It was after our office party, in the early hours of Saturday 18th December 2004. I was sleeping in a hotel in Leeds when I experienced the tidal wave nightmare. I woke-up in a panic and cried out, fighting for breath, my heart beating so hard that I thought it was going to burst out of my chest.

Startled by the cry for help, my 'room mate' [tactful reference to 'poorly' work colleague] was also awakened. I described to her the dream in which I could see a large shipping container being rolled over by a huge tidal wave. The surroundings looked tropical, the sky was blue and there were palm trees nearby. Initially I was observing this wave from a distance, then I felt as if I was trapped on the inside of the container, it was pitch black as it rolled over and over and I thought I was drowning. Then I heard a Radio announcement. The voice sounded like BBC Radio 4's John Humphreys and he was saying something about their being "Twenty thousand dead". I pictured this in my head as a number two followed by lots of zeros. Realising this was a dream I started to fight my way out of the dark water and the pressure on my chest was phenomenal.

Once awake, I speculated on the idea that I must have been dreaming about Los Angeles and the tidal wave the result of an earthquake centred around the San Andreas fault. The dream was so vivid, the imagery, noises and sensations so real that I couldn't get it out of my head for days. I told other people about it when I got home. Then in the early hours of Sunday 26th December the REAL disaster struck after a huge earthquake in Indonesia generated a giant Tsunami, devastating the coastal regions of the Indian Ocean. I saw the news report break on the BBC website and the coincidence really unnerved me.

BBC News report 26 December 2004

The next day I flew to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, on a week-long break with my family. Its possible the nightmare was sparked off by fears about the possible eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma which has the potential of creating a huge Tsunami across the Atlantic Ocean.

Cumbre Vieja

Throughout the holiday in the Canaries there were news reports on SKY TV, the body count rising exponentially until it soon passed the original 20,000 mark. Shortly before returning to the UK, on our last full day on the island I saw a shipping container parked outside a supermarket. One container pretty much looks like another, but the positioning of this particular one was an almost perfect match with my dream. I had a camera with me and took a shot [See below].

At home, I quickly 'comped-together' the container pic with an image of the sea I'd taken a couple of days earlier. The results can be seen at the top of this page and is a pretty accurate interpretation of my tidal wave nightmare.