Matthew 14: 23-33: "And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea."
When I was the pastor of College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo, CA, we formed a group to study dreams. We used the method of the Jungian analyst, Jeremy Taylor, to share our night-time dreams and explore their many possible meanings, both for ourselves and for each other. It was a very rich experience for us. We shared very deep secrets with each other, often without even knowing that we had revealed them until after sharing a dream. For this reason, the group kept confidentiality.
In the group, I observed that there was a disproportion of dreams that entailed movement beneath and above the surface of water. Dreamers experienced swimming and diving as well as doing extra-natural things on or under water. I've had many dreams of this kind, as well, so it was striking to me to learn how many others shared this phenomenon. It may well be that water features so prominently in our dreams because it was in water that all of us began our lives, swimming in the warm fluid of the womb. It's the realm of the pre-conscious, the primal habitat of our souls.
So it is that the story of Jesus walking on water toward his disciples, who were riding in a boat on a lake in heavy weather, lends itself to interpretation as a dream -- all the more because the incident happened at night. Being afloat on wild water is a scary thing for people today. How much scarier it must have been for people in the first century, when hardly anyone knew how to swim, and life-preservers were not required kit for boaters! Jesus, out of love for his disciples, walked on the water toward their boat. "Perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4: 18) Lovingly, fearlessly, he strode across the sea. At Peter's urging, Jesus asked Peter to do the same, and step out of the boat onto the water toward him. Peter made it a short distance before panicking and sinking, until Jesus rescued him.
Jesus represents mastery of the unconscious realm. He knew it, he fathomed it. It was at his service, not he at its command. When we fear the chaotic, unknown seas within ourselves, we fall. We dissolve in a sea of tears. Ever been afraid to cry, for fear of completely losing emotional control? Peter embodies that experience in this story. Jesus invites him, and invites us, to dive into our dreams and explore the inner, unconscious dimensions of ourselves. What feelings churn beneath our surface? What unresolved conflicts and issues prowl beneath the waves? What important aspirations await our attention, kept underwater by our pretenses and defenses? Jesus is the archetypal spiritual hero who knows what's down there. He doesn't let it consume him, but rather employs it to support him. He's in touch with the wild waters, but without being overwhelmed by them. His feet get wet, but he doesn't sink. Jesus invites Peter, and all of us, to join him in mastery of the primal waters.
This is a story we not only can know, but can feel. Our imaginations fire across synapses in our brains that correspond to those that activate when we take steps with our legs and feet. Our bodies engage with the story, so that we can feel the wiggle of the water under us, and experience something of what it would be like to steady ourselves upright on the waves. Sometimes our bodies jerk in our sleep, coinciding with our experiences in dreams. Intellectually, we understand dreams and stories metaphorically, but our bodies can take them literally. The story of walking on water is fictional in terms of history and factual in our embodied experience of it.
Shortly after the death of an elderly friend who was very dear to me and my family, I dreamed that she and I were swimming deep underwater. She eagerly was showing me treasures that were hidden at the bottom. I woke up from that dream feeling richer, more fully alive, and full of gratitude for having known her. She had transcended death, for me, and made me more the master of the sea within myself. It was an experience of metaphorical literalism. All of me, including my body, felt differently after that dream in the "fourth watch of the night".

My "walking on water machine", which I built as a "prop" for a lecture/sermon I gave at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz on 10/8-9/11. Turn the handle and the feet step up and down in a bucket of water.