People dream of water often: the flooded street, the still lake, the tide coming in. Where a snake is read by what it does, water is read by what state it's in. The condition of the water is the message; everything else is scenery.
| Variant | What the old books read | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Falling into water | Bitter mistakes and grief (muddy water) | Miller 1901 |
| Swimming | Danger; to be avoided in any water | Artemidorus |
| Crossing water | Setting out without the means to succeed | Golden Wheel 1862 |
| Drinking water | Fair hopes fulfilled (clear); luck in cold water | Miller 1901; Artemidorus |
| Clear water | Prosperity and pleasure; good for travellers | Miller 1901; Artemidorus |
| Muddy water | Danger, "gloom will occupy Pleasure's seat" | Miller 1901; Artemidorus |
| Water in the house | A struggle to resist evil; a rich visitor (clear) | Miller 1901; Artemidorus |
What does it mean to dream about water?
The rule is simple and old. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book (1862) gave it in one line: being on the water "is good, if the water be clear", and the reverse if it is muddy or troubled. Miller's 1901 dream dictionary (Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted) built his whole water entry on the same division, clear water as prosperity and pleasure, every muddy branch as trouble.
Artemidorus, whose Oneirocritica (2nd century) we cite in Friedrich Krauss's 1881 German translation, read water through the thing that held it. Clear, calmly flowing rivers were good for travellers and people in lawsuits, since rivers resembled masters and judges; muddy rivers meant threats from both. Springs overflowing with clear water were lucky for everyone.
On one point he stands apart. He thought it good to bathe in clear water but in no case to swim, a warning neither English-language book repeats. Water is the rare symbol on which the books largely agree, and their agreement points where psychologists look too: at the state of the water.
What you did in the water
These are readings from the old dream books, reported as history — no dream foretells the future.
What does it mean to dream of falling into water?
A slip, a splash, cold closing over you. Miller gave falling into water its own branch and specified muddy water: he read it as many bitter mistakes and sharp grief following from them. Psychologists hear being taken by a feeling before you were ready for it. Whether you came up again, and how the water felt, carries most of the meaning.
What does it mean to dream of swimming?
Arms, breath, the body carried. Artemidorus was unusually firm: bathing in clear springs, lakes and rivers was good, but swimming, he wrote, brought misfortune to everyone and stood for danger and sickness. It is an old reading, and a modern one hears it very differently: easy swimming usually accompanies a sense of moving well through feeling, and a struggle, effort without footing.
What does it mean to dream of crossing water?
A river, a lake, the far bank in view. The Golden Wheel read a wide expanse of water the dreamer wished to cross but could not as setting out on an undertaking without first securing the means to succeed. Psychologists hear a change of state, one condition of life to another, with the water as the difficult middle. Which bank you woke on matters.
What does it mean to dream of drinking water?
A glass, a spring, cupped hands. Miller read drinking clear, refreshing water as bringing "favorable consummation of fair hopes". Artemidorus read drinking cold water as lucky for everyone, and warm water as idleness. The Golden Wheel read drawing clear water from a well and drinking it as good fortune of some kind. The modern ear hears thirst answered: a need met, or noticed.
What the water was like, and where
What does it mean to dream of clear water?
Water you can see through to the stones. Miller read clear water as prosperity and pleasure joyfully realised; Artemidorus read clear, calmly flowing rivers as good for travellers and clear springs as lucky for all. Here we part ways with the books: they called it luck. Read clear water instead as something in your life that currently runs clean.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
What does it mean to dream of muddy or dirty water?
Brown, cloudy, the bottom hidden. Miller wrote that with muddy water "gloom will occupy Pleasure's seat", and read it as danger. Artemidorus read a muddy, cloudy river as threats from masters and judges and an obstacle to any journey. Psychologists hear confusion: a situation or a feeling you can't see into yet.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
What does it mean to dream of rising water?
The water is at your ankles, then your knees. The books cited here read rising water mostly where it enters the house, below, and in their flood entries; more in dreams about floods. Psychologists read rising water as emotion arriving faster than it can be processed. One detail worth keeping: whether the water rose toward you, or you walked into it.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
What does it mean to dream of water in the house?
Water under the door, across the kitchen floor. Miller read water rising in the house as a struggle to resist evil, and giving way to it unless the dreamer saw it go down again. Artemidorus split it by clarity: a clear stream flowing in meant a rich man coming to the house to everyone's benefit, a muddy one an enemy. Psychologists hear feeling in private life, close to home.
What does a water dream mean psychologically?
Psychologists have their own version of the old rule, the standard shorthand of the field: water as emotional life. Its state, clear, murky, rising, frozen, tends to track how manageable feelings currently are. Depth often reads as what lies under the surface of awareness, present but not yet in view. Flooding water tends to accompany periods when emotion arrives faster than it can be processed.
Jung read water as the commonest image of the unconscious. You don't have to follow him that far to use the old rule in a modern way: whatever the water was doing in your dream, something in your waking life is probably doing it too.
A question to sit with
If the water in last night's dream were an honest report on your life this month, clear, murky, rising, still, would the condition fit?
Miller sorted water into clear and muddy; your dreams sort it by place. Maybe your flood always starts in your childhood kitchen, or the clear lake only visits after you've finally sent the difficult email. That pattern lives in your own dreams, remembered together. Noticing it is what Dreamlock, on the App Store for iPhone, is built for: it listens to the dreams you record, paints them, and remembers the water.