I'm writing about this right after I wake up so that I can get it all down before the memories of the events in my dreams last night fade, as they tend to.
I'll mention real quick that I dream almost every night and often remember what happens in those dreams. Lots of people never dream or if they do, they don't remember much of it. I tend to dream very vividly and remember a lot of it as well. I can sense whether or not the memories are going to fade though and today is one of those days that I can feel it slipping away.
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So while a lot happened in my dreams last night I don't recall all of it. Like most people's dreams there are a couple of major events that take place and the rest of it is probably just overly colorful nonsense. The dreams don't tend to make sense in a linear fashion and that is fine. The two major events that take place in my dream last night stick with me rather strongly though.
As is often the case, both of these deal with having water in them and in a dangerous sense as well.
In the first situation I was at a giant theme park in some sort of flying contraption that would squirt water. In this ride you had a lot of freedom to ride all over the park most of which was covered with heavy supports made of metal that were rising out of the water. Since structures like this frequently appear in my dreams I know why they are there even though the psychologists would likely have some sort of mumbo-jumbo reason for why that is. The reason that large structures rising out of deep water frequently appear in my dream is because there is something about this sort of thing that I find quite terrifying.
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For whatever reason, this is something that I have always been afraid of and I don't know exactly why. Perhaps it is partially because people move slower in water, aren't very capable of escape if they need to, and because there are some critters in there that can seriously hurt you and are much faster than you are. Plus the fact that we can't breathe at all or see properly is a big minus as well. I actually became a scuba professional that was partially-driven by conquering this fear - perhaps I will write more about that experience at another time. Anyway, I am scared of stuff like this, my brain knows that I am scared of stuff like this, and therefore my brain frequently features stuff like this in my nightly dream sequences.
So me and some friends whose faces I cannot recall from this "ride" we were on in a theme park decided to land on one of the giant structures that was over the water. A bunch of people were sitting in little cars that were attached to this platform extending in a bunch of different directions with the spot we landed being where all of them connect. I got out of my little flying thing and noticed there was a screw on cap of sorts that was at the connecting point of off of the arms extending off of this structure and was suspending all of the cars, containing all of the people, that were hovering over the water.
I don't want to hurt people, nor am I particularly evil, but I decided to unscrew this cap and sure enough, it was holding all of those people above the water and once I removed it, all the arms that were supporting all of them came detached and crashed into the water. Like almost all amusement park rides, the people in the cars were strapped in and most were unable to get out of their seats. My curiosity turned to horror as I saw dozens of people get thrown helplessly into the water where they are now trapped.
For some reason, I had a scuba diving kit with me and even though it was me that caused this catastrophe, I jumped into the water to try to save as many people as I could. Because this was a dream the people weren't in any real danger and most of them seemed to be having a great time and were able to get out of the cars on their own. I never really ended up helping anyone and at that point started to worry that I would be in trouble for causing this. I guess self-preservation kicked in and I started thinking that "I can't get into trouble for unscrewing an easily unscrewed connector by hand, can I?"
Flight mode kicked in and I evaded authorities for a little while even though they were not pursuing me and then the dream did this thing that it frequently does where I was magically transported to a completely different area and a completely different set of people. I never faced the music for my actions in this dream and this tends to be the case in my dreams.
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The next place I found myself was outside of an apartment that had suffered water damage and I was there to help clean it up even though it was not my place. I apparently was some sort of expert in dealing with this and even though there were a ton of people that were sitting around none of them were helping. I was just doing what I do to clean up the mess.
As it turns out the apartment in this dream belonged to a distant ex-girlfriend who I was involved with some 25 years ago. I'll keep things brief but this was one of my only long-term relationships that I had in my life and for many people that were witness to what actually happened in real life, I did this girl dirty. I was the bad guy and I make no excuses about that. In the end (in real life) she was better off apart from me and there is no real reason, especially this long after the fact, for anyone to have any real hurt feelings.
I don't often think about this girl or really anyone else that I knew back then but she will pop into my dreams every now and then and normally in a not so wonderful way. It's like my mind is trying to punish me for abandoning her.
Anyway, she owned the apartment and she was there while I was working on cleaning up the water damage. She didn't speak to me or even look at me while I was there but she also made no attempt to help me. She and what were clearly her friends and not mine, all just sat there while I did the job and cleaned it up and when I was done I just opened the door and told her/them that everything should be fine now, then left. No drama, no feelings, no nothing really. It was just a statement of fact that the job was done. I could hear through the door as I was leaving that she said something snarky like "and don't ever come back!" as I closed the door and her friends joined in mocking me for coming there to help. It made me feel bad in the dream and it wasn't long after that where I woke up into my real life with Nadi next to me on the bed in Danang, Vietnam.
So what does this all say about me? Well for one thing I think it should be obvious that I feel remorse for how I treated the distant ex all those years ago and perhaps want to atone for it, but just like it would be in real life this attempt at atonement would probably be ill-received even if what I was there for was genuinely altruistic such as it was in my fixing her apartment with zero expectations in return. Some things just need to be left in the past. The thing is, I don't have any sort of longing towards this girl and I do not consider who to be the one who got away or anything like that. I believe that our relationship ran its course and that she and I both are better off because of it. But I suppose I have a guilty conscious about how I ended things back in the day.
As far as the water is concerned I have already established that this is just something I am afraid of for some reason and my mind puts that into dreams because well, we have to establish unease in my dream-films and deep water is one way to accomplish that. The part that perplexes me is the destruction of the over-water tower-ride where people were definitely going to get hurt if I unscrewed that cap, yet I did unscrew it even though I knew what the end result was going to be. Then I immediately regretted the decision and sprung to action to save the very people who I had endangered by my actions.
I bet a psychologist would say something about me making rash decisions in life and then immediately regretting them and this is some sort of cycle that I have to work to change. That isn't what my life is like at all though. I don't make rash decisions other than towards certain purchases that I tend to regret later on.
I won't dwell on it too much, and I will not make an attempt to find the ex on social media either. I guess my brain is just having some fun with me in the night and not everything needs to have some sort of higher meaning.
Wow, that is definitely some heavy stuff there! I don't know much about that first one as I am not generally a fan of amusement parks to begin with. I can totally relate to your second one though. Not the dream itself, but the situation for sure. I had a situation similar to that and while I don't regret what I did, I do kind of regret how I did it. Every now and then I have dreams with my ex in them and I am always thankful to wake up and be reminded that I am not in that situation.
You are a qualified scuba instructor so why the fear of water? Did you dive any wrecks or something that happened maybe is triggering these things. Look we are all messed up to some degree and I know I have seen some proper horror things, but thankfully they rarely ever pop up and I am happy with that.