I woke up at three in the morning, drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. In my head, the ground was still cracking open and thick, orange lava was swallowing my childhood home. It felt so real I actually sniffed the air for smoke. After staring at the ceiling for an hour, I realized these volcano dreams weren’t just random brain static—they were a giant red flare telling me I was about to blow my top in real life.
Face the Heat Head-On
First thing I did was grab a messy notebook and scribbled down every detail before it faded. I saw the mountain peak shatter and felt the heat on my face. Looking back at my week, it made total sense. My boss had been piling on extra shifts, my car’s transmission started making a grinding noise, and I was biting my tongue so hard to keep from yelling at my neighbor about his barking dog. I wasn’t just dreaming about a volcano; I was the volcano. All that suppressed anger and stress had nowhere to go but up and out through my subconscious.
The Cleanup Operation
I decided to stop pretending everything was fine. I sat down and made a list of “lava” in my life—the stuff that was burning me up. I called my boss that afternoon. I didn’t use any fancy corporate talk; I just told him straight up that I was drowning and couldn’t take more tasks. It was terrifying, and my heart was thumping, but the moment I said it, that pressure in my chest loosened up. It’s like I opened a vent to let the steam out before the whole mountain exploded.
- Physical Release: I went to the gym and hit a heavy bag until my arms felt like jelly. If your brain thinks there’s a disaster, you have to show your body that you’re “fighting” or “running” to clear the adrenaline.
- Write it and Burn it: I wrote a nasty, unfiltered letter to everyone I was mad at. I didn’t send it, obviously. I took it to the backyard grill and watched it turn to ash. Seeing the words disappear helped more than I expected.
- Grounding: Whenever the panic from the dream crawled back up my throat, I forced myself to name five things I could see and touch. It pulls you out of the ash cloud and back into the room.
The Aftermath
A few days later, the dreams stopped. I realized that dreaming of an eruption is actually a weird gift. It’s your brain’s way of saying, “Hey, look, you’re holding too much in.” If I hadn’t had that nightmare, I probably would have ended up screaming at a grocery clerk or breaking down in the middle of a meeting. Now, whenever I feel that “rumble” in my gut during a stressful day, I don’t ignore it anymore. I deal with the heat before it turns into fire.
The truth is, we all have stuff we want to bury deep down. We think if we hide it, it goes away. But the earth doesn’t work like that, and neither do we. If you’re seeing fire and ash when you close your eyes, stop running from the mountain. Figure out what’s boiling underneath, let it out in small doses, and give yourself a break. You aren’t losing your mind; you’re just overdue for a release.
