Dreams About The Gulf of Mexico Disaster
I want to share two dreams with you. These dreams have to do with the April 2010, Gulf of Mexico disaster. For me the dreams carried a message from nature. Whether there is a broader message for anyone else, I do not know for certain. During the past eight months, these two dreams are responsible for focusing my attention on a study of the seismic activity in the Gulf of Mexico and on the psychology of Carl Jung.1 Jung’s Collective Works and Jungians who write about this psychology have become my new mental food to nourish my knowledge of dreams and of his expansive depth psychology.
After months of study, I still would not venture to say that I know the exact meaning of the dreams. Some things are obvious from the context and developments during the aftermath of the sinking of Deepwater Horizon. The obvious question is whether there is a precognition or premonition of things to come constituted within the dream events. The answer is unknown, but that question posed to myself caused me to discover existing information about earthquake activity in the Gulf of Mexico.2 Since this was never an area of interest for me, I can say the dreams were the force directing my research. In fact the dreams were of such impact on my consciousness and feelings, I wanted to understand what had happened to me in these dream events. I felt that a communication had occurred but what was it I asked.
This guided me to the writings of Carl Jung and the accumulation of a substantial library of his work. Dream content and interpretation of dreams are an important part of his psychological studies. The following emphasizes the source and character of dream content important to any serious consideration of the subject:
Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into impasse. (CW 10, Par. 317)
To concern ourselves with dreams is a way of reflection on ourselves—a way of self reflection. It is not our ego-consciousness reflecting on itself; rather, it turns its attention to the objective actuality of the dream as a communication or message from the unconscious, unitary soul of humanity. It reflects not on the ego but on the self; it recollects that strange self, alien to the ego, which was ours from the beginning, the trunk from which the ego grew. It is alien to us because we have estranged ourselves from it through the aberrations of the conscious mind. (CW 10, Par 318)
Jung in psychological terms recognizes the “unconscious” in its collective form as having its own separate existence. He came to understand that the unconscious is more than just
Dr. Carl Jung
a “subconscious” collecting content from conscious exposures but rather is an “autonomous psychic system.”3 One of his proteges and Jungian Analyst, Dr. Marie Louise von Franz says that in religious terminology the “collective unconscious” would be called “God”. The “self” can be thought of in religious terms as the “God Image” or “Christ Consciousness” of man.
Biblical Accounts of Dreams Attest To A Message
It takes a little courage to share a dream because our culture no longer regards dreams in the same way the ancients did, including Biblical accounts. They are often viewed as foolishness and not well understood. This is not necessarily true when the dream or vision is about choosing a career like dreaming of being an actor, astronaut or such. The American Dream so to speak having to do with our capitalist mores are found acceptable.
Yet, Jung makes the point that man when confronted with a real dream may lack the courage to see in it a message of any importance. This would describe me before the dreams came that I will talk about here. Jung notes that the interpretations of dreams have been the accomplishments of witchcraft and were among the black-arts persecuted by the Church. So, historic prejudice can be a psychological block to drawing on dreams for their message. While interpretations of dreams are not a sure pathway to the knowledge of nature, Jung points out in his writings that no way of explaining nature is
Joseph's Dream - Rembrandt 1650
without hazard.4 Many in our culture, especially fundamental Christians in the southern United States, claim to believe that the stories of the Bible are literal facts. Still there is little appetite by most believing in God to think that our own dreams mean that much. Surely, God would not seek to communicate to us through this ancient method when we have iPhones and Blackberrys.
In the event the scriptures hold relevance for you today, one should take note of many tells of dream communications from God to the dreamer. One of the most notable of all Bible stories is that of Joseph whose whole life really unfolded in dreams. Even when Joseph was unable to fully understand the dreams, they impacted his conscious conduct with his family. He was a bit boastful about his future position over his family. This was not exactly met with favor by his older siblings. His fate was so impacted by his dreams that he went from left-for-dead in a ditch at the hands of his brothers, to an era of reign over Eygpt and reconciliation with his family. A whole lifetime of events were all contained in the content of his initial dream. Just maybe what Jung called the collective unconscious or God still initiates dreams.
Context of Gulf of Mexico Dreams and Their Content
It has been eight months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, caught fire and sank a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. To place the dreams in context a brief history back in time and circumstances is necessary here. The breaking news of the disaster focused on the loss of eleven men from the explosion. There were no early reports of oil spewing from the submerged well head. Then four days after the April 20, 2010 explosion, on Saturday, April 24, the Coast Guard started reporting that oil was spilling out of the damaged well and ruptured pipes. Despite early reports of no oil leak, Rear Admiral Mary Landry acknowledged that oil from the damaged well may have begun when the Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22. The first estimates of 1,000 barrels a day did not stir much alarm from the news media.
The Coast Guard and BP company officials made the 1,000 barrel per day estimate from observations of remote vehicles and the size of the oil slick on the surface. The early impression projected was that the spill was not very consequential given the comparison’s made to the Exxon Vadez’s 11,000,000 gallon spill which contaminated Prince William Sound in Alaska. There can be little question now that deliberate and misleading understatements of the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf were made. The penalties that BP will be forced to pay are based on the volume or size of the oil spill.
I am a news-aholic when it comes to politics and current events. These early reports of the explosion did not really get my attention during the weekend following the tragedy. One reason was that my focus was completely on the financial reform efforts in Congress. All that would change with two dramatic dreams.
Dream of Black Body of Water
On the morning of April 26 six days after the explosion, I suddenly awoke in a frightened state startled by a dream of a dark black body of water, which I immediately realized was the Gulf of Mexico. It was as if I hovered over the Gulf witnessing the huge black body of contaminated ocean. I knew that the image related to the disaster of the Deepwater Horizon. There was an element of the vision that left me with the impression of great seismic pressure or earthquake activity being connected to the event. This was true though no recollection of the dream vision justified that notion. Certainly, there were no reports of earthquakes. At the time of the dream, there was no sizable oil spill reported. The latest news of the oil leakage was still at 1000 barrels a day. Yet, somehow my dream overshadowed and overwhelmed that view. My attention and interest was now completely energized by the dream. I began searching the Internet for more news from the Gulf. I had this knowing, this communication that the disaster was much worse than what was being acknowledged by BP or the government.
Dream of Earthquake
The next following night I was awakened in the dark hours of morning by an incredible dream of an earthquake. The dream was so vivid that it placed me in the middle of damaging and violent shaking of my home. The walls were vibrating. Things were falling off the walls. The walls and ceilings were cracking and flying apart. I awoke with heartbeat racing and it took moments it seemed to realize this was a dream. Then immediately there was that knowing sense that it constituted a message about the Gulf of Mexico. This caused me to research and write three articles for this blog about earthquake activity in the Gulf, without reference to these dreams. The links are contained in footnote 2 below. I have not found any indication that an earthquake contributed to the Deepwater Horizon incident. I did find evidence of increasing seismic activity and intensity of earthquakes in the Gulf of Mexico over the last ten years.
For the next few days I kept the vision and its affect on me to myself. It was so different from anything I had ever experienced. I even went to the dictionary to look up the definition of a premonition. It was defined as “a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant.” I definitely had that.
It took me several days before I would even share these dreams with my wife. It has taken me months to decide to share both dreams here. I have just not been one to really remember dreams or place any significance on them. These are different. I don’t claim any degree of extra sensory perception or clairvoyance, but the impact of the dream on my conscious state, my senses and emotions have been profound. Something bad was happening! I just knew it! It felt like a communication of grave warning. This was all well before the news started verifying a worsening disaster. There was no video feed of the oil at this time.
Then a day after the second dream and eight days after the explosion, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration experts put the estimated oil spill at 5,000 barrels a day. Doug Suttle, chief operating officer for BP, continued to state that he thought the estimate of 1,000 barrels a day was “accurate”. As the days past with the oil gusher unchecked, the estimate remained at 5,000 barrels a day by the government and BP. BP refused to release underwater video until after BP, Transocean and Haliburton executives testified in Congress. Under continued pressure from Congress, BP finally released video of the oil spewing large quantities into the Gulf. Some scientists proclaimed that the oil was gushing at up to 77,000 barrels per day. This amount of oil put the volume of oil escaping into the Gulf at one Exxon Valdez accident every four days.
“All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of the primordial night. There he is still whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from Nature…” “Nature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her.”
As the months went by with failure after failure to close the well and contain the oil, the reality of the contamination seemed more and more similar to the dream of dark black water weeks before. Except the vision in the dream seemed worse than the reality of this event. There has been no earthquake associated with the event either. Do I think there is a communication from Nature? Yes. My sense is that there is an on-going danger lurking beneath the deep water. Talk of lifting the moratorium and the actual lifting of it on deep water drilling instinctively raises a deep and abiding concern from my world within. I will write more about Jung’s views on how we connect and disconnect with Nature. Look for part 2 coming soon.
Jungian Analyst, Dr. Marie Louis von Franz talks about the commonality of telepathic dreams in this video clip.
- Though he was a world renowned pioneer in depth psychology, a psychiatrist who was once good friends with Sigmund Freud and an author of exhaustive Collective Writings documenting his scientific work in psychology, I was not familiar with him. I am now. ↩
- There are three articles posted on this blog related to this research: (a.) Earthquake Activity in Gulf of Mexico Prompts 2003 Study for MMS, (b.) Gulf of Mexico Subsea Structures May Be in Seismic Danger Zone and (c.) Gulf of Mexico Earthquakes May Warn of Coming Catastrophe – Part 3. ↩
- The Earth Has A Soul, Meredith Sabini, p. 80; CW 13, PAR 229 ↩
- CW 10, PAR 319, 320 ↩
© 2010, Steve Drinkard. All rights reserved.
