Hi FoLCs,

A number of different pieces of fanfic I've read mentioned one or both of the following:

1) Clark sleep-floats more when he is under stress.
2) Clark started wearing his glasses as "trainers" to help him remember not to use his superpowers in public. (The lenses possibly even being made of leaded glass.)

I don't recall either of those concepts being in the show; so I was wondering whether they were there and I just don't remember or whether they started outside the show, either from another incarnation of the Superman mythos or from some fanfic. I like both ideas, and I think #2 is especially clever, explaining as it does both the fact that Clark wore glasses pre-Superman and that he needed to lower them to use his X-ray vision.

Does anyone know where the two ideas originated? If they are from fanfic, I would be interested in reading their stories of origin.

Thanks,
Lynn

Sleep floating was in the show. Off the top of my head I can think of two instances. The first is in Foundling (S1). The other time is in Just Say Noah (S3).

As for the eyeglasses - that just seems like common sense to me. Why else would someone with Clark's perfect eyesight choose to wear glasses? Especially since, in the L&C universe, his alter-ego came after his use of optometry? I know I've seen it plenty of stories and have used it myself at least once.

Sue S. wrote:
Thanks, Sue. Actually, I did remember seeing the sleep floating. My question wasn't about him doing it; it was that stress caused him to do it more frequently.

To make him look less athletic (at least to those who hold to stereotypes), so that people would be less likely to believe him capable of superhuman feats should he slip? (That is, someone might see the result of such a feat, but not necessarily who did it.) Although (Thank goodness!) LNC did not make Clark the bumbling nebbish he appears to be in Christopher Reeves' interpretation of him, the rationale could well be the same.

Yup. I mentioned that in my original post.

Thanks again for giving me possible answers to the questions. :-)

cheers,
Lynn

In I'm Looking Through You, Clark has a nightmare where everyone at work is dressing up like Superman. When he wakes from the nightmare, he falls from floating in his sleep.

I think that is where I got the idea that maybe he floated when he was having a nightmare.

However, in Just Say Noah, there is no indication of any nightmare. But then, he was floating when he fell asleep because the cabin they were staying at only had one bed.

Those are the only two times that immediately come to mind for me that we saw Clark floating in his sleep - although that doesn't mean much. Sue mentioned a floating scene in Foundling, but I don't have any recollection of that time so maybe that incident would shed some additional light on the topic.

Hope that's of some help.

ML

He floated while awake at the White Orchid Ball. So there is canon for him floating when emotional.

As far as I recall, in Foundling he was also having a nightmare when he woke up in a sweat and fell back onto the bed. Or, at least, he was tossing and turning, thanks to the globe reaching out to him.

Course, you might want to check that one out, as all I can really clearly recall of that scene is that Clark was bare-chested at the time....

LabRat

Hmm...it is true that all the times we have seen him sleep-floating, he has been under stress. (Although he wasn't having a nightmare in Just Say Noah, the whole situation was an extraordinarily stressful one for him. Although he and Lois have reached a bit of a detente right before he falls asleep (in one of my favourite scenes of the entire series), his body and mind must still have to deal with the stress that had accrued over the course of the day.

I don't recall - have we ever seen him sleeping at a time when he was *not* under stress?

Dcarson's point about him floating in an emotional situation while awake at the White Orchard ball does give some more weight to the idea. I hadn't thought about that; to be honest, I had always considered that floating, aside from being a nice bit of humour, to be a G-rated depiction of a non-G-rated biological response of Clark's to seeing Lois all decked out.

cheers,
Lynn

That never, ever occurred to me. Of course, my mind rarely strays to the gutter without large directional signs [or certain other folcs ] leading the way...

Who was it that wrote that story where Clark would float involuntarily when Lois smiled at him, or if she touched him? It was hilarious. He would spend the day grabbing onto railings, or hooking his foot under his desk, to keep himself from floating. Lois thought he was supremely clumsy. Then they had to go undercover in the "HiM" episode, and his secret was out.

I'm sure someone remembers the name and author of the fic!

Clark also floated involuntarily when Trask was giving him a lie-detector test. The entire chair made a nice loud thump when it hit the ground.

I had forgotten about that. I think that that one is the most telling of all, especially considering that that situation was the last one in which Clark would ever wish to demonstrate his powers.

Cheers,
Lynn

I don't think that kind of involuntary use of powers happened after the first season. I would speculate that Clark's Superman experience gave him enough practice with his powers that he gained greater control as he got more experience and got more comfortable with them.

At least not while he was awake. A good point.

Either that or else it provided him an outlet for energy that he had to release in some way...Kind of like kids becoming very fidgety if confined to their desks at school for too long. Or maybe both.

cheers,
Lynn

I haven't read it, so I'm not certain, but I suspect this is Cloud Nine , by Janet Owens (Tic and Toc).

PJ

I've long been under the impression that Clark did that on purpose. He lifted the chair a little and then dropped it to get the needle on the lie detector test to jump.

That's what I had thought at first, too. But doing so just then wouldn't have made much sense. He did it right after indicating that he and Superman had met. He would probably want Trask to believe that; it certainly would lessen the chances that Trask would suss out Clark's real secret, which Clark obviously wished to protect.

- Lynn

Yes, because the needle didn't move. Trask and his cohort were fussing over the machine, thinking it was broken, and that's when Clark did his chair trick.

Actually, that was a little earlier in the scene; he made the needle move then by blowing on it with his super-breath.

FWIW, The only reason I know this myself is because I re-watched that scene because of this thread. I had actually mis-remembered it in the exact same way you did.

- Lynn