[The dream] Claire and I are on a holiday overseas, it looks tropical with palm trees and near the coast, maybe somewhere in Asia. We are staying in an old colonial style hotel, a simple block shape with white plastered walls and a single row of windows on each floor, and a red tiled roof. It has a bit of an Indian feel to it, so it could also be India. At the foot of the grounds is a river, we head down to the river and wait for a ferry. The ferry comes along and we board, it’s busy and crowded, but we find a seat for Claire and I stand up alongside her.
I’m looking around and out the windows on either side of the boat and notice it seems to be a bit dark towards the horizon in front of us. As I watch it gets darker and darker and suddenly something looks really wrong. The next thing I know a wall of water appears up above the tree line down towards where the coast is. It is only seconds away and there is no time to do anything. The thought goes through my head that we are about to die, there is no way we can survive this. I grab hold of Claires wrist tightly and try to tell her what is about to happen, but not having seen it she doesn’t quite understand and it’s too late to repeat it.
There is a thunderous noise and it hits us. I grab hold of Claire as tightly as I can and hold on. If we are going to die it will be together. Water is everywhere, above, below, to the side, as we are thrown around as if inside a giant washing machine. The mumbled sound of the cracking of wood under water is all around as the boat breaks up. I can’t hear anyone screaming, we are all under water. There are bubbles swishing in every direction, I can’t even tell which way is up anymore. As the debris is created it swirls past and around, there is no way we can avoid it, it will soon smash us to pieces too. It seems to go on and on. It is probably only less than a minute, but it seems to go on for ages and ages. Then suddenly it stops. Are we dead?
There is a stillness. We are still under water, but the violent sound of wood breaking up has stopped. The water isn’t bubbling or raging anymore. I still have hold of Claire’s wrist and can see daylight, so instinctively start to try drag us towards it. We break the surface. We are alive, I can’t believe it. I feel around and even more miraculously my arms and legs still seem to work.
I drag us over towards the shore. It’s not where the shore of the river was, but it’s where it is now. We stumble onto land. There is absolute devastation all around us. We suddenly realise we ache badly, all over, from the battering we took, but we can just about walk, so stagger towards the hotel. We head inside and up to our room. We walk in and there are all these people in there, and then I realise, this isn’t our hotel. Ours had been further up river, this was a different that looked the same, and just happened to be where we ended up after the wave struck.
[Our interpretation] Sometimes life is just really tough and a struggle. You feel like you are drowning and have no control over it. Whatever happens we stick together and just hold on, and each time we eventually bobble back to the surface, clean ourselves off, and carry on with life.
[The dream]
Claire and I are on a holiday overseas, it looks tropical with palm trees and near the coast, maybe somewhere in Asia. We are staying in an old colonial style hotel, a simple block shape with white plastered walls and a single row of windows on each floor, and a red tiled roof. It has a bit of an Indian feel to it, so it could also be India. At the foot of the grounds is a river, we head down to the river and wait for a ferry. The ferry comes along and we board, it’s busy and crowded, but we find a seat for Claire and I stand up alongside her.
I’m looking around and out the windows on either side of the boat and notice it seems to be a bit dark towards the horizon in front of us. As I watch it gets darker and darker and suddenly something looks really wrong. The next thing I know a wall of water appears up above the tree line down towards where the coast is. It is only seconds away and there is no time to do anything. The thought goes through my head that we are about to die, there is no way we can survive this. I grab hold of Claires wrist tightly and try to tell her what is about to happen, but not having seen it she doesn’t quite understand and it’s too late to repeat it.
There is a thunderous noise and it hits us. I grab hold of Claire as tightly as I can and hold on. If we are going to die it will be together. Water is everywhere, above, below, to the side, as we are thrown around as if inside a giant washing machine. The mumbled sound of the cracking of wood under water is all around as the boat breaks up. I can’t hear anyone screaming, we are all under water. There are bubbles swishing in every direction, I can’t even tell which way is up anymore. As the debris is created it swirls past and around, there is no way we can avoid it, it will soon smash us to pieces too. It seems to go on and on. It is probably only less than a minute, but it seems to go on for ages and ages. Then suddenly it stops. Are we dead?
There is a stillness. We are still under water, but the violent sound of wood breaking up has stopped. The water isn’t bubbling or raging anymore. I still have hold of Claire’s wrist and can see daylight, so instinctively start to try drag us towards it. We break the surface. We are alive, I can’t believe it. I feel around and even more miraculously my arms and legs still seem to work.
I drag us over towards the shore. It’s not where the shore of the river was, but it’s where it is now. We stumble onto land. There is absolute devastation all around us. We suddenly realise we ache badly, all over, from the battering we took, but we can just about walk, so stagger towards the hotel. We head inside and up to our room. We walk in and there are all these people in there, and then I realise, this isn’t our hotel. Ours had been further up river, this was a different that looked the same, and just happened to be where we ended up after the wave struck.
[Our interpretation]
Sometimes life is just really tough and a struggle. You feel like you are drowning and have no control over it. Whatever happens we stick together and just hold on, and each time we eventually bobble back to the surface, clean ourselves off, and carry on with life.