Flood Dream Meaning
Having a dream about a flood can mean many things – from feeling overwhelmed to being ready to start over with a clean slate. In this post we’ll cover the many different flood dream meanings along with examples of how a flood may occur in your dream and what it represents.
Floods are common when we experience heavy rainfall and are typically characterized by large amounts of water rushing in and taking over an area. If we consider that the dream meaning of water is often a symbol for our emotions, it is not surprising that many times when we dream of floods we are usually feeling overwhelmed by something currently happening in our lives.
What Does a Flood Symbolize?
When we interpret dreams about floods, there are often 3 main themes we see: feeling overwhelmed by our emotions, how we deal with crisis and wanting to start over with a clean slate in some aspect of our lives.
Let’s look at these three main themes in more detail.
Feeling Overwhelmed
When an area starts to flood, often times it happens quickly and there is little we can do to stop it. In our flood dream meaning, this rushing of water often symbolizes us being unable to control or deal with our own emotions.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in life – whether it’s the mundane everyday stress of working and paying the bills to feeling overburdened by your feelings towards someone in your life. Flooding is a common dream symbol after the death of a loved one – especially as feelings of grief can hit you without warning.
Think carefully about what is currently going on in your life: is there something that makes you feel like you’ve lost control?
How We Deal With Crisis In Our Lives
Floods are often a crisis when they do occur and the rushing water can be quite dangerous in many situations when it occurs. Just as a flood can be a crisis in our waking lives, floods in our dream often symbolize a problem we are dealing with or a major life event we can’t change.
We often see flooding in dreams when someone we care about has an unexpected illness or is accidentally injured. Your dream may represent your feelings and inability to change the events you are currently facing in your relationship with this person. It can be very difficult to see a loved one sick or hurt and we are usually powerless in being able to truly help them even though we desperately would like to.
The damage from flooding can often be catastrophic – from uprooting trees to washing away roads to even destroying houses and buildings in its path. It is very common for us to see flooding happen when we experience some sort of upheaval in our lives that has causes us feelings of grief and loss.
The Need to Start Over With a Clean Slate
After flood waters have receded, we’re often faced with the major task of cleaning up. There may be debris everywhere, or there may be nothing left where the rising flood waters have washed everything away.
In our dreams, this often signifies our desire to start over with some aspect of our lives. Maybe you are tired of your job and are thinking about a major career change – perhaps even in a new city where you can truly start fresh.
You may be currently recovering from a break-up with a partner and the dream surfaces all of your feelings for how you want to do things differently in your next relationship.
Sometimes we just get bored with life or painful memories from the past keep resurfacing from triggers in your daily life. If this resonates with you, the dream quite likely means you are ready for a change and ready to wash away your current struggles with something different and new.
Now that we’ve covered these three main themes we see in a dream about a flood, let’s look at some common dream examples and go into what they mean.
Flood Dream Examples
There are many different ways we can experience flooding in our dreams. It is different for each and every person. Understanding the context of the flood – where it occurs, how it happens, and the other details of the dream – can help us better understand exactly what our dream about a flood means.
Dreaming About Your House Being Flooded
Many years ago I had a very vivid dream about it raining heavily in the living room of a house and the water rose so high that the couch, chairs, and end tables were floating away and being washed out the door.
As we discuss in our dream meaning of a house, often times a house represents an aspect of our self. The living room is often where we visit with our family and friends, and so not surprisingly my dream about the living room being flooded happened right after I had broken up with a boyfriend at the time.
The meaning of dreams of a flood inside a house represents your current emotions and how you feel about what is happening in your life. Something is going on in your life that affects your total being and has an impact on everything – your relationships, your career – even hobbies and activities you typically enjoy. You may find yourself overwhelmed and unable to know how to proceed with the current challenges you are experiencing.
In your dream, you may experience flooding throughout the whole house or just a specific room. Flooding in basements is very common with heavy rainfall, and the basement often symbolizes our deep subconscious feelings. You may be feeling insecure or afraid of the unknown in your current situation in life.
Dreaming About a Flood Outside of Your House
Another common dream scenario is when you are inside the house but you see the flood waters rising outside. Maybe you are watching the flood from a second story window, or you look out and see water surrounding the entire house.
If you are at a high vantage point and see the flood outside the house, it means you have a positive outlook on a difficult situation in your life. You may be overwhelmed, but its only a temporary and fleeting situation. If on the other hand you see the water about to swallow you and the house whole, it can mean that you are worried that you might not make it through your current challenges in life.
Dreaming About a Bath Tub Overflowing and Flooding
Have you ever accidentally left the water on in a bath tub? Once the water fills the tub, it quickly begins to overflow and spill out onto the floor – often times even leaking down into the room below the bath.
This type of dream is almost always about starting with a clean slate – especially when you consider the bathtub is where we clean ourselves!
You may be thinking about changing something major in your life and have feelings of uncertainty about it. Maybe the idea of moving across the country to work and live in a new city has you feeling doubt and worry.
Dream About Flooded Streets
Just recently we had some severe storms where I live that left many of the streets and roads flooded. In our dreams, a street symbolizes our ability to move along on our path through life.
To see a flooded street in your dream can mean that some sort of obstacle is blocking you from being able to reach success or achieve your dreams. You may feel like something in your life is impossible to overcome and get through.
Trying to drive through a flooded street in your dream means that you are trying to navigate through a difficult part of your life.
Seeing a Flooded City in Your Dream
Cities in our dreams often symbolize opportunity, work, and business. If you see a city flooded, you quite possibly may be overwhelmed by your responsibilities at work. You may be so swamped with work that other aspects of your life are being neglected.
Sometimes the flooding can be a good symbol – you may be overwhelmed by a sudden influx of new clients or perhaps your business is booming and you’ve been busier than ever!
What It Means to Dream About a Flash Flood
Flash flooding happens very quickly and often without much warning. When we experience a flash flood in our dreams, it typically means we are dealing with an unexpected situation and are overpowered by all the feelings associated with the event.
If you dream about the weather report telling you that flash floods are likely and to be on the lookout for them, it can be a sign you are anticipating some sort of trouble in your current endeavors. Perhaps one of your relationships is not going as smoothly as you like, or perhaps you feel anxiety over a potential problem you foresee in the future.
Muddy and Dirty Water From a Flood Dream Meaning
Dirty water in our dreams often means we are uncertain about our emotions. We may be unsure about what to do next in life. If you dream of a flood where the water is very muddy, it can mean that you are feeling overwhelmed with a lot of grief and other negative emotions.
Swimming or Boating in a Flood
If you have a dream where you are swimming in a flood, or perhaps even boating through a flood, it means that while you are feeling very overwhelmed you are going to be able to survive the current challenges in your life and make it through.
For more insight on swimming or boating, see our articles on swimming in dreams and what it means to dream about a boat.
Escaping a Flood Dream Meaning
If you are able to safely escape from a flood in your dream, it means that you are able to deal with challenges and overcome difficult situations in your life. Whether you’re able to climb to dry land or even successfully outrun the waters coming towards you, you will likely be able to avoid total disaster despite how intimidating your current happenings in life may be.
What Does Rising Water Mean in a Dream?
Rising water in a dream means that the stakes are getting higher in your life. You may have much to lose – but you also may have much to gain. You may feel trapped in a situation in your life and feel the need to make some major life decisions and changes.
I’m Overwhelmed In Life: Now What?
If you have a dream about a flood, you probably already know you are completely overwhelmed with something happening in your life. Where we often get stuck is trying to figure out what we do about it. After all, we can’t control rising waters anymore than we can control our own emotions.
Here are some things that can be helpful for you when you feel entirely overwhelmed:
Ask For Help: Asking for help is probably one of the hardest things for some of us to do. We don’t want to admit we can’t handle something, in fear that it might make us appear weak or incompetent to others. While it might be painful to do at first, often times most people are more than happy to help if we only ask. Friends, family members, or even a trusted therapist can help you relieve some of the burden.
Practice Radical Acceptance: Radical acceptance is a coping skill where we acknowledge what we are going through is painful and its not within our control to change anything. We might not be able to stop the wave, but we can accept that a wave is coming and do our best to ride it through.
Learn to Let Go: We often try to do too many things and hang onto a lot of things that don’t serve us any good – whether its physical objects and responsibilities to emotion baggage. Try to clear your calendar. Practice the art of saying no. Release anything that is not currently serving you in a positive way in your life. It can be painful to let go, but often times once we let go of our expectations for a certain outcome it can bring some much needed relief.
Dreaming about a flood can be worrisome, but often times it is simply a sign that you need to worry less. You may need to reduce your stress levels or confront a problem you are facing and have been ignoring. While we can’t always change what’s happening in our life, understanding what our dream means can help us better cope with what is going on.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What has me feeling completely overwhelmed in life?
- How do I handle the flood in the dream? How does this correlate to how I am currently responding to stress in my life?
- What small changes can I make to have less responsibilities?
- Who can help me with my current problems?
I hope this dream interpretation for flooding is helpful for you and of course if you’ve had a dream about a flood, I would love to hear about it and what you think it means in the comments section below!
