Dreaming about
waves

A wave is what the sea does when something far away disturbs it, a storm hundreds of miles out or a shift in the seabed you'll never see. That's close to how feelings work, and dreaming about waves usually points to emotions or changes in your life that are arriving from somewhere you can't quite trace. The size of the waves is how big those feelings or changes seem to you right now.

How the waves behaved matters as much as their size. A calm sea rolling onto a beach is a very different dream from a wall of water heading for your house, and a wave you ride on a board is different again. And what you were doing tells you a lot, so it's worth asking whether you were watching from the shore, swimming, running or standing your ground.

What dreaming about waves means

Waves come in sets, they build and break and pull back, and they never stop for long. Most wave dreams use one of those habits.

Feelings rising

The simplest reading of a wave dream is about feelings, because we talk about a wave of grief, a wave of anger and a wave of relief, and in dreams the picture turns literal. Waves that keep getting bigger often come when a feeling is building that you haven't let out yet, and the dream may be the first place it breaks.

Change you can't stop

The sea doesn't negotiate, and a wave dream often comes during a change you didn't choose, like a move, redundancy, a new baby or an illness in the family. Did the waves feel frightening or exciting? English says people "make waves" when they cause a stir, and if you were the one stirring things up, the dream may be about a change you've started and can't call back.

Rhythm and patience

Not every wave dream is about drama, though, and waves also keep a rhythm that plenty of people find calming enough to fall asleep to. Gentle waves often come in a steady stretch of life, or when you're longing for one. If you were simply watching them, the dream may be about waiting, the ups and downs you know will pass.

Dreaming about big waves

People search this dream as big, huge, large and giant waves, and they're all the same dream, a sea that's far bigger than it should be. It usually points to something in your life that feels out of proportion, a workload, a debt, a conflict or a feeling you can't contain. How you met it decides the reading. Standing firm, diving under or surfing it points to coping, even if it scares you. Being knocked over and dragged is about feeling overwhelmed, and the dream may be telling you you've been carrying more than one person can.

Dreaming about a tidal wave or tsunami

A tsunami is the nightmare version of the wave dream, and plenty of people have it during stressful months. "Tidal wave" is the older name, though real ones have nothing to do with tides, being caused by earthquakes or landslides under the sea. Before one hits, the sea often pulls back from the shore, leaving the seabed bare, and that eerie pause is often in the dream too. A tsunami dream tends to come when you can see something big coming (a breakup, a layoff, a diagnosis in the family) and feel you can't get out of the way. It isn't a warning about a real disaster. If dreams like this keep waking you, these ways to have fewer nightmares can help, and if they wreck your sleep for weeks, it's worth mentioning to a doctor.

Dreaming about waves coming at you

Waves coming straight at you feel personal, as if the sea knows where you are. The dream often comes when one problem seems to have singled you out, which might be a person who's angry with you or a pressure that only lands on you. Running from them works like any chase dream, an escape from something you'd rather not face. But turning to face the wave is the braver version, and it usually means part of you is ready to deal with whatever the wave stands for.

Dreaming about ocean waves

Ocean or sea waves, without anything dramatic happening, are about the size of what you're facing. The ocean is vast and deep, so waves rolling across it can be about life in general, the big currents you're part of. But if you were on a boat, the dream may be about how well you're keeping your balance through a rough period. If the sea was gray and choppy, the mood around you may be unsettled even if nothing has happened yet.

Dreaming about being pulled under by a wave

Being swept off your feet and pulled under is the most physical wave dream, and it's close to drowning. It's about losing control, being taken somewhere you didn't choose to go. Surfacing suggests you'll get through it, while staying under points to a feeling that has swallowed everything else for now. A hand pulling you out is worth noticing, because that's often a real person.

Dreaming about surfing a wave

Riding a wave is the hopeful version of the big wave dream. You're not fighting the force, you're using it, and the dream often comes when you've found a way to go with a change instead of against it. "Riding the wave" is what people say about a good run at work or a burst of energy. If you wiped out, the dream may be about overconfidence, or about a run of luck you're worried will end.

Dreaming about waves according to Jung and Freud

Waves are water in motion, so the lenses here start from what each of them said about water.

Jung on waves: the unconscious rising

The unconscious shows up most often as water, Jung said.^[1] Read through that idea, a wave is the unconscious rising, feelings and memories pushing up from below whether you want them or not. A dream of huge waves might mean your waking attitude has been ignoring something for too long, and the dream is evening the balance.

Freud on waves: water and birth

Freud wrote that dreams often stage a birth with water, as a fall in or a climb out.^[2] Applied to a wave, a dream of being pulled under and coming up again could be about birth (your own, or one you're thinking about). It can also be about a fresh start that feels like being born again.

Other readings

Ernest Hartmann, a psychiatrist at Tufts whose five decades of work covered sleep, dreams and nightmares, made the tidal wave his starting example. People who had been through some kind of trauma (an assault, losing someone to violence, a narrow escape from a fire) kept telling him about being swept away by a huge wave, and he noticed that the dream didn't replay what had happened. It pictured the feeling, which he glossed as "I am terrified. I am overwhelmed."^[3] He called his cases anecdotal, illustrations more than proof. In 2020 Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard, collected thousands of pandemic dreams and noticed something similar, with tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes standing in for the virus.^[4]

The biblical and spiritual meaning of waves in dreams

The Bible holds both sides of the picture, waves as being overwhelmed and as the place where faith is tested.

Waves in the Bible

The psalmist describes his despair as God's waves and billows going over him.^[5] And in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus wakes in a boat filling with water and tells the wind and the waves "Peace, be still".^[6]

Questions to ask about your wave dream

A wave dream depends on the size of the sea and what you did about it, so these are the questions that change the reading:

• How big were the waves, and were they getting bigger?
• Were you watching, swimming, running, surfing or caught?
• Who was with you, and did you try to save anyone?
• What in your life feels like it's rising or coming toward you?
• Did the sea calm down before you woke?

Oniri asks you these things before it reads your dream, so a tsunami during a divorce and a tsunami before an exam don't end up with the same answer.