Dreams are usually a reflection of our waking life. The desires, concerns, conflicts, and challenges you face in your waking life get mirrored to you in your dreams.
Sometimes dreams are straightforward, and sometimes they’re layered with symbolism. The more a dream uses symbols, the harder you have to work to interpret it.
Dreaming about floods
Floods are catastrophic natural disasters that cause tremendous damage to life and property. Having experienced a flood years ago where more than half our city was submerged, I can tell you it’s not a nice experience.
To interpret any dream, you need to focus on two essential things:
- How you feel in the dream
- How you behave in the dream
Let’s go over the possible meanings of flood dreams:
1. You’re facing a crisis
A flood represents a sudden crisis. If you dream of a flood, you’re probably facing a challenge in your waking life you’re unprepared for. This crisis has you experiencing anxiety and depression.
This dream is a signal from your subconscious that you should be taking this challenge seriously and working towards resolving it.
2. You’re ‘flooded’ with emotions
Across many cultures, water is associated with emotions.
It makes sense because, just like emotions, water is sometimes still and sometimes raging. Just like water, emotions flow.
Emotions are invisible, and our minds have nothing to represent them with in our dreams. So, the mind readily uses water to represent emotions.
If you dream of still water, your life is probably serene and calm. If you dream of a flood, it probably means you’re emotions are raging.
Often, the emotions we have suppressed for long are the ones that tend to overflow and become raging.
For example, if you feel anger and resentment towards someone and haven’t expressed it in your waking life, you may end up expressing it in your dream.
3. You’re ‘flooded’ with tasks and responsibilities
You’re likely feeling overwhelmed if you have a lot on your plate these days. This overwhelm may be represented in your dream by a flood.
When people are overwhelmed by life, they tend to use phrases like:
“I’m swamped.”
“I’m in over my head.”
These phrases show how we think about feeling overwhelmed.
Long ago, in ancestral environments, when we had no offices and email, the only time we felt overwhelmed was when we were drowning.
So, the mind uses that ‘raw material’ to represent modern forms of overwhelm.
If you dream you’re drowning in a flood, it probably means you have much more on your plate than you can handle right now.
If you dream you’re swimming in a flood, it probably means you’re doing your best to ‘keep your head above water’.
4. Losing control
When a flood comes, it’s uncontrollable. That’s the main feature of a flood.
So, whether it’s your emotions, life challenges, or responsibilities, they may all seem uncontrollable to you.
Also, dreaming about a flood could signify a general lack of control in other areas.
Maybe you’re going through a bad phase. When we go through such a phase, we’re off-track and feel like we have no control over our lives.
Maybe you’re a parent and can’t seem to set boundaries with your child. You feel you have no control over them.
Both scenarios may result in dreaming about floods.
As always, it’s essential to look at your dream, how you felt and behaved in it, and ask yourself:
“Where in my life am I feeling and behaving this way?”
5. Loss
Floods cause tremendous loss and grief.
A flood dream could be your mind’s way of representing loss. If you’ve lost a loved one, a flood may represent this in your dream.
I once dreamt that a friend of mine had drowned. He was a new friend, and I was a bit anxious about losing him then.
6. Past trauma with floods
If you’ve had a traumatic experience involving an actual flood, you may see imagery from that time in your dreams.
Such trauma-based dreams tend to be recurring. Your mind is trying to process the trauma.
If you see a flood in your dream you’ve never seen in your waking life, it likely has a deeper, more symbolic, meaning.
Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MA Psychology). I’ve been writing about Psychology for 9+ years. My work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, and Entrepreneur. If you have any queries, use the contact form or reach out to me on my socials.