More Water Dreams: Tidal Waves!

Dreaming of Tidal Waves 

Dreams speak to us in symbolic language, but too often we want to make them concrete. In our dreams, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar' (referring to Freud's insistence that it's a penis), but most of our dreams tell us a story in symbols.

Since the Sun is still in Cancer, we are discussing the symbolism of water. Let's look at a very powerful dream image—the Tidal Wave/ Tsunami.

Have you had Tidal Wave dreams? How did you feel about it? Fearful, worried, interested?

Tidal waves can symbolize a powerful upheavel in the collective unconscious. The oceans symbolize this realm of our collective experience.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung felt that the collective unconscious represents a form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain. He also felt that it contained all those feelings and needs that have been rejected by our collective consciousness.

So having a Tidal Wave dream tells us that we're experiencing that up-welling of feelings that are rejected by our society—such as love, compassion, wisdom, equality, freedom. These waves are not just about our personal upset, but about how the entire culture is shifting and changing.

Tidal Wave dreams comes in many forms. Sometimes people dream that they see a tidal wave coming at them or their house and are full of fear. Sometimes the waves sweep over them and sometimes they only come up to the house and then depart. These dreamers often feel threatened by the feelings and changes these waves symbolize.

I used to have many tidal wave dreams back in the 70s and 80s. I would be walking on the beach and would see giant waves hanging in the sky, never breaking, just hanging there. Sometimes people were even swimming in those waves, like daring surfers who ride giant waves on their boards. I was surprised and interested but never afraid. Sometimes I even swam in those waves myself.

The most interesting tidal wave dream I had was in one of my formative

'big dreams'. In it, I was sitting in a buckboard wagon and I saw a waning Moon in the sky. Suddenly I knew a giant tidal wave was about to break over me and the people I was with. I thought, “this is it”. The next thing I knew, the wave had gone by and a beautiful waxing crescent Moon shone in the sky. There was more to the dream, which I've recounted in my book, Wisdom's Daughters: How Women Can Change the World.

All of us have times in our lives when our old life must be left behind so a new life can begin. This is the message of a Tidal Wave Dream. The old is being swept away, so the new life can emerge from the depths. Each of us will meet this change in oiur own way—either with fear or with excitement.

If you have any tidal wave dreams you want to share, please do!

Until next time,

Sweet Dreams!