Disaster Trends

The past several weeks, I've been having lots of natural disaster dreams. It's possibly connected to my trip to New Orleans, where I was evacuated days before Hurricane Gustav landed, but I'm pretty sure I was having these dreams before Labor Day.

Last night, I dreamt I was in my childhood house in Solvang. I was looking out the window across our backyard, watching the dark clouds in the sky. Then some lighting bolts appeared, and they lasted for several seconds. They were big, thick, violent-looking bolts--like nothing I'd ever seen before. I was so excited, because I love electrical storms.

Then I looked to the right, and instead of seeing houses and hills, we were by the coast and you could see this dark, extremely thick low-flying cloud quickly traveling directly towards our house. I was still very excited, because I didn't know what to expect, but I thought it would be a fun ride.

When the cloud hit, it was full of strong wind and debris. It crushed our chimney and water started leaking in through newly broken windows. My family and I suddenly became very scared. After about 30 seconds, the storm cloud passed on. I went to survey the damage. The chimney was a total loss, and I was worried about the structural integrity of the house in the middle. I walked to my sister's room, where she was sleeping, and there was water leaking in from the window, soaking the carpet. The same thing happened in my room. Everything was a mess.

The next day, I looked out the window at the neighborhood. One of our neighbors across the street lost most of the stucco from his house, revealing the wood frame. He was walking near his house with a shotgun, assumably protecting his property from looters. It was very strange, because the neighborhood was always exceptionally safe.

....and that's about all I remember.


This dream brings up memories of a huge electrical storm that happened when I was living there as a young child. It was so big, it made the papers the next day.

Also, more recently, one night I was driving from work to this club called Bordello in downtown LA. There were several big lighting strikes in the foggy distance, looking towards the ocean. On the way home, it was dying down, but while driving west on I-10, I saw one of the longest-lasting bolts I've ever seen. It was right in front of me, in the distance, and seemed to last three or four seconds. The oddest part was there weren't really any clouds in the sky to speak of. The air was just so humid and thick, I believe the lighting was traveling thusly.

These two events made very big impacts in my mind, and probably had some sort of influence on this dream....along with the whole hurricane thing, I suppose. :]

-Dan