Dreams: Predators & Dark Water

Some of the most powerful and memorable dreams we have are about the underwater depths – a flooded basement, swimming deep or black water, being dragged down in a shipwreck, etc. Resistance may occur because the dream, like change, is a reorganization of safe neurological patterns. It is the felt entrance to the unknown, the breaking through to a new layer of consciousness by entering the subconscious. While it is dangerous, it is also a calling.

Monsters & Neurology

Dark water dreams are often preceded by or contain monsters because our neurological predator detection system is closely tied to pre-cognitive core processing. We were once prey. Reactionary neurons are encoded in the pre-cortical brain areas, even as far back as the brain stem, and possess processing tied to patterns and movements. We know in our bones that scales, pointed teeth, spider legs, rat movements, or even slow, cat-like movements indicate danger. Processing these things occurs in the unconscious neurological system before the information can be received or processed by our consciousness. Fake snakes, spiders, or mice make us jump before we can think. 

The subconscious taps into these same predator detection systems and equally old imagistic neurons. Our cortex processes these images as something like “nature chaos,” and our visual systems represent them by “the unknown” or “combination predator.” They become primeval monsters in stories and art (conscious, ascendant beasts differ). In dreams, this takes on a variety of monstrous images and – as we near the opening of our subconscious – flooded basements, deep water, or torrential downpours.  

Triggers: for Pain or Pleasure

Intentionally triggering these systems is a favorite pastime of children because their developing brains are programming their fear responses in a process of learning resilience, or quite literally, exposure therapy. By scaring other people and getting scared or surprised, they program and learn to control both reactive and active responses, in accordance appropriate with their environmental stimuli. They normalize their responses. In short, kids like to get scared and scare others so they know when situations call for true fear and can handle themselves when necessary. Halloween is an amazing opportunity for kids to mature into fear-conquering archetypes, either by dressing up as a hero or a thing to be feared. Either way, they program their consciousness with acceptable behavior and find courage, essential for proper psychological health. 

When an adult is “triggered,” something in the process has gone wrong. Their threat detection systems are aroused in the same pre-cognitive processing unit, but by stimuli not posing a true threat. Triggered individuals misread threat levels due to neuroticism grounded on inordinate threat perception. Whether trauma or a lack of experience produces this maladaptation, they see people or ideas as monsters. This reveals our unconscious understanding of human predatory motives. After all, humans are predatory, meat-eating animals capable of destroying one another physically, emotionally, socially, and mentally.

Narcissism

Trauma is one facet of narcissistic behavior. An individual with a high sense of vulnerability psychologically armors their ego, seeks weak individuals as partners, and then tries to eliminate any potential existential threat within that partner. However, if the partner successfully becomes non-threatening, they become useless – a non-entity – and unattractive. They may even become an avatar of the narcissist’s repressed vulnerability, spawning disgust. In either case, they are discarded. If a partner establishes boundaries or attempts to leave, the narcissist may justify retaliation, resulting in sociopathic or psychopathic malevolence, such as trying to destroy the other socially, professionally, or psychologically. 

Awakening the Subconscious

Back to dreams. We dream in imagistic metaphors because our subconscious contains the older, limbic systems – the hormonal, animalistic feelings which do not use words. Animals as simple as frogs dream using similar systems. These subconscious systems make up roughly 90% of our brain, forming most of our understanding, behavior, and personal actions. They strongly influence our consciousness and emotions, whereas our consciousness uses far less of the brain and struggles to influence our unconscious self. 

That is precisely why watery dreams – the fall into the subconscious – are so important. They represent a new understanding of ourselves, an awakening to that which was previously unknown, repressed, ignored, or unseen; the realm of the monsters, the great unknown. So while in the torrential downpour, flooded basement, sinking ship, or black water, remember the serious self-work – the emerged monsters and phantoms – we conquered to reach this point. In these dreams, we can use that conquering confidence to risk, dive, and examine these previously sealed-off and repressed spaces of our psyche. We will often find change and transformation. The monsters we dreamt may lie dead or transform into noble beasts; treasure may be revealed or a door opened to paradise; our own noble and terrible ego may even be there, but awaiting our direction.  

Examples

My own dreams experienced this shift in conjunction with deep inner work. In one preceding dream I was by a lake. I sensed a monstrous crocodile, hidden in the depths, yet I felt proud of it. I ascended a staircase to a rooftop for a better view, passing tree branches with hand-sized funnel-web spiders in the surrounding tree branches, but they were dead, limp, and impotent. Looking down, saw a hole in the murk of the lake and sensed a different creature. I suddenly felt too close as an equally giant crocodile shot out of the lake to attack, but it was knocked out of the air by what I now saw as my own beast rising from the shadowy depths.  

In a later dream, I was walking on a submerged wall across the surface of a black lake, hunting a serial killer. I had to cross, so I dove into the lake and swam to the abandoned, flooded carnival where he was hiding. I was nonchalant towards the black water. Another night I walked out to the end of a dock, looked down into a harbor, and, for no particular reason, dove in. I found myself hundreds of feet down, surrounded by the blue majesty of giant squids, whales, and docile sharks. 

Summation

Go into the depths, the great adventure, the edge of the known and the beginning of growth, the chaos, the change, the end of the subconscious, and the opening of awareness. Do not fear that place – it is you, and everything you desire lives below the surface.