Fish Sea Creatures
When we decide to speak or move, unconscious physical and psychological impulses and processes occur to produce the response. These deeply unconscious processes are often depicted by fish. The fish can therefore depict something arising from within us that could be nourishing or threatening, depending on ones dream. For instance a person might allow feelings from within to emerge that had been held back. As the feelings flow a new sense of self might emerge, and be depicted as a fish.
It can also show the attitudes and urges we have in common with humanity – the collective unconscious – and the impulses or insights arising therefrom – can therefore represent the Self or Christ – the collective unconscious. Also the sexual drive in connection with reproduction, the many little fishes being sperm. In this sense we are the fish which swam the incredible journey and grew into a human, but is still on the odyssey of life and death. The fish may be the wisdom we have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding our personal journey in time and eternity.
Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.
The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy.
Example: Dreamt I was standing in a location by the bench where the carpet begins. The carpeted area and the hall was nearly a foot deep in water. (I had seen the kitchen as cold and uninviting and had bought some carpet and put it down to make it a softer area for my children.) I had bought all three fish. They were wrapped up. I unwrapped them and dropped them in the water. They immediately revived and swam away making a threshing noise in the water.
We had guests in the sitting-room, and after a while I went to look for the fish. The guests were just leaving the sitting-room to go upstairs. I found the fish and a carpet near the sitting-room door. It looked like the fish had been pushed there like rubbish. The scales were worn off and I felt upset by seeing them in that condition. I picked them up and wash them. Their heads were cut off and I was going to put them in the freezer.
This extraordinary dream was explored by the dreamer. He said of it, “I worked on the fish dream alone for a while, and nothing at all came for ages. Then suddenly I remembered how I had been thinking about fish during the day. I had seen how I stood out for my desire for fish despite my wife’s protestations. This was something I had not done before. The fish were my statement of strength in my own home. The carpeted area I had already seen as my putting a carpet down as giving of self to family and home. I had remembered talking to a friend about this the day before. After this I couldn’t get anything. But in the evening I was listening to a record – John Denver – and I thought of my impressions of self when I went to Mr. Markham’s house. I realised myself as a very unimportant, middle-aged, not very successful man. I felt very humbled, and also the deeply gentle love for others that comes from such humility.
Then the words in the songs said, “The fish in the water,” and like a flash I realised what the water meant. Throughout the weekend I had been saying to the group, “The fish in the water doesn’t know it’s in the water. We are often so immersed in an attitude or state of consciousness we don’t even know we are in it.” My growing strength and self giving is so immersed in some sort of attitude I am unable as yet even to know I am in it.
A lot of emotion came. I cried with a feeling of humility and love for my wife. But I cried about something the crying didn’t make clear. Yet in a certain sense I felt the crying was like a breaking down, dying process.
Then I realised that was probably what the fish dream meant. The thing I was immersed in is my home that I don’t want to see. “The waters of Life. Self giving. All that which flows out of a man into his family, his sperm, his care, his strength, flowing out to his family. That’s the waters. That’s the dream. In the dream I gave my fish into my family, and I swam away. They said to me, “What is this fear underneath your pride? What is the strength underneath your fear?”
“They swam. Then they were under the mat, broken. That’s what life is. A proud, beautiful flowing out of strength, and then, it’s just swept under the mat. Life just builds bodies and then breaks them. Broken bodies on the sea of life. Life once flowed through them, now they are just so much waste on the flow of life, just like empty tins discarded.”
Here I had pictures of a group of monkeys all children. I saw how the fear or shock felt was usually only if their parent or comrades felt that falling over, shouting, fighting, was something to cry about instead of enjoy, that they started feeling apprehensive about the tumble of life.
“They don’t care if they are a part of it, a part of the group, not excluded. If they are loved it doesn’t matter that a foot occasionally comes out of the wrestling match and hits you in the ear. We are just these animals, who look in on the fight, the shouting, the loving, and say, is it all right? What’s going on? Is it something to be frightened of or to enjoy? If we go up to them and say, “It’s OK. We love you.” We are like those monkeys in the book, The Shadow of Man, who hold each other’s hand if something frightening happens. Then we look at each other. “Is this something we’ve got to be frightened of? You don’t look as frightened as you were, so I’m not frightened.”
The little ones are looking to as for clues all the time. All the time looking. They’re asking, “Is it okay? Is it okay if I get knocked over? Is it okay if someone shouts?” “Yes, sure it okay. It’s all part of living and being human.”
“Oh that’s OK then. “Sure, roll about a bit.”
Then I began to shout, “Let me out please. Let me out of here,” banging my chest. As I cried out my head turned to the left and I felt I was a fish. The position was appropriate because my head had an eye each side of my body. I remembered my two fish dreams, one with the dead fish covered in flies.
“Stinking dead fish. Something really rotten. Something really stinking, right in their (in my left chest).” Suddenly I took on a very nose in the air, supercilious attitude toward this rotten thing in my chest. “Quite horrible. It’s a stinking thing. A stinking thing. It’s a stinking fish. Take it away.”
Now my superciliousness of voice and face went. “It’s a fish, like the fish under the carpet in the dream. It’s a bit of me. The wreckage of life. I am a bit of the wreckage of life. Dead fish – out of water – how does it all link up? Such a huge thing this dead fish.” Its fear of death – fish out of water – teenage – the pain in the chest – the weak? There’s something missing so I can’t link it all up.”
My father who had a all this bloody muck on top of him from our culture about tits and brassieres, and pictures of women with their legs open, as if that was womanhood. That’s not womanhood. It’s a part of a woman’s equipment, but a woman is something so different. Womanhood is a lovely thing. Why picture it as all those things? It’s not just a fairytale thing. A woman is a real animal who feels, behind all that from her body. There’s a real human being, with fears, hopes, love, weakness, strength, and we give our youngsters this bloody stupid image – of men too – part of the deadness.
As I held my wife and touched her body I wept at the depth of feeling between us. I also saw my hands upon her, and observed their strength. I felt the strength of my manhood.
“I have all my life fought and worked hard to gain strength, unconsciously fearing I was weak. Yet now I can see that I am a strong man. I am strong just through being myself. I am strong in my own right, not through doing anything to make me strong.”
After a long time of looking and touching and drawing closer, we got into bed and lay close together. There was no attempt to make love. My body at this point did not seek this and there was no direction. We talked about this. I felt that Life or God married/united couples through flowing through them, and we must wait for that. Gradually it happened and a very satisfying coming together occurred.
As we lay together afterwards many things arose into my awareness. I wondered what power intercourse had to do with a timeless or eternal, and a completely new (for me) view of our union and the eternal arose. Before we had come upstairs I had seen how mankind exteriorise everything. They exteriorise God, the Church, the eternal. Yet the altar, the Church, God, are our own being, our own everyday experience, and the act of love is the act of Creation, birth and death, the void, everything. Yet our union, after all, had been unspectacular. How was worship, sacrifice, God, all involved in it?
I saw that if we approached each other in reverence, care, gentleness, then we approached Life itself. There is no imagination needed to understand that. Our partner, our own being, is Life incarnate. It is only an attitude that causes us to approach without care, prayerfulness or reverence.”
The following was an inner insight the man received about a dream in which, “I seemed to be also see inside the tunnel looking down on the river and seeing many fish or fish shapes in the water flowing or moving to the tunnel end.”
Example: The river really lives within your soul; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.
Dead fish: Non expression of basic urges. Non giving of self. No loving sexual giving.
Eaten by fish: Feeling threatened by irrational urges or emotions; threat of losing conscious or rational direction of life. It is an example of fear of Life in us and so repressing its urges.
Eating fish: Integrating our inner realisations. Partaking of Christ – i.e. feeling connected with society and the world, as in communion. Being a part of everyday life in giving and receiving.
Fishing: Creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the deep insights or processes to become known; trying to find spiritual nourishment; ‘fishing’ for ideas; compliments or information; seeking intuition.
Many little fish in round container: Could be sperm or depict becoming, or wanting to become pregnant.
crab The shell of brittle emotions we guard ourselves with grasping or hurtful attitudes. Being nipped by crab: Physical or psychosomatic pain or even illness caused by being too tight or self protective.
Dolphin and porpoise Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things.
Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.
I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.
jellyfish – Feelings arising from the unconscious which might be painful / sting the dreamer, bring a sense of helplessness / spineless, or are from a non verbal level of memory.
octopus Feeling trapped by the influence of one’s mother; dependence upon mother; one’s own possessiveness or desire to cling to someone in a relationship. Hadfield in Dreams and Nightmares, says that a baby often seizes upon its mother’s breast with this feeling, so it may represent the desire to posses or devour others. The octopus can also symbolise any unconscious fear which may drag us into its realm of irrational terror, or any influence you fear will engulf you.
sea lion It is similar to seal described below, but has also the male has the charcter of a bull type creature, who has a tremendous fight to get a mate and to produce offspring. The female sea lion is seeing who is the more dominat male to mate with and produce her child. So it is very much about our own primal instinct to mate and carry on the next generation.
Example: I was standing on top of a small mound or rock, about fifteen feet high. At the base of this mound my wife was bending down looking at something. Nearby was a buffalo which was a smooth skinned blue bull. It had the rounded body lines of a sea lion. I sensed that it was going to charge at my wife’s behind. I called to her. The bull was walking toward her, speeding up as it approached. Then she was on the rock beside me. The bull was now excited and running around. I was anxious it might get at us somehow. On my left, I could see the mound connected with a flat area of higher ground, and I hoped the bull would not get onto the higher level and attack us.
The dreamer, who had a habit of not having regular sex with his wife, realised that his standing on the rock represented his being independent from his wife. But the bull/sea lion in him saw his wife’s attractive behind was an excitement to his own instinctive urges. He was anxious that the animals side of him would get to him, which he felt as an attack.
seal As the seal can emerge from the water entirely and live on land, the seal is sometimes used to represent the emergence from the womb and the pleasures or difficulties of life as a ‘land animal’ physically independent of our mother. This is especially so if it is a baby seal. It can also depict the emergence into your conscious life of your deepest instincts and life energies – in Eastern terminology the kundalini. Otherwise the possible meanings are much the same as dolphin – see above.
shark Fear of death; fear of the collective unconscious, or loss of self in the impersonal Whole or All; the power of the unconscious – so its protectiveness; someone who is a ‘shark’ or unscrupulous.
shell fish Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.
Clam: Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.
Oyster: A defensive shell, but may link with sexuality through common association of eating oysters as an aphrodisiac; tight lipped; secretive; frigidity. See: crab; pearl under jewels.
Lacking shell: Our naked vulnerability.
swordfish The same as fish but with the fear of being hurt by our realisations.
turtle There are so many different sizes of turtles it is difficult to be specific, but turtles are creatures that can live under water and also on land. They also have a protective shell they can withdraw into, and these are probably the main points your dream uses to depict something of yourself. So this part of your dream may link with feelings of deeply inner feelings or even vulnerabilities that are surfacing or being felt at present.
In other words you may feel vulnerable and withdraw into a protective shell – or are emerging from such vulnerability. It may be referring to a time in the past you did one or the other.
For women the turtle can appear in dreams about pregnancy, so you may dream this if you are, or are trying to become pregnant. See: Pregnancy and Dreams.
The turtle is a slow mover, but nevertheless is a survivor and can live easily in different environments. So the turtle might reflect a need for you to acknowledge these aspects of your own behaviour or character.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I feeling vulnerable at the moment, and if so what about?
Are there ways I withdraw sometimes, and in what way do I do that?
What am I feeling from deep within me?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Edgar Cayce
whale The powerful evolutionary drive involved in reproduction, which lies behind individual male or femaleness; the beneficent power of the collective unconscious. Also the ability to dive deeply into ones unconscious life process and awareness.
Example: ‘I was leaning over the settee with my hands cupped under my chin looking out of the window. The view was spectacular, in that it was as if the house was situated on top of a cliff overlooking a huge bay, shaped like a horseshoe, with the house in the middle. From the sea suddenly, coming into the bay I could see three enormous whales making their way toward me. As I was staring in amazement they began to transform themselves and come up out of the water as three giant Viking like figures. They were so huge, that the water came up only to their knees and everything was moving so slowly, as they waded towards me. It was the most awe inspiring thing I had ever seen in my life.’ Sue B.
The bay, the beautiful sea, the sperm? whales / men, show Sue touching the most primordial yet inspiring aspects of her own womanhood and urge to love.
See: Christ under archetypes; religion and dreams; sea. Idioms: Big fish; big fish in a small pond; cold fish; fish for compliments; fish out of water; queer fish; smell something fishy.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I meeting a deeper awareness of my relationship with the fundamental drives in me?
Has a change occurred where I am starting the inner journey into who I am beyond the surface personality?
Have I recently felt a wider awareness of what I am?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Edgar Cayce
Comments
Tony, I often read your dream meanings. They offer deep understanding and reflections. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your insights.
Yesterday I had a dream that I am a sea creature that can live outside water and people cant see me, but they can smell fish odor when I am around, I could hear and see them. In the dream I was feeling sometimes optimistic and some other time pessimistic but as far as I remember I was wanted and people are trying to find me. I had the same dream many times before, last time was 2-3 years ago. can anyone help ?
Dear CA – What an interesting dream!
The way I see your dream is that “you” take the role in your dream of something that is still unknown and so invisible to “the people”.
“The people” are aspects of you that are becoming aware of what has emerged from your unconscious mind; “a sea creature that can live outside water”.
So you – the invisible sea creature – are the unconscious still unknown content exploring itself – “In the dream I was feeling sometimes optimistic and some other time pessimistic”– and you are the people who are still somewhat suspicious about the unknown, about what was covered before, yet they like to make it conscious; “you are wanted”.
And you ARE wanted because you –what arose from your unconscious mind – can make that you – the people – feel more whole.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/whole-2/
I feel it will be good to further explore this invisible sea creature by “Being the Sea Creature” and “Talking as the Sea Creature” to become more conscious of the content.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/#TalkingAs
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/the-unconscious-2/
Anna 🙂
I dreamed i was walking along a path and saw a fish writhing because it was out of water. I wondered if I could save it and decided I would try, so I picked it up and decided i couldn’t toss it back in the water because the water was too far away. I then noticed a bridge up ahead, one rather like the Japanese bridge in Monet’s paintings. I brought the writhing fish to the bridge and after deciding the drop wouldn’t be too far, i tossed it over the side into a nice pond. The fish swam around a bit and recovered, then swam back towards me and gave me a huge smile, I smiled back with relief, then woke up.
Dear Rosa – Your dream starts with you being involved in some sort of struggle; perhaps you feel very uncomfortable with a new situation “like a fish out of water”.
Then you decide to do something about the situation and at first you observe what the best approach is to reach the water.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/water/
Then you see “a bridge ahead”. The bridge is a way of allowing passage, and it can show a constriction or a release of what was previously held back, blocked by a barrier. In personal terms this means that fears or other feelings can block the free flow of your creativity, love or growth. So what happens with the bridge in the dream might be illustrating something relating to blocking or unblocking of personal energies.
I feel that the association you have with the bridge in your dream is important for it points to some form of creativity.
So what do you associate with this beautiful painting from Monet?
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working
Standing on a bridge looking into water often refers to looking deep into oneself from an overall perspective. What you see in the water, or under the water relates to what feelings or fears you hold within yourself.
And so what is “a nice pond” to you, or in other words, what makes that you are “in your element”?
Are there water lillies in this pond too?
As they grow from mud, through water to the air and light, they sometimes represent our wholeness and growth, showing our connection with the universal as we develop individually.
Please explore this dream for yourself too using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
Anna 🙂
I recently had a dream that I was in a huge ballroom under the ocean. The roof and floor had glass observation windows and one wall of the ballroom was entirely glass. A storm began and all sorts of sharks, whales, giant squid, and other sea creatures started pounding up against the glass. I became very afraid that the room would cave in. I’m a senior in college and I recently started dating for the first time. Do you think it could be related? Thank you:)
Stella – Yes, I think it could be related. This new stage of your life is stirring up a lot of feelings, which you still have to find a way to deal with.
Your first attempt is merely to protect yourself from all these new urges and impulses arising from within and the fear is merely that they “might break through” the (glass) barrier you have put up.
Sometimes we tend to rush too much when we are dating for the first time and then we could end up feeling overwhelmed by our loss of control.
Control and letting go of control also relate very fully to what we know about ourselves. This is because with too tight a control on what we allow ourselves to feel or experience we build a barrier against the re-experiencing and healing of old painful events, and also for the arising of new aspects of our potential to emerge.
How you want to handle this new situation, is up to you. If you can learn to feel okay with the loss of control, then that is all it is and then you can let go of your fear and open up to all these sea creatures who want to connect with you.
A way to learn to relate to these inner aspects of you is for instance “being the whale and/or talking as the whale” http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/whale/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/#TalkingAs
If you feel very uncomfortable, then it is perhaps a good idea to build in some quiet time with yourself too, so you can digest some of all the old and/or new experiences which arise, before moving on.
Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/digest/
Happy Dating Stella!
Anna 🙂
Thank you Tony for your very helpful website. Any thoughts on this one?
Dream: Magic Rainbow Fish in Bowl at Hotel
I’m wandering around a very large hotel complex.
I go outside and want around the grounds, which are expansive. I’m wearing a business dress suit and heels and carrying a book/binderish thing. Outside an entrance to the hotel, on a small round table covered with a white tablecloth, there is a wide, flat, clear bowl with some water and a fish in it. The fish is in water but takes up much of the bowl. It is day-glo rainbow colors and has very long tentacles coming off its nose/head. The tentacles reach up towards me as I look at it. They are feeling all around, and give off brilliant, pulsing colored light. The light pulses around and out from the ends of the tentacles. It’s very magical and enchanting. There is a young man attendant there; he holds up a piece of light-pinking paper that has writing on it. The writing is in kind of a silverfish, metallic ink, and it emits sound. There is a wand of some kind that he waves under it to make it make the sound. But then he removes the wand, to sort of show that without the wand it is just a piece of ordinary paper. I look at the fish again and it is colorful with waving, searching tentacles. An Asian couple walks by. They comment that the fish is not real; I look again and the tentacles are now just lifeless, cream-colored, tall cocktail stirrers/sticks.
Lorraine – Thank you for sending us such an interesting dream!
In the hotel you are exploring new areas of your inner world; areas beyond your “business self” which self has learned how to function well in the working world. The “irrational world” is an area where you feel less secure. Our irrational self or mind works in quite a different way to our rational or logical mind. Our logical mind works usually from things it already knows to reach conclusions unless it is researching a subject. But even that leads to what is known and used in logic.
Dreams are formed by our irrational mind, which is often called the unconscious. That is why dreams are not easily understood, and why translating them or interpreting a dream in purely rational ways does not work. We can give an explanation of a dream, but a dream is much more than an explanation, it is part of our life process, and even the great biologists say that life is a mystery. A dream is a creation from our irrational mind, and only when we can enter the irrational can we begin to experience a dream – for a dream is an experience not a logical process.
“It” will help you to try to explore what you associate with “carrying a book/binderish thing”, for some things we carry are tasks that we willingly undertake and are part of our life-work – what we are working at in our character and learning.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/irrational/
The fish in the bowl – as every other symbol in your dream – is an aspect of your inner world – your receptive, open state of mind – and it is trying to connect with you: “The tentacles reach up towards me as I look at it”. The tentacles express the aspect of you which is very well capable of reaching beyond your rational self into a much wider awareness, filled with brilliant, pulsing colored light; The pulsing Life Force of which you are an intrinsic part.
The young attendant is your inner male, a guide into the magical world of the unconscious, who is willing to show you “how It works”; how you can learn to have confidence in your own abilities to receive and understand messages from “your fish” (“The writing is in kind of a silverfish, metallic ink, and it emits sound”. The (message of the) fish may thus be the wisdom you have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding your personal journey in time and eternity).
He also shows you that without your confidence – the wand – you cannot SEE the mystery and the wisdom “in the ordinary”.
The dream then teaches you that without your own trust in your own inner reality and abilities – “They comment that the fish is not real” – you will lose this connection with “your wider self”:
“I look again and the tentacles are now just lifeless, cream-colored, tall cocktail stirrers/sticks”.
I think it is important too to learn what the Rainbow Fish symbolises, simply by gathering some information about this fish in your waking life; your dream creator did choose that particular fish for a purpose too:
The name Rainbowfish is derived from the amazing iridescent colorations that change when light reflects off of these fish. These hardy, active fish do well with a variety of community fish. A schooling fish, Rainbowfish prefer to be in groups of six or more fish of the same species.
As you can read, your fish feels better when it is not alone in a bowl, and so when it can join a small group of like-minded people, which connection will also help you to develop your confidence in your own (psychic) abilities.
So perhaps you feel like joining the Dream Forum, (Upper right site of this page, click on “Discussion Forum”) where Tony and others are willing – among other things – to help you learn to explore your rich inner world (of dreams).
Anna 🙂
This morning i dreamt that i was out in the ocean with friends and family .the day was beautiful and the water was clear .we swam over to a big structure of some sort and all around it were these massive snapper we wer told to spread our legs and wait for the fish to swim under us so it could take us for a ride .a big fish came right under me and waited while a got hold of its fin then took off with me on it .it felt lyk a good dream i just dont mnow wat it means iv never dreamt that befor .
Laura – Your dream shows you exploring the extra dimensions of yourself usually hidden by the blindness and deafness of our physical senses. It is a wonderful thing to do, but in the dream you only touched it. Everything in the dream world is a symbol which only references something else. Dreams images are like icons on a computer screen – You have to ‘click’ on your dream images to make them come alive. Thinking about them doesn’t work. You need to open yourself to the magic of them you need to use – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/.
The water represents the larger ocean of awareness we all evolved from. For example it is now known that in the womb we start off at the very primitive level of cellular production. Then our forming body goes through a fish stage and has gills. Slowly it moves toward an air breathing body. And all these evolutionary changes leave their mark, for we have at least four levels of brain – the spinal – the reptilian – the mammalian and then the human. Your dream is trying to wake you up to this bigger memory you have, and if you begin to realise that you are a much bigger person and much older than present day views hold, then it will help you to wake up to who your really are and use your immense potential.
Of course you may be mostly unaware of this because your larger life – which is the power that took you from the slime of your parents mating and created you to be the woman that you are today – is the huge world of the unknown you – the unconscious.
So your dream of riding the fish may be a memory of your larger life.
Tony
This is an odd sort of fish dream (at least to me).
I was walking through a sort of modern house with friends (although I didn’t see any faces, just aware of their presence) and was trying to run down uneven stairs made of wood to reach a lower level of the home. Some steps were normal height and width stairs, others were long and shallow height. I couldn’t get any rhythm going. It felt very jerky trying to get down them.
I tripped on the last stair and saw that a triangular object, was embedded in my thumb. It looked like a fish tooth, possibly from a shark. I used tweezers to pull it out. Then I realized something more was coming out. An entire fish then came out of my thumb, still alive. I felt no pain. It was a “regular” fish with scales and fins. It fell to the floor then leaped up and flew in the air towards a louvered vent high on a wall. It somehow managed to slide through the louvers even though it was larger than the entire vent.
My friends called to me to follow them and I went through a door. That was the end of the dream.
What a serendipitous find! Thank you so much for all the wonderful insights you share about dreams and the inner life.
Dear Tony,
I had a dream last night that I had a plastic dolphin on a key chain. I went into the sea and put it in the water and it came to life,became a full-size dolphin getting shiny flesh and eyes and started jumping about. I wanted to free it into the ocean but it was dying because of the metal key chain that was still attached to it’s head. My sister who was with me was annoyed that I was trying to free it. It transformed from a dolphin into a seal and I saw it swimming against a strong current out into the sea. I wasn’t sure at the end of the dream if it was going to make it.
I would appreciate any insight you might have on this dream as it was very vivid,
Thank you!
Maeve 🙂
I closed my eyes and was beginning to dream and me and my boyfriend was fishing. I was standing up on a rock and casted my reel. I saw a fish approaching, getting excited that I was gonna catch it and then it jumped up and swallowed me whole. What is strange is I was standing outside of myself and saw the whole thing and then I woke up. Very weird. Does this mean anything?
I keep fish and I frequently dream that I am in a huge tank sometimes it’s a room in a huge, totally huge and I am swimming with the fish, but there is no water, no issue with breathing or being wet, we are just all swimming in the ‘air’ in the tank/room.
Dear Tony,
your insights are always of incredible help to me and thanks to your website I manage little by little to get more out of my dreams – and remember more of my dreams.
I have recently had two intense dreams (one with a swimming pool and death, another with fish and pond) which I consequently remember.
1) This dream is very graphic and scary, in a way. I was on holiday in some resort in a warm climate with my mom (something we do regularly and we cherish doing together). My mom was sitting sunbathing and reading a magazine, as if on the edge of a swimming pool. The hotel was circumscribing the inner court with swimming pool – kind of a usual resort-like architecture . In the dream we were at some 2-3-4th floor of the building, and it was like the balconies were all a continuum, with no separation between balconies and no safety rails. So my mom was sitting with her legs in the air, on the edge of an open balcony (something that does not exist in reality!) basically a “sidewalk-like” path sticking out of each floor and accessible by all rooms(one per each floor). I believe possibly other people were as well – as if that were normal. May I warn you that the following part may be disturbing – involving death, and rather graphic. What I remember of the dream is that I walked into the balcony, said “Mom”. As she lifted her head to answer to me, she instantly slipped down this open balcony, like a puppet, fell in the swimming pool, but crashed her head on the edge of the swimming pool, then slipped inside the swimming pool and died instantly, already unconscious. I remember crying out loud mom mom, and rushing down and then i don’t remember the rest of dream. The death scene was so graphic I still remember it days after and it is shocking to me.
May I add that when I was a late teenager I tried to commit suicide by defenestration. My mom basically raised me alone, with my paternal figure being absent and, if present, useless as a man and as a father. My mom supported me all throughout the medical consequences of my act – which persist to this day, although thank god they are invisible to the naked eye – but she carries a lot of resentment. Every time I have some new medical problem her first reaction is “you see if you hadnt done that asshole thing”, “you see how something can change the course of a lifetime”. She says she feels no blame for what happened to me – yet I was a teenager, young and madly in love in a wrong relationship, and at that age I would have needed a hand on my shoulder, not the life lessons my mother was trying to shout at me. I was in pain and I needed a hug, and was not old enough to see my mom’s desperation at seeing me young and desperate, I could only hear her shout at me “you shouldnt be so stupid at reducing yourself like this”. I reacted later in life, changed the course of my life multiple times, and once took all this off my chest – she at first did not talk to me for months, then we reconciled and I can say now we have a good relationship and my life has been on the right path for quite a while – professionally, not emotionally/men-wise. Hence why this dream? My mom is the strongest, professional, clever and successful person I’ve ever known, and maybe I feel I won’t be as strong as she is, and even less so if she wouldnt be here.
2) Second dream is possibly related. I only remember being in some small town on a roman-oldish-medieval-like small bridge ( although I am not sure it was a bridge, I remember only one edge of it). This possibly reconnects to my European childhood – the place wasnt exactly my town, but it felt and looked homely. I remember I was trying to catch fish with my hands together with someone – a young male figure. I am not sure who, but I believe it was a classmate at college whom I find to be attractive, but am not looking into any sort of relationship with him (he’s not even my friend) – although he’s a typical coldish Englishman, and I think he might like me and would not mind knowing him better. Why him? I think we were catching fish by hand in something that looked like a pond, but I felt it was bigger, and water might actually have been flowing toward us (again, not sure of the direction). I am not sure we actually got any fish – I dont think I saw any, or maybe I didnt get it. i suspect there was some children laughter in the dream, maybe some chidlren around as well. Also, there is an ancient little bridge in the small village where my grandma used to live- although i never deeply connected with my grandma – god bless her heart – and we never caught fish there. Also, the real bridge is high above the small river, whereas the dream bridge, if a bridge, was very close to the water level.
This might be something flowing towards me – from the inside (hometown, fish)? the outside (inward flow, a person whom I do not really care about and hardly really know?)? How does it connect to the mom dream?
I am quite shaken, and would really appreciate your help. Apologise for the length of my account.
Thanks,
Kate
Dear Tony,
your insights are always of incredible help to me and thanks to your website I manage little by little to get more out of my dreams – and remember more of my dreams.
I have recently had two intense dreams which I consequently remember.
1) This dream is very graphic and scary, in a way. I was on holiday in some resort in a warm climate with my mom (something we do regularly and we cherish doing together). My mom was sitting sunbathing and reading a magazine, as if on the edge of a swimming pool. The curious thing is that the hotel was circumscribing the inner court with swimming pool – kind of a usual resort-like architecture . In the dream we were at some 2-3-4th floor of the building, and it was like the balconies were all a continuum, with no separation between gates and safety rails. So my mom was sitting on the edge of an open balcony (something that does not exist in reality!). I believe possibly other people were as well – as if that were normal. May I warn you that the following part may be disturbing – involving death, and rather graphic. What I remember of the dream is that I walked into the balcony, said “Mom”. As she lifted her head to answer to me, she instantly slipped down this open balcony, like a puppet, fell in the swimming pool, but crashed her head on the edge of the swimming pool, then slipped inside the swimming pool and died instantly, already unconscious. I remember crying out loud mom mom, and rushing down and then i don’t remember the rest of dream.
So your dream starts with you in a relaxed state of mind. Such a state allows us to allow feelings we wouldn’t usually feel – in your case you experienced the feelings of loisng your mother; the feeling that she was there one moment and dead the next.
It is a way that dreams have of preparing us for things we often never give a thought to, or even if we think it we do not let ourselves really feel it. Of course your mother is going to die at some time and it is better to have felt it as it prepares you. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dreaming-of-death/
Tony
Dear Tony,
thank you so much for your response.
What I ask myself is why it was so graphic? Does it have to do with any sense of guilt on my part (please see the details below)?
I unfortunately sent my comment without finishing, it – here’s the rest from the comment below:
May I add that when I was a late teenager I tried to commit suicide by defenestration. My mom basically raised me alone, with my paternal figure being absent and, if present, useless as a man and as a father. My mom supported me all throughout the medical consequences of my act – which persist to this day, although thank god they are invisible to the naked eye – but she carries a lot of resentment. Every time I have some new medical problem her first reaction is “you see if you hadnt done that asshole thing”, “you see how something can change the course of a lifetime”. She says she feels no blame for what happened to me – yet I was a teenager, young and madly in love in a wrong relationship, and at that age I would have needed a hand on my shoulder, not the life lessons my mother was trying to shout at me. I was in pain and I needed a hug, and was not old enough to see my mom’s desperation at seeing me young and desperate, I could only hear her shout at me “you shouldnt be so stupid at reducing yourself like this”. I reacted later in life, changed the course of my life multiple times, and once took all this off my chest – she at first did not talk to me for months, then we reconciled and I can say now we have a good relationship and my life has been on the right path for quite a while – professionally, not emotionally/men-wise. Hence why this dream? My mom is the strongest, professional, clever and successful person I’ve ever known, and maybe I feel I won’t be as strong as she is, and even less so if she wouldnt be here.
2) Second dream is possibly related. I only remember being in some small town on a roman-oldish-medieval-like small bridge ( although I am not sure it was a bridge, I remember only one edge of it). This possibly reconnects to my European childhood – the place wasnt exactly my town, but it felt and looked homely. I remember I was trying to catch fish with my hands together with someone – a young male figure. I am not sure who, but I believe it was a classmate at college whom I find to be attractive, but am not looking into any sort of relationship with him (he’s not even my friend) – although he’s a typical coldish Englishman, and I think he might like me and would not mind knowing him better. Why him? I think we were catching fish by hand in something that looked like a pond, but I felt it was bigger, and water might actually have been flowing toward us (again, not sure of the direction). I am not sure we actually got any fish – I dont think I saw any, or maybe I didnt get it. i suspect there was some children laughter in the dream, maybe some chidlren around as well. Also, there is an ancient little bridge in the small village where my grandma used to live- although i never deeply connected with my grandma – god bless her heart – and we never caught fish there. Also, the real bridge is high above the small river, whereas the dream bridge, if a bridge, was very close to the water level.
This might be something flowing towards me – from the inside (hometown, fish)? the outside (inward flow, a person whom I do not really care about and hardly really know?)? How does it connect to the mom dream?
Some months ago I dreamt of being pregnant (maybe you remember my comment) at my ex’s place , for whom I still have feelings, and not knowing who the father was. That was the birth of some new aspect in me. I got strange facial pain in the months follwoing that, which forced me to reconsider my negativity and all-or-nothing atittude, to take life more easily and especially myself more easily. I cannot change from one day to another – but I do feel something is changing in me, as if I were losing the “girl” skin to get a new “woman” skin. I think these dreams are all interrelated and your key insights give me will be surely the best to direct this new “womanly” skin I am developing.
I am quite shaken, and would really appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Kate
Kate – I am sorry I have to as it were give so much offline information, I would prefer being able to talk. But there is so much to learn, so here we go again.
You dream was so clear because it was important and so used images of things and people you have strong associated memories of. So obviously I do not know all the answers but hope to point you in helpful directions. The first is about your dream mother, so please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Integrate
Another thing about seeing a parent die is that often this is dreamt as we are moving toward greater independence. It is because dreams give us a trial experience of what it is like to lose a parent and stand alone as an independent person. So that might explain your womanly skin growing.
As you can see, dreams are often multi purpose, and you need to learn to explore your associations to find the real – your – meaning. So try describing yourself as the Englishman as he is in the dream, not as he is externally. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
I do not know if this relevant, but you said you were shaken, so see http://dreamhawk.com/news/avoiding-being-my-own-victim/.
Tony
I have been dreaming of fish the past days now.
The first dream, I was with a female friend. We were in a hotel and a foreign woman gave her a plate of fish (tuna). My friend was hungry so she ate it.
Another dream I had, I was in a ship with my family and we were served raw fish.
The next day, I dreamed I was in a hotel or condo. I was invited there by my ex and his wife. They served me a large. long steamed soy fish garnished with vegetables on the side. I held the fish as they were serving it to me as they were holding the plate in a slant position and I was concerned the fish would fall on the floor.
Just today, I dreamt of my grandmother and aunt (both are already dead) and they served me a fish – milkfish or tuna – and I found it so yummy but my aunt threw it away because I left the plate for a while and she thought I already ate or I didnt want to eat it. I felt so dismayed.
What do these mean?? Is fish an archetype of something?
Thanks very much!!!
I dreamt 12 wovles by a stream are trying to catch fish in their mouths. before they could bite down on the fish a big bear comes and swats the fish out of their mouths and eats them. Then close to my feet were baby wolf pups playing.
Cat – The 12 wolves are the wild forces that uphold your conscious self. They are the unconscious powers that are catching the spiritual nourishment – the fish. The bear is the great mother who takes and eats the inner intuitions or realisations which feed the growth of our new and young inner growth. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#EnergyCol to see what the inner forces are when met beyond their symbolism.
Tony
“The attitudes and urges we have in common with humanity – the collective unconscious – and the impulses or insights arising therefrom – can therefore represent the Self or Christ; sexual drive in connection with reproduction, the many little fishes being sperm. In this sense we are the fish which swam the incredible journey and grew into a human, but is still on the odyssey of life and death. The fish may be the wisdom we have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding our personal journey in time and eternity.”
Tony, thank you for this beautifully insightful message and your service! It is helpful in bring understanding to consciousness regarding my recent Whale/ fish dream. I am hopefully you are still writing and responding to this blog post. I also sent you email at your address. Appreciatively yours, Leanne