We enter a house by the sea. It’s in a new development. We go upstairs using the lift. While we start admiring the room it has started raining. As we approach the view out the windows, we see the rain is streaming in the top of the window – there’s a gap. Looking behind us, we see our friend pressing red buttons on the lift, to seal it up, because it’s filling with water from the bottom up. Outside, all the road and ground has become sea and marshes.
Rain and flooding feels like a big topic to explore. Much as water comes in all forms on earth and in all places, from seas, ice, rain, clouds, marshes, the meaning and function of rain and flooding metaphorically can be a huge area to traverse.
While we stand at the edge of the wetland, unsure where our path may be, I’m going to hone in specifically on water + home.
If we take a few simple associations around these first to orient ourselves…
water: emotions, life, cleansing, washing, renewing, covering, submerging, flow, messenger
home: our body, our emotional and mental space, our surroundings, our living situation metaphorically
… we can maybe look at this story about water getting in our home, and consider just a few of the multitude of facets and metaphors this topic holds.
It’s a meandering discussion, and may not have clear edges, much like water, but I hope it helps shine some light and possibilities on this topic.
What comes to mind around the dream example is the feeling around water as emotions / subconscious coming into your home (body, mental and emotional spaces), due to ‘leaky borders’ like the windows and lift. This permeable boundary, our own field, may be receiving emotions and feelings of others and our environment, and this is possibly unwelcome or at least unhelpful.
A good solid house does keep water out, so what does it say when a house starts flooding from the windows and from the liftwell?
With the windows, we could look at those and say they are “the windows onto the world”, and may represent other people and the community, and the fact that they are leaking, may mean these influences are coming into our space. Maybe we are empathetically taking on other people’s emotions or the wider community’s feelings.
If we look at the liftwell, to me it feels like the subconscious coming up, potentially to light. However, in the example we did not see the water, our assistant in the dream shut off and sealed the lift. So, the emotions of our own subconscious (it is our lift in our house), have just been shut off, and this has been seen as a success in the dream.
Does the dream give us an alternative option to view the water, or other actions? We could say that our dream ego did not shut off the lift, and neither did it seal the window. You could look at your life and consider, where are you letting in the emotional current of others in the community or close to you? Where might you be prioritising their emotions over bravely looking at your own subconscious and emotions. If we remember, we didn’t actually see the water in the liftwell, we were just told it was there. Perhaps seeing it would show it wasn’t rising dangerously high, maybe allow us to understand the kind of water it was, to take care of it within our own house.
If you dream of floods and rain getting into your home, consider where it’s coming from… what is the weather outside? Where is the water getting in? What kind of water is it? What are the qualities of the water – clean, dirty? What is the water doing – is it flowing, stagnant, rushing? How do you react in the dream?
How does the house’s boundary and structure reflect your energetic boundaries? Is it showing you which areas might need attention?
While this topic could continue flowing and building, I’m going to leave it here, for you to continue exploring. Do let me know how you go.