Personally I can't remember ever having a falling dream, so I can't give input to this topic. Except to say that I am very interested in what other people have experienced, since it is of course such a common dream symbol, and I don't really know what it means.

It is strange that you don't wake up after hitting the ground.

Mostly falling dreams occur when you are in the first stage of sleep "light sleep" this causes your brain to respond by waking you up before you hit the ground.

According to eastern mythology if you have this dream and it keeps going after you hit the ground you will also die in the waking world. But that is just myth since some people are deep enough in the REM stage that the dream keeps going on.

As for myself I sometimes dream I'm walking but suddenly miss a step on a ladder or something so I wake up immediately. When I was a kid I used to always dream I was in the car with my family but we drove of a bridge and the ground just rushes to meet us, I would wake up seconds before we touch it though, that's one dream I don't miss...

Kid 

That's really interesting, Alice.  Although I don't remember ever having a falling dream, I have gone through seasons (not lately for some reason) where I would jerk awake suddenly while falling asleep, almost every night.  It's really annoying when that happens.  Is that the phenomenon you're talking about--hypnic jerk?  It might be a genetic trait, because my mom does it too.

Maybe A.Truth doesn't jerk awake because he's trained himself not to be scared, as mentioned in a different post.  (Very applaudable endeavor-- more than I could do, frankly.)  Or perhaps for him the falling is a specific symbol the dream is using to make a point, a different point than many other dreamers' dreams are using.

Joynsyde: That is really interesting thanx, though I do knot know how I could have trained myself ( I am not fond of hieghts in my waking life)

Alice: I kinda know about the different pattens of sleep but didnt thing it would effect how people could react to a dream, I am always learning, this is so helpful thanx.

To all: HIGH FIVE

When I was a young teenager, I had a recurring dream that I was the roadrunner and I was being chased by the coyote. I dreamed I was running across a bridge over a gorge and I fell through a hole in the bridge. I hit the bottom and I all of the sudden I was no longer a cartoon but I was a mangle bloddy mess on the rocks. I never did find out what it meant. I did hit every time had this dream. It has been about 30 years since this dream. I scared me and for a long time I did not watch any cartoons.

I remember reading in a different post that you have trained yourself not to be scared of horror films.  So I was saying that perhaps your courage also applies to scary dreams like falling off a cliff.  Just a thought.

Falling hurts in real life, but not in dreams  .

In a recent dream, I was companying a friend in a high-rise building. For some reason, she though it was necessary that we jump out of the window holding a porcelain plate. I looked out of the window and it was about 2000 feet above the ground. I  occasionally parachute in real life. I was thinking, "It is dangerous to do this without a parachute," while knowing that I was going to be OK. I am a man so I did it first. I jumped as if I was parachuting. I felt the sensation of free falling together with the blast of cold air  shaking my clothes and hair and cutting my skin and bones. Don't remember how it ended. It wasn't a big bang.     

The act of falling in dreams is best interpreted as the idea of failing. Many people have the perception that they have failed in some area of their life; failed to live up to other?s expectations as well as their own expectations. Thus the frequency of dreams of falling.

When the fall is such that we land on solid ground, the scene is indicating that we have grounds ? reasons ? to justify or excuse the failing. Any other objects that we might land upon also indicate the idea that can justify or excuse the failure.

Falling but managing to wake up before landing:  In many cases the assumption when falling is that we will be dashed to pieces, end up dead or at least be badly hurt. That is, our perception of having failed is that it will lead to great emotional devastation. Thus by waking up before this can happen, the dream is telling us to ?wake up? ? to come to a greater sense of awareness about this situation. Because, of course, after waking up we find that we have not been so completely emotionally devastated  as our Dream World or imaginative thinking led us to think.

The falling sensation as we are falling asleep: Everything that pertains to sleep needs to be interpreted as if it were an act seen in a dream. Thus this shock of feeling we are falling just as we enter a sleeping state is telling us that our perception of having failed somewhere in our life is actually preventing us from resting with complete peace of mind. Since God gave us sleep and the thus the right to peace of mind, jerking ourself awake because we feel we are falling would indicate an error of thought on our part. Our perception of having failed is the error. It is preventing us from enjoying the peace of mind we have a right to. This meaning applies when we are in a bed and about to fall asleep in reality. In other location the meaning will have some variations (because of the particular symbolism reflected by the bed).

Kai, where a decision has to be made to fall or jump, the scene can be showing that in your mind some action could be regarded as a failling on your part but it could also instead be seen as simply taking a leap of faith.

P.S. I am happy that you liked the explanation. I hope it will prove useful to everyone.