall ‘flat on our back’ – i.e. fail – without being devastated or ‘hurt’ by it, we can be more creative. Dreams like this take falling into realms beyond fear.”
    To get more insight and a felt experience of the different aspects of your inner world it may help to use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson for all the dream figures in your dream.
    You could also decide to explore and process those events (in your childhood?) that have caused your fear for falling.
    What this means is that for a given length of time, about 30 to 60 minutes once a week, you allow your body, feelings, voice, sexuality and mind be moved spontaneously, as happens in dreams. The arm circling exercise helps to learn this. But for a full description of how this process is always active in you but seldom allowed conscious expression, see http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/the-secret-power-the-force-that-heals/
    Most of the time we edit or control what we allow ourselves to think or feel and dropping this form of judgment, if only for short periods while you open to the mystery you are, is important. At first it may cause some concern because you are unblocking part of the flow, and it may start pushing out some of the attitudes, past experiences and habits that have been blocking your greater flow. Usually those things would have been cleansed in the normal LifeStream, but unconscious tensions and resistances prevent the healing. This is why we have to consciously take in hand the work of dropping our self-control for periods of time.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/
    Anna 🙂

-Andrea 2016-04-03 4:01:20

I had a dream about being in an arcade/it was really big and it almost looks like an indoor carnival. We were on a ride and theb while it was on I was the only one on one side. The ride looks like something that we’re rolling from the inside. Furthermore we realized that there was an unlocked barrier. Then I fell outside on a plant that is almost the same size as I am, but I was still standing straight on my feet and I was laughing. It almost looked like nothing even happened. And because I fell, The workers had to stop the ride to check if I was okay and to lock the barrier. After that, the number of people waiting for the ride is massive and they looked all excited.

Then the next thing I remember was I was going up on a very steep and very high staircase. But I think I was the only one scared climbing it. It didn’t look like it was from an establishment. It almost looked like inside a massive cave. I also found a friend sitting on the stairs whilst playing a gameboy. Later on, I found myself back to the arcade following my friends. Then we stopped somewhere (to play a game I guess, but they were the ones looking at it) then I found a guy who used to hit up on me and i can consider as the one who got away. I feel regrets but not thay much. Then this guy was talking to me. There were lots of words coming out of his mouth but I can’t really understand a word except my name. I didn’t really mind him that much. Then later on we were already going down the scary stairs and saw the same friend and another one was sitting down talking on the phone. Then we were back to the place with the ride.

My dream is longer than I could remember. (Which is normal.) But there is something I cant fully remember that makes me feel like and my brain is pushing me to remember it as it is really going to make me happier.

-Ann 2016-03-31 15:14:58

Help. I dreamt my mother fell into a dark, round hole in the ground and when we called for her, she didn’t reply. I didn’t see when she fell because i had turned around in my dream and when I got there I couldn’t see her inside it as it was too dark. What does it mean??

    -Ann 2016-03-31 15:18:02

    This is getting me really worried and paranoid out of my mind. My father died three weeks ago and I didn’t dream anything about him. I really hope this isn’t bad news….

-Carey hinrichs 2016-03-31 7:34:59

Dreamed my 7 yr old daughter wasn’t listening. We were in a lighthouse, my husband and I were further along down the stairs, she was messing around and fell down the center. A very long fall. I heard her hit the ground. I sent him to get her, I ran to get help. The officer wouldn’t help me, I had to find someone with a cell phone. Couldn’t stop crying in the dream. I felt she was dead. I woke up before I could get to her. This just happened, I’m so afraid. Its 3:40 a.m. this is the worst feeling ever.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-04-04 11:42:58

    Dear Carey – The way you describe your daughter’s behaviour – she wasn’t listening and she was messing around – gives me the feeling that she is exploring her first steps towards independence.
    Other mothers have had similar dreams;
    “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of ones child in a dream.”
    Because your dream takes place in a lighthouse I trust that it is her Inner Light – her Self-directed path – that is guiding her towards making these steps;
    Are you afraid that she will fail and are you afraid of losing her and the relationship you have known so far?
    Do you feel that you have enough skills and understanding to guide your daughter’s process?
    It may be helpful to read http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889
    Anna 🙂

-Janna 2016-03-27 19:36:24

Ever since I was young I’ve always had a reoccurring dream that I was mountain biking on a side of a cliff and fall/ ride off the edge. Once I start to “fall” I awaken with a big gasp. What on earth does this mean.?

-Erika 2015-12-02 14:32:42

I had a dream that I fell in a hole with my 2 year old son, but I caught the ledge quickly and rolled my down to safety and then I slowly pushed myself to where I could get up and got out of the whole, the hoe had some water and I can’t swim but my main concern was my son falling and figuring it out I guess? My husband kept asking me for my hand but I couldn’t give him my hand because I was holding to the edge and I didn’t wanna drop my son.and I felt ok not even scared when I reached to safety I didn’t even question the hole I could now see with some water and 2 ledges the rest was dirt. So weird

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-12-08 14:37:17

    Dear Erika – Not knowing anything about the events in your waking life that might have triggered this dream, I have to take a somewhat educated guess what your dream is symbolising.
    And so what I see in your dream – but please explore it for yourself as well http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ – is that you are facing “dirt” that when shared with your husband, could affect your marriage in some way.
    Your son in your dream is a symbol of what you and your husband have created together and that you do not want “to drop.” So you explore in your dream if you manage to leave the hole without his help and you do experience that it is possible.
    Dirt can symbolise a sense of what is unclean, or of being unclean in mind or body. We have to realise however that dirt is only misplaced earth, which can form the material for growing vital things. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/earth/
    So it could represent actions or feelings that we feel are grubby or immoral. The unconscious has a natural morality based on its sense of connection with the universal principles of mating, birth, growth and death. Where our social or sexual life does not align with this or our own consciously accepted principles, we may dream of being dirty. But we also live within the moral pressure to conform to the morals and expectations of the people we share life with and the society we were raised or live in; so a sense of ‘dirtiness’ can be a reflection of that rather than any real transgression against one’s own sense of rightness.
    It is up to you if you feel like questioning the hole with two ledges, some water and the dirt; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
    Let me know if you have any questions Erika.
    Anna 🙂

-Angelica 2015-11-30 20:38:56

I just keep dreaming that by 3 year old is falling from a pit and it’s always the same story I just would really want to know if it bad

-Joebert 2015-10-25 13:52:54

Hi. My dream occurred two nights ago. I dreamt I was with my girlfriend on the roof top of a building. With us were our two friends who are also a couple.We were just talking and having fun. As we were about to leave we were about to walk down the stairs but suddenly my girlfriend fell off from the roof top of the building. After that I woke up. What did my dream mean?

-Niharika Syal 2015-07-18 11:20:19

I had a dream that i was just about to fall off from the stairs but eventually I don’t fall down for I restored my balance and start climbing the stairs…What could this mean?

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-07-19 13:54:10

    Dear Niharika Syal – A small dream with a wonderful meaning; you have enough inner resources to regain your balance in case you lose it. Sometimes when we are “on our way up” to greater awareness or the discovery of new experience, we might lose confidence for a while.
    Your dream helps you see that it does not matter, for you can easily regain it again so you can continue climbing upwards.
    Good for you!
    Anna 🙂

-Angelica Rubiena 2015-05-23 16:37:14

I saw people in my sorroundings fell from the ground where they standing (A tornado comes and it creates a hole from where people stands and fell) the woman beside me which is not known to me, also fell from where she stands in which tornado created. I grab her while i was floating parallel to the ground while holding her wrists and we both fell to the hole all the way in darkness with my arms upright and screaming and in fear.

Can you interpret my dreams?

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-05-25 12:53:45

    Dear Angelica – What is clear from your dream is that you are going through changes.
    A tornado in real life also causes sudden and often catastrophic changes so it can indicate a sense or intuition that you are moving toward life changing and perhaps sudden events that will bring great change or threat.
    Floating and falling in a dark hole can at times be an experience of awareness expanding beyond the usual boundaries of your beliefs or of your physical senses and so you enter “the unknown” which can be perceived as frightening too.
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/personal-growth/
    and
    http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/beliefs/
    As humans we tend to be afraid in our dreams, and often in our life, of almost anything. We dream of the dark, of a hole into which we might fall, a shadowy figure, animals attacking us, other humans, ghosts and spirits, devils and demons, sexual feelings, and so on – but especially of death and our children dying. Often it is not just fear, but terror.

    Just as we learn to swim by gradually facing and overcoming our fear of sinking, so we learn to love, be creative, successful or expressive, by meeting – in dreams and in life – the fears which hold us back: the fear of losing our mother, the fear of being neglected, the fear of being alone, fear of the dark, the fear of ridicule, and the fear of failure. They are all anxieties we conquer to some degree in the process of maturing. But there is no final boundary to our growth.
    So if you dare to grow beyond your present maturity, you are bound to have a few nightmares. Try to see what they say about you. You have nothing to lose but your fear. http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing

    If you decide to confront your dream fears – don’t confuse this with externally dangerous things – you can transform your inner world of anxieties, heal past hurts, and open up the treasure house of your potential. When this happens it flows into confidence and pleasure in daily life.
    So while awake and relaxed imagine yourself back in the dream and continue it as fantasy or a daydream and move it toward satisfaction. Alter the dream in any way; experiment with it; play with it, until you find a way to fully feel at ease with it. In doing this you must not ignore the feelings of resistance and spontaneous emotion and fantasy that may occur. Satisfaction comes only when you have found a way of integrating these into your conscious imagining.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
    Good Luck!
    Anna 🙂

-Rebecc 2014-08-02 16:29:39

I had a dream. That my three month old baby fell on the floor between two beds why

-sweets 2014-06-30 2:43:55

Dreamed I had a baby girl but couldnt see her face.

Copyright © 1999-2010 Tony Crisp | All rights reserved