Hi GaGa,
These are terrifying dreams. I know this from personal experience, and I don't even like to think about the one I had in the past, much less have another. However, for me they are not necessarily dreams about something in a past life, although something we experienced in a PL may be the source of the symbolism in our subconscious.
All I can tell you is that for me they seem to represent something overwhelming, destructive, disruptive, etc. that is coming (or at least that I fear is coming).
However, I have found that the subconscious source of my dreams is focused on things on the inside level, not the outside. Hence, the dream does not necessarily relate to a big flood/wave in the outside world. It relates to something "felt" as hugely disruptive, destructive, terrifying, overwhelming on the inside. This could be something small that happens in a private conversation, or something public and physically devastating. The point is that it feels like, and impacts one inside like a tidal wave, and from an interior/emotional perspective seems just as overwhelming. The presence of your family in such a dream may relate to your fears that they will be similarly impacted, but sometimes family members also serve as symbols for aspects of your own psyche in dreams, so this may also be a symbolic portrayal of something that impacts you not just emotionally, but at all levels/parts of your inner being.
Once again, this is only how I have experienced these dreams, and is based on my own experience with my own dreams (and my own study in this area). But there are many dream elements that are common to and shared by many or all people. So it may have some applicability in your case as well.
Cordially,
S&S
PS--I survived my "tidal wave" and the outer events that caused it, and have also survived the outer events that pertained to various dream tornadoes, floods, etc.
--though I was miserable while they were going on.
PPS--I have had dreams of this type that foreshadowed future events, but not all do. I suspect that is because the dream is a warning, and that I sometimes took action that averted the causative factor. I have seen such dreams as being precognitive, but it could also be that the dream is a subconscious concern based on real life factors I am not consciously attending to. Either way, you may by meditation or simple review of what concerns you most be able to arrive at some things that would feel like a tidal wave to you, and take steps to avert the possibility.
