Thread: Fishy

Hi Marget,

The first thing that strikes me here is that catching a fish with a spear is a more primitive way of fishing that with a pole. It feels tribal, ancient. It would take more physical dexterity, really. It's more aggressive. Instead of passively luring the fish in with bait, tricking it to grab the hook, you have to actually actively go after the fish and be quick enough to spear it.

The fish being flat sounds like a flounder, so I'd consider the possibility of floundering around about something. My stepdad was a commercial fisherman, the kind with a big boat, a trawler, with a net, which is yet another way to catch fish. Flounder, so fresh that he brought home as soon as his boat was docked, was my favorite fish, dredged in jonnycake meal (stone ground white cornmeal) and fried.

I also get the same sense at the end that I have when I argue with myself about being a carnivore vs. being a vegetarian. If I had to kill animals myself, I know I wouldn't eat them. But they come all nicely packaged in the supermarket. We don't even have to skin them or filet them or chop or grind them. It's easy nowadays to just forget that someone has to kill them. That they were once living animals, enjoying their lives.

So, I wondered if maybe you're contemplating going vegetarian, whether your conscience bothers you when you eat meat? Whether you're floundering around making a decision about it? I'm ovo-lacto-vegetarian much of the time, was fully so for two and a half years while a bleeding ulcer healed, but do eat meat sometimes now, as my energy level seems to drop if I go without any meat at all for too long. I haven't had any meat meals for over a week, but I'm having a stuffed baked pork chop tonight, with cranberry stuffing, though I'll only eat the center part of the pork chop (the leanest part), and give the rest to my dog Lily for her dinner. I eat far less meat than I used to. Of course, I'll have veggies too, some frozen ones I got that look like a really good mix, and a baked potato. Oh, and apple sauce.

This might be something else about fish, something more symbolic, but if you would think about this possibility first, I will also spend some time thinking about what it might mean as a more symbolic dream.

Thanks for your reply IrisRavenstar, although I think the dream may be more symbolic as I love meat and also like most fish too. Still you're right about the fact I didn't like seeing the poor living thing being killed. But hey this is just one of those dreams that had me curious, not something that has been on my mind since. :-)

Originally Posted by marget

Thanks for your reply IrisRavenstar, although I think the dream may be more symbolic as I love meat and also like most fish too. Still you're right about the fact I didn't like seeing the poor living thing being killed. But hey this is just one of those dreams that had me curious, not something that has been on my mind since. :-)

Hi Marget,

The reason I thought it might be a meat-eating issue was because you seemed to be pondering that within the dream. Dreams often come to advise us on a new course of life, or bring to consciousness things we are thinking about in our subconscious that we may not yet recognize, so please at least consider whether that's the case here. It was the interpretation that first came to my mind, and which seems to take into account the whole dream. Nowadays, the oceans are very polluted, and at least limiting fish intake seems important, just because of mercury levels in fish.

Symbolically, the fish sounds like it's the female genitalia (fish could also be male sexuality, but in this case those big lips sound more female), whereas the spear sounds like male genitalia, so it could be about a sexual issue of some kind.

It could also be that you feel that your father has been "fished in" in some way that is harmful to him, leaving him flat... what would flat be... if it's monetary, maybe "flat broke?"

Fish can also symbolize Christianity, because Jesus used to draw two curved lines in the sand forming a Vesica Pisces as a secret symbol of who he was, and because the first letters of the phrase Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, in Greek, are ICTHUS, which means Fish. So it could have something to do with Christian beliefs.

Do any of those seem to connect for you?

Fish is symbol that takes up two columns in my symbol dictionary.