Does anyone else have the experience of not being able to run properly in their dreams. I am never able to get my legs moving properly when i'm running in my dreams. I always thought it was something to do with the fact that my legs aren't moving in the real world which relates to my dreams. I dunno :/
I used to start to run and ended up flying, but making a really bad job of it ~ couldn't direct myself to the place I was heading for, crashed into things and then got stuck in helicoptor mode where I could only hover in one place.
If I was indoors and tried to run I ended up bobbing about on the ceiling like a helium filed balloon until i stopped trying to run, then I'd float down to the ground again. Anyone else ever had that?
When we sleep our muscles are put into a sort of flaccid mode and do not respond to movement messages. You can often see a sleeping person or animal twitching, and in their dreams they are doing a lot of activity.
Our brains react to the alarming dream episode in the usual "run out of the way" response, but we lack the response from the limbs that anything is happening (because nothing is!) and so we think we are unable to run. To avoid the danger we resort to flying, burrowing under the ground or some other fantastical escape.