Flying is a frequent occurrence in lucid dreams.
People who can deliberately control their dreams during sleep ~ known as “lucid dreamers” ~ might offer insight into the self-reflection capabilities of the mind.
According to LiveScience.com:
It is difficult to get a full picture of what goes on in the brain when we make the transition from sleep to wakefulness. In fact, the specific areas of the brain underlying our restored self-perception and consciousness when we wake up have eluded scientists, according to a statement by the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.
But a team of researchers was able to get a picture of that isolated activity in lucid dreamers.
"In a normal dream, we have a very basal consciousness, we experience perceptions and emotions but we are not aware that we are only dreaming,” study researcher Martin Dresler, of Max Planck, said in a statement. "It's only in a lucid dream that the dreamer gets a meta-insight into his or her state."
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, the team compared the activity of the brain during one of these lucid-dreaming periods with the activity just beforehand in a normal dream. The results showed that a specific cortical network is activated when lucid consciousness is attained.