This post presupposes that you experience flying and floating the same way I do, you may not feel the same way I do, any comments are appreciated.
For me there is a major difference in focus between floating and flying, let me explain. Floating for me is my absolute favorite physical sensation in the world. It’s the physical sensation of being weightless, as if lifted up on clouds, there is an energetic feeling coursing through my body when in this state. This feeling only happens when I am lying on my back in the dream, and I can not move my body in this state, I feel like I move in this state rather by moving my mind. For this reason, there is very little mobility at all.
This gets to the very point of why I consider these two states so different. Mobility is not the point of floating. Floating for me is purely about the physical sensation of floating, the focus is not on getting anywhere or doing anything within the lucid dream.
Flying on the other hand is also a fantastic experience. But the point of flying is to get somewhere, explore the landscape, or fulfill some goal. The focus is shifted to mobility, flying is the means through which we accomplish other tasks. For this reason, as much as I enjoy flying I don’t experience the same joy and physical ‘highness’ as when I’m floating.
This highlights the importance of where and what your focus is concentrated on within the lucid dream. Maybe you’re trying to accomplish some goal, but is your focus concentrated intently on the experience of objective?
Your focus is far more sharpened in lucid dreams than in general in physical reality. In lucid dreams for example sex may be incredibly more potent, lasting a shorter period of time with a stronger climax. But in waking life I (personally) don’t experience as intense an experience as in my dreams. I may be thinking about my performance, if she’s enjoying it as much as me, what I’m doing right (or wrong), or even about what I ate for dinner. It’s far more difficult to hone that focus into the experience of the moment. Not so for lucid dreams. So think about your focus. If you’re not getting everything done you want in your lucid dreams consider your desires and motivations. Maybe your focus is not where you want it to be.
I have those two main kinds of transport as well. For me, floating is effortless. I just become weightless, float around in the air, and I only need to think about going somewhere, and I move. It does not move very quickly, I just float in that direction. Often, when I need to get to a place that’s quite far from me, I’ll float to an object, and use my legs to rebound off of it in the direction I want to go. Once I’m floating in a direction, It’ll be hard to stop unless I can find something I can grab onto.
Flying on the other hand, is superman-style. I can go so fast that everything blurs around me. It’s also a lot easier to control, for turning around and stopping. I use this when I want to explore a large area of the dream-world.
The way I initiate both is different. Floating usually starts straight from floating out of my body on an OBE, or jumping twice or so, until my body becomes weightless. Flying starts with me jumping off the ground really hard.
Floating started out for me also a means of initiating the lucid dream or out of body experience. I used to lie perfectly still, relaxing, and then move through ‘letting go’ of my limbs, repeating that phrase to myself until I couldn’t feel my limbs except in an energetic sense, then think ‘I’m floating’. Now I mainly just do it for fun, but every once in a while I’ll still float into a dream.
Both flying and floating are generally initiated by willing it with my mind. I used to find tall objects and jump off of them to fly, but sometimes I’d fail and hit the ground hard. This can cause me to ‘phase out’ of the dream, and once I experienced physical pain when hitting the ground after jumping off of a very tall tree.