"Riding the Wave" - 10/13/2009

"Riding the Wave"
10/13/2009


I was in an apartment complex on the beach. There was a lot going on in this dream, before this point, but not much that I can remember. My earliest memory was walking outside, in the back of the complex, and looking out over the beach. I had been with a large group of people, before this, but I was alone at the time. I was about to take a short-cut back to my own house, which was maybe a mile away from this complex, when I heard a series of massive booms, over the water. I looked out to the horizon and saw a large plume of smoke stretching from the heavens to the water. Apparently, an asteroid had just broken through the atmosphere and splashed-down into the ocean. It didn't take me long to anticipate what was most likely to happen next.

From the base of the smoke column, I saw the water rise and swell. It continued to swell outward, in all direction, creating a ring that grew taller just as it did wider. It was a tidal wave, and it was heading in toward the shore quickly. What few people were outside of their apartments ran frantically for cover, as did I. I could see that, with the speed in which the wall of water was moving in, I wouldn't have much time, so I jumped into a semi-cylindrical nook that stretched up one of the buildings' walls. I wasn't sure how much this was going to help, but at least it was around the side of the building, so I wasn't facing the surge. I pressed my back to one side of the column, and planted my feet firmly against the other, bracing myself to keep from getting swept away. When the water hit, though, there was nothing I could do. It slammed into the complex, and surged into the nook where I was hiding. With nowhere to really go, but up, the water rose through the nook, pushing me upward as the whole area flooded. Guided by the water pressure, I was forced out of the top of the nook, and high over the roof of the building, like a cork out of a bottle. Before I knew it, I was catapulted through the air, and falling back toward the surge.

I'm not sure how this part worked, but I somehow landed on top of the wave, which was stationary, and just kind of hovering in one spot, right upon shore. The wave was a few hundred feet high, and being on top of it felt as if I was sitting atop a jet of water from a geyser. What I was afraid of, was that this surge/spout would soon lose power, and I would be left to free-fall toward the ground, from a few hundred feet in the air. At this point, I figured there was little - if anything - that I could do about it. Finally, after a few minutes of floating high above the rooftops, the water settled, literally dropping out from under me and flattening itself. I slipped into a free-fall, bracing myself for what was sure to be a bone-crushing collision with the ground. Instead, surprisingly, I was a few meters out into the water, and when I landed, the water was just deep enough for me to splash down and not kill myself.

That last thing I remember is sitting there, treading water, then beginning swim/walk back toward the shore and tell everyone about how close I came to dying.