Drowning
This is such a common dream and has been answered hundreds of times, we first ask you to look through the many answers given in Drowning – Many Replies Hopefully you will find an answer to your own drowning dream
Because of the water, drowning depicts fear of being overwhelmed by difficult emotions or anxieties, so it often points to struggles – conflicts – or fighting for survival you may have in your life. But this might apply not to dangerous emotions or urges, but to natural urges such as eating, loving or sex, that some people have enormous conflicts with. Drowning in a dream is also about struggling to survive as a person, so it applies to your identity as it is dealing with relationship with other people, but also with your own internal world of instincts, body activities and needs.
But the feelings of being overwhelmed can be caused by fear or anxiety. But if we can, we can meet and dissolve these. For whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
So in dreams you cannot drown, but fear takes away your confidence, so then you go through the agonised emotions of drowning.
This is about being or feeling overwhelmed by something. One can ‘drown’ in sorrow for instance. So you need to look at your waking life to see what you are feeling threatened or burdened by and see if there are ways you can deal with it. If someone else actually drowns in the dream it may mean some of your feelings, your creativity and responsiveness are no longer ‘alive’. But they can be brought back to life if you care for that side of yourself. Sometimes it is simply anxiety we drown in, and much of anxiety is about situations we imagine. Separating what is imagined from what is real can help this. See Characters and People in Dreams
But such fear can be caused because if un-dealt with traumas from childhood are not faced, or by being exposed to awful film images that you believe are real. Read and Martial Art of the Mind
If you feel you are struggling to you ‘keep your head above water’ in a dream, do not give in for it is only emotions you are facing, not reality.
Water and drowning often indicates you are facing the unknown changes and so are afraid. But in dreams we can never die or even be hurt, for we wake without real hurt except for our feelings.
Going under water in a dream depicts you are going deeper into your awareness, so you are beginning to explore your unconscious. That is a major step in your development and is an evolutionary advance. It can lead to many major new abilities such as a wider awareness of life around you. A person describes one of the possible changes, “Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.”
Dreamt about someone else: May occasionally show Your apprehension about their health or well being, having the suggestion of death or breakdown.
Example: ‘I fell into a pond. My brother was frightened to be by himself so he jumped in. We were both drowning in the water and we shouted out for Mum. My brother drowned.’ Poppy S.
Poppy dreamt this while feeling insecure and anxious due to her father being seriously ill.
Example: I had been dreaming about sitting on a sofa with my friends – well watching horror movies, when suddenly everything comes to live. I was afraid of the ghost that had been drowning with her husband in the movie, and it comes to haunt me. I asked the ghost’s sister to help and she passes me a necklace with can protect me. And suddenly the ghost appears and tells my friend she was pretty. What does this means?
It means that you need to understand how your mind works. It means that you have nothing to fear about ghosts. As the ghost that appeared showed you, there was no harm in it. Dream images are like images on cinema screens – harmless unless you are haunted by your own fears. But the dream also shows you that whatever you believe in becomes a fact and alive in our dreams. It mean that the necklace gave you confidence, and in fact the necklace is only a crutch for your confidence. But we need such things until we can deal with our own emotions. See Facing Fear
Idioms: drown your sorrow; if you’re born to hang, you won’t drown.
Useful questions:
What powerful emotions or changes am I dealing with?
Am I feeling overwhelmed by something?
Can I define the strengths and ways I use to deal with threatening feelings?
Do I feel as if I am ‘drowning’ in a situation or relationship?
What is it I am feeling overwhelmed by recently?
Is this someone else drowning – if so what facet of me do they represent?
What resource or person could help me survive in this situation?
Another person or animal drowning still suggests it is an aspect of your own personality you need to care for.
Whoever or whatever it is, imagine yourself back in the dream and save them. If necessary imagine rescue services coming to your aid. In doing this you are using imagery to shift your feelings and anxieties.
All water in some way signifies your own inner world of feelings, but the sea often suggests meeting urges and wisdom lying beyond the boundary of your conscious mind. What is it you feel in the sea or river? Try putting it into words.
See Associations Working With; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; Avoid Being Victims; Secrets of Power Dreaming
Comments
I dreamed back in November that was 3 yr old was laying in the bottom of a bathtub full of water and I pulled him out and he was okay. Well, over the weekend I dreamed AGAIN that this same 3 yr old son of mine ran ahead of a group of usto a pool and by the time I got over there he was lying at the bottom of the pool face down. I totally lost it and screamed and a bunch of men were rushing over to help and I woke up. Does this mean that my son is in danger of drowining? Does this symbolize something else? Please tell me. I’m extremely emotional behind this.
Reply
I had a dream that my girlfriend and I were swimming in a river from Wisconsin to Missouri. there were poisonous snakes, river creatures, it was dark and scary. by the time we reached my parents place in Missouri, she had drowned and I couldn’t save her. everyone was shocked that she was gone and I never told her parents.
I dreamed back in November that was 3 yr old was laying in the bottom of a bathtub full of water and I pulled him out and he was okay. Well, over the weekend I dreamed AGAIN that this same 3 yr old son of mine ran ahead of a group of usto a pool and by the time I got over there he was lying at the bottom of the pool face down. I totally lost it and screamed and a bunch of men were rushing over to help and I woke up. Does this mean that my son is in danger of drowining? Does this symbolize something else? Please tell me. I’m extremely emotional behind this.
I dreamt that I walked down to “our swimming pool” in the garden.It had a canopy.There was an unconcious young man lying below the surface.I rescued him.Pumped water out of his lungs.He recovered.I discovered he was overdue on some accounts he had not paid.
Thanks
I had a dream i was swimming with my daughter and it was only us in the pool and it was all dark and very weird. Then it started getting lighter in the swimming pool and it started to get very busy with lots of people around us. I saw these two men who were arguing and all of a sudden one of the men put his hand on my daughters head and started drying to drown her, i was screaming and i was holding both her hands but i couldnt get to her or get the man a way from her.
I had a dream that we were on a cruise ship, it started filling with water so they were evacuating everyone upwards to get away from the water. I panicked because my mom was in the lowest level and was trying to go back down, people were stopping me telling me its too late, if you go down there you’ll drown too. But I was screaming No I have to save my mom!!! And tried to get to her then I saw her in a distance, in the lower level and apparantly the water didn’t get to that level because it was boarded up separately – so she was completely safe. A month later, I had a dream where we were at some big pool or beach and the water got dangerous so they told everyone to run out, I did but then remembered my mom and tried to run back into the water to save her but people were trying to stop me saying its too late the people there cant get out its too dangerous and I’ll just drown with the if I go. I pushed through yelling No I have to save my mom!! And on my way of running to the water I see her sitting on the side on a bench not even wet or in danger at all. Whats going on?? I have a dad and 4 siblings and a husband but I’m not looking for them even though we have just as good of a relationship – I always only worry about my mom drowning in these dreams and it always ends up that she was safe all along… we’re not planning some vacation or something either and don’t have a pool or anything.
I had a drean that there are lots of breadfruit trees with fruits and they reach to the lake of something.My 9 year old gets into the water to pick the fruits but as he walks towards the tree he starts drowing as the water gets deep.I try to save him but i cant get in the water as i dont know hoe to swim.
I had a dream Last night that i cant stop searching on the website about it. I saw my daughter drowning at the beach, and a stranger rescued her, i was too far to save her. The strange thing was that her father (my husband) was swimming close to her but he could not see her drowning (because the way he was swimming). Can someone explain please??
Reply Thank you
Lucy – Your daughter drowning does not necessarily point to it happening in real life. It can mean that you or your daughter is having a hard time emotionally. That your husband cannot see what is happening means he or you are insensitive to what is happening.
Tony
I dreamed my almost 3yr old baby was laying in the bottom of a bathtub full of bathwater. He appeared to have drowned. I immediately got him out and resuscitated him. As I was carrying him out of what appeared to be a hotel room, I passed a bed where a man appeared to be molesting him (which was odd because I was carrying him in my arms). What does this mean? I’d gone to bed praying to God to protect my children. I’m thinking that perhaps this dream is a manefestation of my fears concerning my 2 kids. I don’t ever want them to be harmed or violated in any way.
I had a very disturbing dream last night, not that I was drowning but that I was drowning someone else, a man I didn’t recognise but I remember he was a threat to me and remember the fear I felt, what does this mean, anyone?
Natasha – This clearly a dream fashioned about a fear you have. You were in fact drowning an important part of you. If you get rid of the images of the dream and simply remember the feeling of threat, you will get an idea why you are scared of it. But dreams do not put such fears into you, they are showing you what damage you are doing to yourself. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/what-we-need-to-remember-about-dreaming/#Reflect
Tony
I very rarely dream however since having had a minor bleed in the brain I do sometimes get nightmares (rare)
Most recent I was walking on the beach holding the and of a little child…I guess a boy but that is only as the small person had the hood of a warm brown coat up.
We fell in the sea somehow but strangely the beach turned into a vertical drop…I was trying to keep us both afloat and shout for help…yet couldn’t and the kids coat got heavier with the weight of water…They didn’t make a sound as far as I recall..Absolutely horrible and days later it’s still really bothering me.
I can’t associate the experiance with anything in my current life…
i had dream that a strange 16-17 year old girl was drowning in a pool at a party. there was lots of pool lights and the depth of it was deep. a girl had pushed her in the pool and she was screaming for help. i dont know why she didnt swim but no one would help her as cried for help. they all just watched her. after awhile of screaming for help she knew she was going to die and she was peacefull with that fact she was drowing. she then drown peacefully. fter she died she left her body. she suddenly came to this room and was laing on a bed beside someone and it was her grandma. the gir told her grandma she would take care of her. thats when i woke up. but while i was having this dream it was like i was watching it. nobody saw me but i was watching it. it felt like a movie.
I have reoccurring dreams about my son drowning in a pool. The dream starts out with him falling into a pool of water and I get upset because I am unable to dive in to get him and I become angry at the people around who are not diving into the water to rescue him. I put blame into them for this. The last dream, I watched my son intentionally jump into the pool while looking at me, and I in my dream was finally able to dive in and grab him before it was too late. Thank you.
i dreamt about a young labrador drowning, in a small muddy lake, but i was there, I reached in pulled him out and saved him.
what does this mean please…
Kiara – It means that you felt a difficult feeling that you were going under depressing or hopeless emotions, and you pulled out of it through your caring and active nature.
Tony
I had a dream where my son (5) was out side swimming with other kids, I went into the house for, I don’t know what reason, and when I came out I didnt see, my son. I looked in the pool didn’t se him still but something told me dive in. When I did my son was at the bottom! I swam down and brought him up, he was heavy. I woke up before I could get out and do anything.
Salina – This is not about your actual son, but about your dream child. It is a child that you hold within you, and have grown it over years. You have held your outer child from birth and in a similar way you have taken him into you – how could you not? You took him into you with every feeling response you felt as he was growing. With every hurt you saw him suffer and every wonderful promise you saw and see in him. And that is your inner child.
Now the dream says that he was in a shared experience and disappeared. And there he was at the bottom of the pool. In dreams no actual harm can come to him, people breathe underwater, but a change is shown and your dream warns you of it.
It is or has been a struggle bringing him up – he was heavy. But a change is coming that you feel in the dream. I do not know what that change is, but it involved the courage to dive into the depths of yourself and struggle to help your inner and outer child. It feels like a waking up process. I am sorry I can’t be any clearer than that.
Tony