What does water symbolize?

[Aniviel]

I've recently started keeping a dream journal and already I'm recognizing some patterns. At an average of 2 or 3 dreams remembered per night, I've got 22 dreams so far. In just those dreams, water is present several times, in the form of: -a beach setting -a big warehouse partially submerged in water so you had to pole around it in gondolas -running around in ocean surf finding hermit crabs -a house on the bank of a lake, swimming around in the lake -a shallow pool of water that seemed to be part of a waterpark -an impending flood -a dream set completely in an underwater complex -a river and wet riverbank -an ideal beach/ocean at a resort Not to mention the fact that water has been present in a lot of my most grand, complex, or memorable dreams. I had a couple of nightmares as a kid revolving around pools, lots of dreams revolving around rivers, a couple of dreams with really intricate plots set on/in the ocean... et cetera. I live in Houston, so I probably visit Galveston beaches once or twice a year, at maybe 2-3 day stretches. But this can't account for all of this regular dreaming about oceans, can it? I've visited rivers a few times in my life, and lakes maybe a couple times. I like to swim, I'm not afraid of water, yet it's not a giant part of my life either. What's with all the water dreams? Thanks! -Stacy

[Inspirer]

Water represents emotion. A ship at sea would be emotional self exploration. A storm would be stress. A tidal wave would be overwhelment. A beach is the border between the emotional subconcious and the rational concious. These are all very common dream scenes. You can read more at http://dreemmoods.com/cgi-bin/searchcsv.pl...t&header=symbol

[Aniviel]

Thanks for the info and the link. A beach is the border between the emotional subconcious and the rational concious. [/b] Hmm... I find that pretty interesting! One of these dreams was set on a beach at a resort. Just a few feet into the water, there was some sort of heavy plastic netting to prevent poeple from going too far into the water-- to protect the resort owners from liability. The beach and ocean water looked perfect, but as I swam in the water I felt crabs or fish or something crawling around near my feet, which I couldn't see.

[AirRick101]

Something to keep in mind is that everyone's symbols vary from slightly different to polar opposites. Ask yourself what water means to you and come up with the best spontaneous guess, is my method of finding some answers. I personally feel that water means a kind of purity, or cleanliness. Pretty common sense

[Burns]

Originally posted by AirRick101 Something to keep in mind is that everyone's symbols vary from slightly different to polar opposites. Ask yourself what water means to you and come up with the best spontaneous guess, is my method of finding some answers. Well said - everyone is different, therefore everyone's dream symbols are different. There are some common themes, but dreams can only be fully interpreted by the dreamer themselves.