Every once in a while, I get a dream that I am with my family on a cliff, and we are staring out over the ocean as a tidal wave crashes the shores below. We are safe, but I worry that another bigger wave will come and sweep us away. Tsunami dreams like this are common, and many people ask me to interpret their dreams about a tsunami wave.
So, what is the spiritual meaning of a tsunami dream? Dreaming of a tsunami is giving you information about your spiritual and emotional states of being, often the message being that you are feeling insecure, overwhelmed, or not acting on the requests that your higher self is asking from you.
Depending on the other elements, context, emotions, and people that appear in your dreams, your tsunami dream could have a different meaning depending on your life circumstances. I have put together common tsunami dreams and their interpretation.
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The Spiritual Meaning of a Tsunami
In the language of spiritual symbolism, tsunamis and tidal waves are linked to the elements of water and the ocean.
Water represents the flow of emotions, the flow of Spirit, intuition, and perception. The spiritual language of water can tell you if you are balanced, blocked, agitated, passionate or depressed in your emotional and spiritual life.
The ocean represents the connection to Spirit, and the flow of universal consciousness. In this way, it represents what is happening on the collective, and what is happening in your subconscious reality. If you think of you as a tiny raindrop, when you fall into the ocean, you become part of the ocean. This is a metaphor for the connection you have to the universe and Source. We are all connected.
Natural disasters are meant to show you how to be humble and to learn to trust. If you try to carve your own destiny without the support or connection to the universe, spiritual realm or anyone else, you can always be destroyed by the chaos of the physical realm.
Given these elements, what is the spiritual meaning of a tsunami? The spiritual meaning of a tsunami represents being outside or resistant to the callings of your Higher Self. It represents the fear of surrendering to the flow of the universe.
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What Does it Mean if Your Dream of a Tsunami?
Based on this spiritual meaning of what a tsunami represents, what is the spiritual meaning of dreaming of a tsunami?
As the ocean represents the subconscious and supernatural realm, when the waves are raging high, it represents a deep restlessness that is occurring at a spiritual and energetic level. It often means that your spirit is very passionate and enthusiastic, yet, your physical reality is stuck from moving forward.
With tsunami dreams, it can be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you have a lot of anxiety or depression in your waking life that is preventing you from taking steps that align with your spiritual growth?
- Are you agitated or unhappy in your waking life?
- Do you dream of a different life than what you are living, but don’t know how to escape your current reality or make positive changes?
- Do you dream of achieving more in this lifetime? What is holding you back? Is it fear of taking risks or a deep belief that you aren’t capable or deserving of success?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this is a sign that your physical reality and spiritual realities may not be aligned; therefore, you feel symptoms of uneasiness in your physical reality and have dreams of tsunami waves at night.
The other symbolism in your dream can give you clues as to what aspects of your physical and spiritual realities are out of alignment, and how you can make positive changes.
Dreaming of a Tsunami with Your Family
I thought that dreaming of a tsunami with my family was a unique dream specific to just me, however, having family members appear in a tsunami dream is actually very common!
Family in dreams represents domestic security, feeling safe and grounded, and the love that comes with strong relationships in your life. But, family also comes with shared ideologies, social restrictions, dependent limitations, and the requirement to be acceptable to others in order to fit in.
If you dream of a tsunami and you are with your family, this represents a deep feeling of insecurity that is holding you back taking positive steps in your life. Family is a symbol of external security, as your family represents the group of people that can never leave you, no matter what your decision is.
This could mean lacking confidence to take steps on your own. You may be too reliant on people and things around you to feel secure, instead of finding that stability within yourself.
The message that this dream is sending is that you do not need the affirmation or permission from anyone to live the life that you were called to live.
Moving past the disapproval of family or your community is a common life lesson that many of us have to go through at some point in our life. However, there are always positive results – you begin to see that breaking away from the approval of others gives you immense freedom to live the life of your dreams.
What Does It Mean To Dream of Escaping a Tsunami?
Another common tsunami dream is that you are trying to escape the huge wave, and the dream is all about you running away and trying to survive.
What does it mean to dream of escaping a tsunami? Dreams of escaping a tsunami are often dreamt by people who are highly perceptive of energies around them, such as empaths or highly sensitive people.
If you identify with being sensitive to energy, escaping a tsunami in your dream represents the strong spiritual gifts that you have in this lifetime; yet, you feel as though they make life overwhelming.
For example, empaths usually feel very fatigued, depressed, emotionally overwhelmed, socially isolated, and have many physical health issues. This is because they feel the emotions of other people around them, and try to process them as if they were their own.
Running away from a tsunami in a lot of cases represents the feeling of energetic overwhelm that is happening around you.
If you feel that this is you, the best thing you can do is to learn to manage your empathy and take control of your amazing spiritual gifts. You are sensitive to these energies for a reason and can help many people once you learn to manage and use them to your advantage.
What Does It Mean To Dream of Surviving a Tsunami?
If you have a dream that you have survived a tsunami, this is a positive sign, as it means that you are beginning to trust the flow of the universe.
You may have initially tried to run away from the tsunami, only to be swept up by the wave, tossed around, and landed back on your feet. This represents a part of you that knows your strength will come out ahead because of that trust.
In your waking life, you may be faced with challenges in the days, weeks or months ahead. These will all have to do with challenges to your confidence, trusting your intuition, and following your heart. You will likely have to leave relationships with partners or friends, leave a job, and take risks to start a new adventure.
These challenges may be something you choose to accept because you want to make changes in order to live a happier life. Or, these changes may be forced in your life and you will have to adapt.
As difficult as these challenges seem, you should always refer back to this dream as an affirmation that you are on the right path: you will survive, no matter how big the wave that comes to knock you down.
What Does It Mean To Dream of Drowning in a Tsunami?
Dreaming of getting swept away by a tsunami and drowning or dying suggests that there is something missing on a spiritual or emotional level that is literally making you feel like you are drowning in your waking life.
You are starting to surrender to the callings of the universe; however, you don’t know how to make the necessary changes to get you on the right path. This may be a season where you feel isolated, helpless, out of control, and can’t see an end to the unhappiness that you feel. You know you need a change, but don’t know the next steps.
To make matters worse, it may not make sense to others why you feel so unhappy. You may have everything others wish for: a great job, a house, a partner, etc. However, deep down, even though you can’t explain it to others, you know that you are not on your highest path.
The large wave is meant to sweep over your entire life and destroy everything, even the identity that you have built in the lifetime so that you can be born again and start a new. It is time to start living at a higher reality, but in order for you to get there, your current reality has to be swept away.
Success looks different to everyone, and despite everything that you own or have, if you are not feeling happy or satisfied, success to you may look very different from the life you are living now.
After having a dream of drowning in a tsunami, it may be helpful to journal your innermost fears and doubts. You may ask yourself:
- What brings me joy and fulfillment on a deeper level?
- If I could manifest anything today, what would I choose to manifest to make me feel more fulfilled?
- If I could walk away from anything, what would I walk away from that is causing me stress and anxiety?
These are just some prompts to get you started, and the more you keep pushing towards a life of happiness, the closer you will be to start seeing positive changes take shape.
Dreaming of Seeing a Tsunami From Above
To dream of seeing a tsunami from up above often represents something that is happening outside of your own individual reality, and something you are perceiving from the collective energies around you. This is especially true if you are viewing it from up in the sky, in the clouds, up in an airplane or flying over the ocean.
This dream may be appearing to you because of a collective emotionally tumultuous situation that will happen on a large scale, such a natural disaster, political unrest, war, pandemic, or financial crisis.
If you are seeing the tsunami from above, you are connected with higher powers that can help those in need during difficult times. It is a calling for you to reach out to those that are struggling during a difficult emotional time.
You may be called to be someone who heals or helps others, such as an intuitive healer, nurse, therapist, counselor, coach, or the simple act of volunteering to help those in need.
It is a sign that you have a lot of compassion to give to others. So, even sending your compassion to those who are suffering can do a lot to help the on an energetic level.
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What Does a Recurring Dream of a Tsunami Mean?
If you are someone who has a recurring dream of a tsunami, it represents a recurring theme that you struggle with in this lifetime. Because this dream has to do with the element of water and the ocean, the theme you are struggling with is most likely related to emotions and spirituality.
This is a sign that you are strongly connected with the spiritual realm and your emotions and behaviors are influenced by the energies that you pick up on in the supernatural. This naturally means that you are likely very intuitive and a highly sensitive person (HSP).
A theme in your life could be that you struggle with living in a materialistic reality when so much of your energy is influenced by the spiritual world. It could also be a theme of struggling to manage your empathic abilities.
Learning the art of energetic management and psychic development may help you manage your gifts, and therefore should ease your recurring tsunami dreams.
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Summary
Dreaming of a tsunami can be a terrifying dream, but facing the massive wave can let you know your own inner strength and be the catalyst to making big changes in your life. Like a wave of change washing over you, the flow of the universe can take over and move you towards the highest version of your reality, if you learn to trust and surrender.
Like everything on this site and on the internet, use your own intuition to determine if this best represents your tsunami dream. You are the best resource when it comes to interpreting your dreams and navigating your own dream language.
“Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life. They are the ocean’s pulse, and our own heartbeat.”
― Tamora Pierce
