Photo woman in white dress with long blonde hair floating in water — The symbolic meaning of dreaming about water

Photo Dmitry/stock.adobe.com

What does your dream about water mean?

Your dream symbols are unique to you, but sometimes it helps to have a little guidance about what a particular symbol in a dream might mean to get you on the right path for interpreting your dream. Use the information here about water dreams as a guide, but don’t let it override your intuitive sense of the water dream’s meaning for you.

Before you read about what your water dream might mean, try answering these questions to tap into your intuitive sense of the meaning of your water dream before you’re too influenced by the information in the rest of this article. It can help to write out the answers to these questions in a dream journal.

What did the dream water look like? Was it a river, pond, lake, ocean, sea, puddle, pool, drinking water, etc.? What color was the dream water? Was there a current? Was the dream water calm? Was the dream water frozen?
Where was the dream water located? Was the dream water in a natural location for water?
Does the dream water remind you of any particular water you’ve seen before (perhaps in a movie, television show, art, real life, or a previous dream)?
What was the water doing in the dream?
What was your emotional reaction to the dream water?
When you think of water, what’s the next word that comes to mind?
What memories do you have with water? Is the dream water reminiscent of any of these memories?
When you think of media or art (TV, movies, books, paintings, poetry, stories, etc.) where water appears, what media or art first comes to mind? How was water portrayed in that work of art? Does the dream water remind you at all of the water from any of these works of art?
Write one poetical sounding sentence about the water in your dream.
What does water mean to you?
How did you interact with the dream water? How did other dream characters interact with the dream water?
How did the dream about water resolve?

Share on Pinterest

If you want to do your own full dream interpretation before you read more about what water dreams mean, check out this Dream Journal Example Entry to learn how. You might also find some helpful ideas for interpreting your water dream even if the symbolism is unclear in this article about a dream study that analyzed 200 dreams (How To Use The 5 Dream Types To Understand Your Dreams).

What does water in dreams mean?

Dreams about water may tell you about how your conscious mind is relating to your subconscious (unconscious) mind. Your subconscious mind contains things that influence your emotions and behavior that you’re not fully aware of (some people might call this your “shadow”).

Water commonly represents the subconscious mind in dreams, so a dream of water might tell you about how you’re currently feeling about what’s going on in your subconscious mind. Dreams tend to help us resolve conflicts within ourselves and reveal our subconscious mind to our conscious mind, so a series of water dreams might tell you about how a certain aspect of who you are is gradually being made known to you, and incorporated into, the conscious mind. Or, in other words, your dream about water might be telling you how you’re currently feeling about your shadow self.

Drowning dreams

If you dream of drowning in water, your conscious mind may feel overwhelmed or frightened by what’s going on in the subconscious mind at the moment, or you may feel fearful about what the subconscious mind would like you to become aware of.

Dreams of icy bodies of water & frozen water

If you dream of frozen lakes or ponds or other icy bodies of water, certain aspects of your subconscious mind may be currently off-limits to you and your conscious mind is being made aware of this.

Dreams of breaking through frozen water

If you dream of breaking through frozen bodies of water, your conscious mind may be gaining access to things about you that you didn’t have access to before.

Dreams of baptism in water

If you dream of being baptized in water it may mean that your openness to the subconscious has led you to a place of spiritual growth or transformation.

Dreams of bathing in water

If you dream of bathing in water, it could mean that the amount and type of information your subconscious mind is bringing up feels comfortable to you, and that your conscious mind is listening and taking in this information. However, if the dream of bathing in water was unpleasant or somehow dangerous, it may indicate that you feel the subconscious mind is close to the conscious mind (“in your house” so to speak) and that this feels dangerous or unpleasant or frightening somehow.

Dreams of dunking your head in water

If you dream of willingly dunking your head in water this might mean that your conscious mind wants to hear what the unconscious mind has to say and is acting in a manner to allow what is unconscious to be made known.

Dreams of being held or dunked underwater

If you dream of having your head unwillingly dunked or held in water, it may mean that some part of you and/or your life experiences at the moment are forcing your conscious mind to confront information it doesn’t know about you before it feels ready to do so.

Dreams of water with a strong current

If you dream of water with a strong current, your conscious mind may feel that what the unconscious mind is bringing up holds the danger of “carrying you away.”

Dreams of calm water

To dream of calm water could mean your subconscious mind is feeling calm or at rest, or that your conscious mind does not feel particularly threatened by the subconscious mind at the moment

Dreams of water flooding your house

To dream of water flooding your house might mean that the information the unconscious mind wants to bring up feels threatening to your daily life or livelihood.

Dreams of water in your basement

If you dream of water in your basement, it may mean that the information your subconscious mind seeks to make known is currently deep within the subconscious. If the water in your basement is flooding your basement, it may also mean that the information your subconscious mind wants to make known feels threatening to your everyday life.

Dreams of great floods

To dream of a great flood could indicate early stages of a re-birth or the beginnings of a spiritual transformation.

Dreams of wading in the water

If you dream of wading in water, it could mean that you’re feeling comfortable beginning to explore the information your subconscious mind wants to share with you.

Photo of river running through pine forest. — *Photo melissadoar/stock.adobe.com*

Dreams of pools

To dream of a pool might mean that you feel the information from your subconscious is safely contained and safe for you to begin to access.

Dreams of rivers

When you dream about a river it might mean that your subconscious has a path that it would like you to follow.

Dreams of water in unnatural locations or with unnatural behavior

If you dream of water behaving unnaturally, it might mean that your unconscious and conscious minds are interacting or coming together in ways they haven’t in the past.

Dreams of a boat on water

Dreaming of a boat on water could indicate that the concscious mind has embarked on a journey with the subconscious; it could also mean that you are safely beginning to explore the surface of what your unconscious mind has to say to you.

Dreams of fishing in water

Dreams of fishing in water could mean that you are seeking sustenance from the subconscious mind

Dreams of dried-up bodies of water, deserts, or droughts

If you dream of a dried-up body of water, desert, or drought, it could mean that all the unconscious information that was there has been fully integrated with your conscious mind and is no longer unconscious. If the dream has an unpleasant, fearful, or negative feeling, it could mean that certain subconscious information is not currently available to you.

Your Dream About Water

With the ideas above in your mind, re-read what you wrote about the water in your dream. What do you think the water in your dream means?

Keep track of how water shows up in your dreams over time. Make note of whether the same body of water or type of water appears more than once. The meaning of a water dream becomes even more important when understood in the context of your other dreams. Following the progression of your water dreams can also help your subconscious mind and your shadow make themselves known, and can help your conscious mind increase its comfort level with currently unknown aspects of who you are.