Getting Personal

                How to feel like you're on cloud 9: Experience the stuff that dreams are made of
            
                Just how high is Cloud 9 and how do you get there? Is your idea of heaven literally being up in the clouds or would you rather lie low and be pampered? What is the stuff of your dreams? Are your nights filled with mysterious flights of fancy? Would you like to wake up to the reality of one or more experience days that can make those dreams come true? 

While dreaming of dark clouds may not be a good sign, dreaming of white clouds can signify prosperity. Dreaming of flying may be associated with a sense of ease and elation, with great achievement and being at one with the universe or with taking an overview of your life. Dreams of hovering or floating may be associated with success or optimism and having the world at your feet. According to Freud, an airplane is a phallic symbol but then according to Freud, most things are! Dreaming of hot air balloons is thought to express a desire to rise above the cares of the world.

They say every cloud has a silver lining. So why waste your days looking up and wondering if you should have brought an umbrella when you could get up there and seek out the silver for yourself? There are many ways to explore the sky and see the earth from a different perspective. Experience days can give you the chance to fly in a plane or a helicopter. You can glide or you can even jump. Jump! How high? How does free-falling at 120mph from 13,000 feet grab you? If you have a real spirit of adventure or you know someone who does, Tandem skydive experience days could be just the job.

Of course if you'd rather set your sights a bit lower to start with, you could try sky diving in an indoor wind tunnel first. This is so simple a five year old could do it. In fact, if you are looking for an original gift for your favourite adventurous five year old, Indoor Skydiving experience days could be the answer. But they'll have to wait a few years before they can progress to the real thing as you have to be 16 to do the Tandem Sky Dive.

Strictly speaking even that won't take you quite as high as cloud 9 as the highest clouds start between 18,000 and 45,000 feet. Clouds are generally classified as low, medium or high and there are different types of clouds at each level so the popular theory that the expression "on cloud 9" originates from the US weather bureau's classification of cloud types does seem to hold water, cloud 9 being one of the highest in the sky. However, it would be pretty cold up there but at 13,000 feet you should be able to catch enough clouds to check out a few silver linings on the way down. You'll have to be quick though as you'll be travelling pretty fast! There are of course plenty of rather more sedate experience days that allow you to explore the skies.

The harsh reality is that floating on a cloud would be rather a cold and damp experience but floating LIKE a cloud is a rather more attractive proposition. A ride in a hot air balloon provides very much that sensation. Choose from any of a range of Champagne Balloon Flight experience days, drink a toast to the skies and not only will you feel like you're floating on air, you actually will be.

Of course such is the perversity of mankind that once you get up in the sky, by whatever mans of propulsion you choose, you'll be busy looking back down at where you came from, marvelling at the beauty of the English countryside and how small the trees, people, houses and cars look from up there. If fields and trees don't provide enough excitement for you, you can choose one of the London Pleasure Flight experience days or take a helicopter tour over London. You can look down on the London Eye and soar above Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.

Of course, there are also plenty of experience days to choose from where you can have your head metaphorically in the clouds while keeping your feet firmly on the ground. Your idea of heaven might be a chocolate making workshop or a facial and a massage. Or maybe you or someone you know would be in their element having a makeover and photo session or a real life recording session in a proper studio.

Perhaps the time has come to replace those dreams of what might be with vivid memories of real life experience days that will stay with you forever. It's a chance to get a whole new perspective on life