Dreams about Floods: Finding Meaning in your inner Tsunami

Like Noah dreaming of a Great Flood, you find the same visual haunting your sleep. You dream of water or you dream of a big wave coming and after the rush, the flood.



It could mean these things:

You have been suppressing a great deal of emotions and like a flood, its gonna break through in a mad rush, uncontrollable and overwhelming. This is a sign, these dreams of a flood, that you should prepare yourself for an upcoming intense and emotional event.

There is a great change coming. And you know it. This flood is going to change your life in a big way, but you feel conflicted whether this is something positive or negative. Since you have knowledge of this flood coming your way, it is natural to feel you must protect yourself, to be self-serving. You may also warn others around you of the impending event.

Good Sleep and the Myth of Pillows

Here's a thought that deserves a good pillow fight:

Invest in a good pillow, one that supports your head or neck well. Well, comfort in bed, body alignment and posture should be the highest priority.

If you have the dough, I would advocate that you get that expensive memory pillow, Yes, the one that cost an arm and a leg. Consider it an investment for your health, after all we spend a third of our existence, an average of 25-30 years asleep in bed, an activity our body succumbs to daily. Imagine your face spending an average of 6-8 hours on that fluffly or filthy thing you haven't bothered to wash for eons.

If we care enough to own expensive leather shoes for our feet, designer clothes, jewelries so why not an appropriate pillow? An orthopedic and contour pillow can do more than provide comfort, it can lessen those aches and pains we feel upon waking up. It can help us relax and easily fall into sleep, establishing a bed-time routine.

The softest goosedown with memory foam can possibly be more than just a pillow, it can define a good night's sleep and a better mental state at work, meaning not coming home with all those mood swings may be well worth it.

Thoughts on Sleep and Early Risers

"For a long time I used to go to bed early."
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Early to bed, early to rise. That's something grandma would say, but now I would consider it an old saying for Office zombies, those who work themselves to death. Hopefully after their inevitable burn out, they would rise from the grave and finally have a night life, well something close to a social life either way.

For a long time I used to go to bed early, I would say that would be fifteen years ago in grade school where you had to wake up to catch the school bus. Now as an adult on my own sleep terms, that has been something elusive, I never get to sleep at all, I stay up all night hoping and waiting for sleep. If I do lie in bed, my mind races with the day's demons. It takes time for me to really feel asleep. Too many little distractions from the modern world- TV shows, movies, the internet, sex, drugs, my nth cup of caffeine. Modernity is too hard core for an ancient human ritual such as sleep.

I bet times were simple back then for Proust, perhaps all he had to do is turn the gaslight off.

The boy who flew away

I am in a tundra like somewhere in Mongolia. A tribe is having a wedding and I am the bride. My husband is a sword-wielding Chinese warrior clad in iron. The wedding is interrupted by a beast looming over. I hear a child's giggle. Overhead this beast, this dragon-like figure delivers the child to me as a gift. There is uproar from the tribesmen. They don't want me to accept the strange child. They believe the child is cursed. But I decide to take care of him against my warrior husband's wishes.


I give the child daily baths. He has shiny green skin, but adorable and cute. The Chinese warrior I am betrothed to thinks the child is bad luck. Yet, I keep on taking care of the boy.

The child learns to call back the beast that brought him to the land. It starts to fly around the village. It is not yet time, so the beast leaves again.

The child unearths riches from the soil. He laughs. He is proud of what he has dug up with his hands. Liquid gold oozes from the soil and rises to form a froth then a bubble.The villagers begin to accept him. They want the child to keep digging.

I take the boy up the mountain where steam oozes out when the rocks are unturned. He looks at me happy. We sit down and watch the tundra below. I know the beast will come for him and with a heavy heart I know, I don't want him to leave. He's not that small anymore like the time when he arrived.

I see him fly away on the beast's back, sitting proudly.

A Topiary Dream

I am in a maze and my online friend is there, a known blogger. The maze is like a virtual walk-through where you can visit bloggers in their privately and lavishly decorated rooms. You can touch the XML, its like moving furniture around. The dream had a tactile experience to it.

There seems to be a struggle, a sense of unrest in the maze, as the rooms are moved around according to the click-rates or visits they have. I find an empty room, bloggers come over wanting this space from me. They walk around the garden maze with parasols. My online friend tells me not to give in.

I wake up.

Teenage Dirtbag at 16

I am a teenager. I am 16. The dream was long, but I only remember this part. A teenage guy with blond hair likes me. He tells me so, and wants a date with me. He tells me this in front of his girlfriend who is also 16. She begins to cry and scream at him, but not me. She leaves furious. But he only has his eyes on me. I smile back, I am my sixteen year old self.

I wake up.

This dream was particularly sweet to me. I look and feel sixteen and not a care in the world. But growing up, this was very far from my reality as I grew up in an all-girls school and the sight of boys were very rare. But I would have gone school girl gaga if a boy had asked me out back then.

Lavender Fields inside a Sea of Flood

Dapitan is flooded. We are getting vaccines for my son. I live in a new high-rise building with a mall on the first floor. The mall escalators going up are turned off, while the ones going down are on and filled with shoppers.



I am at a meadow filled with flowers and lavender, but the colors are different. It feels like being inside a terrarium, outside is the flood and suffering city. The colors in the meadow are that of a Matisse painting. Its like the countryside of France, the view which I saw from the train a few months ago.

I see a house from my past, it is the house of my high school classmate, Marie. Their house is known for their huge lawn and for being empty all the time.

Enzo arrives and tells me to leave with him. We need to get the vaccine for my son. I tell him he is safe and doesn't need one anymore because he got his shots.

I find myself in an office reception area. Someone asks me who I am waiting for. In my dream I answer a name, but I no longer recall who it is.

I am at a food court at the top of a building. I am writing something on a notebook amidst these strangers eating and talking. From this view, I can see the whole of Dapitan flooded. I also see how far it is from the ground. I wobble a bit, afraid how high up I am. But I continue to write on the notebook.

I remember I was constantly thinking about my son and how to get to him through the flood. It is difficult to get home. He is constantly mentioned in the dream, but I never see him.

During the middle of the night or this dream, I wake up struggling to breathe, my throat is dry and locked. I have sleep apnea which usually happens when I'm very tired. But my throat locking for a few seconds hasn't happened in a long time. Its never a pleasant experience.

Empty spaces of lackluster nights

Dec 6 2008
Lost my dream notes at my bedside table =( can't recall anything

Dec 7 2008
No Dream. I just closed my eyes in the dark, and when I opened them it was instantly morning. I didn't dream at all, I didn't feel any activity of any sort or any trace of trying to remember anything. Sleep came fast, so did day break.

Dec 8 2008
Difficulty recalling the dream I had. Just visuals and some gut feeling. I was sending some stuff at film festivals. Art/Pat was in my dream. But I don't know why.

Flight for 3 People

I am at the airport to catch a flight. My father is there to accompany me. The flight is still a few hours away. I decide to leave the airport to go back to Pasong Tamo.

On the way back to the airport, I get stuck in traffic. When I finally get there, I'm stopped by airport security for a health inspection, they check my heart rate and even have me jog on a machine. I am then informed that only 3 people can take the flight to that destination. The first 2 people waved at me through a glass wall at the line at the boarding gate. I wave back at them and talk to them through the glass, mouthing words and lip reading. I know them, but I just can't remember now. The line moves and they get onboard. I'm still at the inspection line.

I wake up.



The problem with this dream vivid as it were, is that when I woke up, I forgot the exact details. The country of destination and the two other passengers. I find it so amusing that only 3 people are allowed on board a huge plane.

My last travel was in Bangkok and in recent news the airport was taken over by protesters. Perhaps all these news bits on airports and mandatory inspections have clogged my brain

Who is Rosenbaum?

"I am Rosenbaum till the audience sees me as something else."
-Quoting myself in my dream where I am a theater director.

I remember the phrase so clearly and audibly except it's coming from my mouth. I have so much conviction and gravitas that everyone listens. In my dream, I seemed to be someone of importance.



We are in a very organic and ancient dome, something Gaudi would have made. It is a theater and sound reaches every corner.

I am a few stories up on the 4th or fifth ring of wooden slats. The theater doesn't have the usual seats. The seats are the wooden slats pierced against the concrete. Similar to the last Indiana Jones movie where Indie struggles to climb these wooden steps that recede into the walls. Its the closest I can describe these things that seemed to defy gravity. Some of the slats are supported by wires that reach the ceiling. When I walk on them they wobble, the sensation is like being on a suspension bridge or hanging bridge.



We are staging a play. I'm screaming at the top of my lungs at the actors below in Spanish. My actors are a mixed lot of Mexicans, Spaniards, and Latin Americans. Most don't get along very well.

Julia approaches me at the fifth storey and in spanish, she tells me she's glad I'm doing this. But my attention is on my son, 2 meters away from me, who is seated precariously at the edge of the wooden slats.

I tell Julia the producers saw my video of the play and they liked it. She asks me what's the play about? I tell her it's my rendition of Don Quixote de la Mancha.

My son squirms.I reach for my son again, grabbing his shirt quickly to make sure he doesn't fall. He is 4 years old, but he just sits there calmly, without fear of falling.

The Mexicans and Argentinians get impatient for direction on their lines. Julia starts a shouting match with the Mexicans below. I shout at them, "I am Rosenbaum till the audience sees me as something else." They all become quiet and listen.

---

I feel empowered in this dream, maybe because I'm doing what I like and working in a very demanding creative field which in real life I struggle to get jobs into.

Well, again... I feel so empowered in this dream, I remember the sensation clearly, albeit with the nagging fear of suddenly falling or my son suddenly falling away. That was the only sense of dread that conflicted with the whole thing. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed having a sense of gravitas.

An Unlocked Door

First Arc:
At my uncle's house in Pampanga, a relative is presenting me with paintings. The house feels like a gallery. My friend Jas is there cooking in the kitchen. My relative comments that I should have introduced her sooner. She is making lunch. My relative tells me my uncle died that morning.

Second Arc:
Julianne is screaming at me because I have kept her imprisoned in a room and that I have locked her in. But that was never the case, she has imprisoned herself in the room. The door was always unlocked. She never tried to open it.

I go out the door, she follows me, still screaming wildly. She opens the adjacent room and proves her point. The small room next to hers, has a two-way mirror. I can clearly see her bed from there. She tells me this is my room. But I don't remember sleeping in it.

Third Arc:
I am shooting a TVC in an industrial lot, we are on a long dolly track that spans a block or so. It ends at the most decayed part of the lot.

I go home to my old dorm in Dapitan and I find my old room mates there. I remember Kahlil being in the dream playing with cards on her bed. They tell me they invited my gay uncle for a sleep over. But my uncle is dead and that doesn't seem to bother them. In this part of my dream, his memory and presence seems alive.

---

Like my Aunt, my Uncle died a few months ago. Just a month apart from his sister, I guess I am still grieving the loss and somehow at times I forget they are gone.

Maybe my dream is about self-made prisons too, where we forget that there's just a door somewhere that could set us free.

Waking up to the sound of falling bombs

"life is like a dream, we wake up when we're dead."
- Charlie Crews, Life

My Dream for December 2, 2008:

War bombs fell slowly from the sky. Vintage bombs- the kind they would unearthed in campus lots or public areas in the Philippines.

I watched them fall in slow motion. I was by a large window. My mother was in the room with me.

I hear an infant cry. My mom runs to the crib, I pick the baby up. It cries loudly against the slow fall out of bombs. We hide in the house. The house is not our home, but a Castillian house in Makati. Its at the corner of SS-highway and buendia.We hide, the bombs explode, a flash of white light. But the sound is disappointingly not loud enough to scare me off. I thought we would have been annihilated, but we weren't. The baby kept crying. The bombs stop falling.

The soldiers arrive in trucks in front of the house. They storm through the door and tell us to escape with them. The area is no longer safe, they tell me. It feels like WWII, but it is the present.

The day clears. I cross Buendia near the train tracks, my dad is there waiting by a bench. My dad asks me about my brother. I tell him he is with his new girlfriend, which in my dream looks like a girl from our childhood.

My Tita Let is with me at this bus stop with my Dad. A car arrives with her relatives and friends from Tarlac. She gets into the car and they speed off.

My aunt died a few months ago, this is one of those dreams where I see her alive and well.

My Clock is on Reset

I think all this dream blogging has a positive effect on my circadian rhythm. I look forward to sleep actually, I might even forgo being the resident insomniac.

More on circadian rhythms

Humans have biological rhythms, known as circadian rhythms, which are controlled by a biological clock and work on a daily time scale.

Due to the circadian clock, sleepiness does not continuously increase as time passes.

Instead, the drive for sleep follows a cycle, and the body is ready for sleep and for wakefulness at different times of the day.

Know more about Circadian Rhythms