21 January 2018

I am in my home with my young daughter when suddenly news comes that there is a flood coming directly at the house. Panic sets in and I go into emergency mode, getting supplies and creating a plan to get me and my family to high ground.

In this dream, I don’t ever get to high ground. I dream merely of hearing that the flood is coming and deal with the enormous panic. This dream signaled the first time I really woke up to the concept of a Dream being able to change an abusive pattern in real life.

It was 2009 when I dreamed of this flood in my home. Home/house is a symbol for Self in a dream and a flood is about emotions, relationships, life. Having water flood a house is a symbol of a relationship out of balance. It’s about grief, and loss, and devastation. The dream was signalling that a relationship was out of balance which would cause my self to be devastated. When I started to look around in my real life to see who was behaving in a way which would be hurtful to me and devastate my Self, I did find someone.

At the time, I was living with my young daughter in a home which I was renting from my Mom and her husband at the time. My own husband of 9 years was working in a city 45 minutes away and had begun getting closer to a co-worker, which was serious enough that when he moved out of our marital home, they made their relationship known and eventually they moved in together and stayed in a relationship for two more years.

The house we lived in was old and in need of a lot of repair. The worst of the issues was something which ultimately became a battle between the city and the landlord. A tree root had grown through and broke apart one of the sewage pipes beneath the basement. This caused the sewage to back up and flood the basement floor plus a horrid, rancid odor began to permeate the downstairs floor.

I don’t remember exactly when the odor issue and flooding first started but I remember when it ended. It began sometime in Spring of 2009, worsened in summer and was unlivable by Autumn. The city wanted the landlords to fix it & the landlords wanted the city to fix it. Meanwhile, I was living in a home with an infant which smelled, quite literally, like an outhouse.

So after repeatedly asking the landlord to fix it I decided one day to just leave. I couldn’t live there anymore. I found another place to stay and then over the course of the next two weeks returned regularly to empty & clean the house. It was devastating.

My marriage was over. And now I was homeless. Plus I was only working part-time. Plus I had a 4 year old with me who needed me to be at my best.

I didn’t see it at the time but I see it now: The people around me were only looking out for themselves. In this case, the dream of the flood was a lot like my real life flooded basement.

In time, I started paying closer attention to dreams and making changes, or going for opportunities inspired by those messages, and in time my life started getting better and better. My relationship with my daughter greatly improved and became so playful, carefree and happy. My living arrangements keep getting better & better. My employment keeps getting better and better. My professional career keeps getting better and better. My relationship with my significant other keeps getting better & better.

The reoccurring dreams & nightmares of floods stopped. People who were abusing me stopped getting their own way to devastate my life. And in real life I found High Ground.