There is a Chinese tradition that the waves are the abode of dragons,
and that they are also symbolic of purity (5). The apparent contradiction here
arises from the fact that the ocean swell offers two different aspects: because of
their rhythmic undulations they are reminiscent of dragons, and by virtue of their
white foam they suggest purity. There is thus no question of dual tendencies
here—only juxtaposition.

To dream of waves, is a sign that you hold some vital step in contemplation, which will evolve much knowledge if the waves are clear; but you will make a fatal error if you see them muddy or lashed by a storm.

To see clear, calm waves in your dream, signify renewal and clarity. You are reflecting on some important life decision that needs to be made. Alternatively, if you are riding a wave, then it indicates that you are trying to get a handle on your emotions. Waves also symbolize potential and power.

To hear waves crashing in your dream, indicates tenderness and relaxation. It also brings about feelings of sensuality, sexuality and tranquility.

To dream that you are caught in a tidal wave, represents an overwhelming emotional issue that demands your attention. You may have been keeping your feelings and negative emotions bottled up inside for too long. You may be holding back tears that you are afraid to express in your waking life. On a positive note, the tidal wave symbolizes the clearing away of old habits. If you are carried away by the tidal wave, then it means that you are ready to make a brand new start in a new place.

To see muddy, violent waves in your dream, indicate a fatal error in an important decision.

Seeing clear, calm waves in your dream means a calming of emotions. It may also signal an important decision to be made. Hearing waves crashing in your dream indicates tenderness and relaxation. It also brings about feelings of sensuality and sexuality. Dreaming that you are caught in a tidal wave means the strength of your emotions, perhaps accompanied by tears that you are holding back in your waking life. Seeing muddy, violent waves in your dream means that a fatal error was made in an important decision.

To dream that you are dreaming, signifies your emotional state. You are excessively worried and fearful about a situation or circumstance that you are going through.

To see people you know in your dream, signifies qualities and feelings of them that you desire for yourself. If these people are from your past, then the dream refers to your shadow and other unacknowledged aspects of yourself. It may represent a waking situation that is bringing out similar feelings from your past relationships.

To see people you don't know in your dream, denotes hidden aspects of yourself that you need to confront or acknowledge.

Seeing people you know in your dream means qualities and feelings of those people that you desire for yourself. Seeing people you don't know in your dream indicates hidden aspects of yourself that you need to confront. Seeing people from your past in your dream, refers to your shadow and other unacknowledged aspects of yourself. It can represent a waking situation that is bringing out similar feelings as your past relationships.

To dream that you are playing, refers to your tendency to go against the norm and break the rules of convention. You are displaying unrestricted creativity. Alternatively, playing implies that you are all work and no play. You need to relax and let loose. On the other hand, the dream may also be saying that you are not taking things seriously enough. You need to face reality.

To dream that you are in a play, represents the roles you play in your life and the various acts and personas you put on. If you are watching the play, then it suggests that you need to draw from the inspiration of others.

For a young woman to dream that she attends a play, foretells that she will be courted by a genial friend, and will marry to further her prospects and pleasure seeking. If there is trouble in getting to and from the play, or discordant and hideous scenes, she will be confronted with many displeasing surprises.

Dreaming that you are playing, suggests your tendency to go against the norm and break the rules of convention. You have unrestricted creativity. Alternatively, it may be an indication that you are all work and no play. Dreaming that you are watching a play, represents the parts you play in your life and the various acts and personas you put on.

To dream that you attend a wake, denotes that you will sacrifice some important engagement to enjoy some ill-favored assignation.

For a young woman to see her lover at a wake, foretells that she will listen to the entreaties of passion, and will be persuaded to hazard honor for love.

To dream that you attend a wake, refers to your grieving process. You need to find closure. It is okay to seek the support in order to help you get through a difficult time. Alternatively, the dream suggests that it is time to celebrate the positive qualities of someone who is no longer in your life.

To dream that you are waking up in your dream, indicates that something is missing or lacking in your life. There is an aspect of your life that you are not utilizing to its fullest potential. You are not recognizing your abilities. The dream is literally telling you to open your eyes and wake up! Alternatively, waking up in your dream may be a signal of a lucid dream.

Dreaming that you attend a wake of a friend or loved one, foretells that you will hear sad news. Seeing a friend attending a wake, forewarns that that friend is in grave danger. Dreaming that you are waking up in your dream, indicates that something is missing or lacking in your life. There is an aspect of your life that you are not utilizing to its fullest potential. You are not recognizing your abilities.

The symbolism of power has been subjected to an extensive study by
Percy Ernst Schramm in his Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik (Stuttgart,
1954). Power, as a symbol, represents irradiating force, but it is only latterly that
it has acquired this significance, for in totemistic and primitive times it was
generally understood more in the sense of an image of the forces of nature (and of
the animal world in particular) than as an expression of abstract or temporal
dominion. Hence, the principal attributes of a superior power are simply magnified versions of totemic emblems or of adornments derived from them, such as
necklaces of teeth and claws, hides, head-dresses, horns, and various kinds of
standards exhibiting these objects. It was probably with the dawning of the solar
cult that the diadem—the original form of the crown—came to be adopted as
another attribute of power. The immediate effect of the assumption of power upon the body and the attitude of mind is to confer impassivity, indifference—
either real or affected—and serenity and, equally, a tendency to ‘swell with
pride’. Hence the fascination of the hieratic gesture and its use on solemn occasions. Dynamic movements such as stretching out the arms or nodding or turning
the head may also be executed in a rhythm suggestive of hieratic strength and
calm. Ancient art gave expression to a basically similar attitude towards the
powers of the world. Height above ground-level, and the situation of a particular
symbolic element at the centre of a symmetrical pattern—the Greek Potne Theron
for instance—are further illustrations of power-symbolism, deriving from the
symbolisms of level and of the ‘Centre’. Differentiated expressions of power give
rise to the king, the priest and the military leader, each one characterized by his
respective attributes. The synthesis of power is denoted by ternary symbols
such as the triple crown. Certain other symbols embracing the threefold power,
such as the trident, are generally reckoned to pertain to the infernal regions, but
this has come about rather through the influence of traditional, mythological ideas
than by true symbolic logic. Magic power—a corrupt form of religious power—
is symbolized by the wand and sometimes by the sword. There are also certain
other objects linked with the idea of power, but they are attributes or instruments
rather than symbols proper.
Of great interest is the complex symbolic system behind the emblems of the
Egyptian pharaoh. The double crown denotes Upper and Lower Egypt, but it
also expresses the ideas of the masculine and feminine principles, and of heaven
and earth. Sceptres—straight (the lash) and curved (the crook)—are probably
attributes of cattle-raising and of agriculture respectively; yet at the same time
they denote the straight path (or the solar, diurnal, logical course) and the crooked
path (the lunar, nocturnal and intuitive). The Uraeus beyond doubt symbolizes
the sublimated serpent—raised, that is to say, in height (the kundalini), so as to
become a symbol of strength transformed into spirit or an aspect of power. In
itself, the idea of power embraces the notions of extreme self-awareness and
integrity, defensive concentration of forces, appropriation and domination of the
environment, and effulgence. Hence, to take these ideas in turn, the symbols of
power are names, seals, marks, standards and signs; masks, helmets, head-dresses,
swords and shields; sceptres, crowns, pallia and palaces; and effulgence is expressed by gold and precious stones. Domination also finds expression in such
forms of the quaternary as four-headed sceptres, hermae or thrones alluding to
the cardinal points. The crown, in its most highly developed form, embraces the
diadem or circle and the hemisphere or image of the vault of heavens; and sometimes it denotes the four points of the compass—or suggests them by means of four bands which rise up from the diadem to meet higher up, in the middle,
surmounted by another symbolic motif. The idea of royalty is, of course, linked
with sun-symbolism, and therefore the animals associated with it are such as the
eagle and the lion, and on occasion the dragon. Once Christianity had become the
official religion of the Roman Empire, various Christian symbols of sublimation
accrue to the symbolism of power, notably the crucifix and the fleur-de-lis. The
latter symbol is found in Byzantium, whence it reached Central Europe, Germany, France and the Western world by the 1st millennium A.D.

To dream that you have power, indicates your growing confidence, high self-esteem and increasing skills. Alternatively, your dream of power may try to compensate for a waking situation where you felt powerless.

To dream that you do not have any power, refers to a waking situation in which you felt unable to do anything.

Dreaming that you have power indicates your growing confidence, high self-esteem and increasing skills. Alternatively, your dream of power may try to compensate for a waking situation in which you were powerless. Dreaming that you do not have any power or feel powerless, refers to a waking situation in which you felt unable to do anything.

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the symbol for water is a wavy line with
small sharp crests, representing the water’s surface. The same sign, when tripled,
symbolizes a volume of water, that is, the primaeval ocean and prime matter.
According to hermetic tradition, the god Nu was the substance from which the
gods of the first ennead emerged (19). The Chinese consider water as the specific
abode of the dragon, because all life comes from the waters (13). In the Vedas,
water is referred to as mâtritamâh (the most maternal) because, in the beginning,
everything was like a sea without light. In India, this element is generally regarded
as the preserver of life, circulating throughout the whole of nature, in the form of
rain, sap, milk and blood. Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and
the end of all things on earth (60). Although water is, in appearance, formless,
ancient cultures made a distinction between ‘upper waters’ and ‘lower waters’.
The former correspond to the potential or what is still possible, the latter to what
is actual or already created (26). In a general sense, the concept of ‘water’ stands,
of course, for all liquid matter. Moreover, the primaeval waters, the image of
prime matter, also contained all solid bodies before they acquired form and rigidity. For this reason, the alchemists gave the name of ‘water’ to quicksilver in its
first stage of transmutation and, by analogy, also to the ‘fluid body’ of Man (57).
This ‘fluid body’ is interpreted by modern psychology as a symbol of the unconscious, that is, of the non-formal, dynamic, motivating, female side of the personality. The projection of the mother-imago into the waters endows them with
various numinous properties characteristic of the mother (31). A secondary meaning of this symbolism is found in the identification of water with intuitive wisdom. In the cosmogony of the Mesopotamian peoples, the abyss of water was
regarded as a symbol of the unfathomable, impersonal Wisdom. An ancient Irish
god was called Domnu, which means ‘marine depth’. In prehistoric times the
word for abyss seems to have been used exclusively to denote that which was
unfathomable and mysterious (4). The waters, in short, symbolize the universal
congress of potentialities, the fons et origo, which precedes all form and all
creation. Immersion in water signifies a return to the preformal state, with a sense
of death and annihilation on the one hand, but of rebirth and regeneration on the
other, since immersion intensifies the life-force. The symbolism of baptism,
which is closely linked to that of water, has been expounded by St. John
Chrysostom (Homil. in Joh., XXV, 2): ‘It represents death and interment, life and
resurrection. . . . When we plunge our head beneath water, as in a sepulchre, the
old man becomes completely immersed and buried. When we leave the water, the
new man suddenly appears’ (18). The ambiguity of this quotation is only on the
surface: in this particular aspect of the general symbolism of water, death affects
only Man-in-nature while the rebirth is that of spiritual man. On the cosmic level,
the equivalent of immersion is the flood, which causes all forms to dissolve and
return to a fluid state, thus liberating the elements which will later be recombined
in new cosmic patterns. The qualities of transparency and depth, often associated with water, go far towards explaining the veneration of the ancients for this
element which, like earth, was a female principle. The Babylonians called it ‘the
home of wisdom’. Oannes, the mythical being who brings culture to mankind, is
portrayed as half man and half fish (17). Moreover, in dreams, birth is usually
expressed through water-imagery (v. Freud, Introduction to Psycho-Analysis).
The expressions ‘risen from the waves’ and ‘saved from the waters’ symbolize
fertility, and are metaphorical images of childbirth. On the other hand, water is, of
all the elements, the most clearly transitional, between fire and air (the ethereal
elements) and earth (the solid element). By analogy, water stands as a mediator
between life and death, with a two-way positive and negative flow of creation and
destruction. The Charon and Ophelia myths symbolize the last voyage. Death
was the first mariner. ‘Transparent depth’, apart from other meanings, stands in
particular for the communicating link between the surface and the abyss. It can
therefore be said that water conjoins these two images (2). Gaston Bachelard
points to many different characteristics of water, and derives from them many
secondary symbolic meanings which enrich the fundamental meaning we have described. These secondary meanings are not so much a set of strict symbols, as
a kind of language expressing the transmutations of this ever-flowing element.
Bachelard enumerates clear water, spring water, running water, stagnant water,
dead water, fresh and salt water, reflecting water, purifying water, deep water,
stormy water. Whether we take water as a symbol of the collective or of the
personal unconscious, or else as an element of mediation and dissolution, it is
obvious that this symbolism is an expression of the vital potential of the psyche,
of the struggles of the psychic depths to find a way of formulating a clear message
comprehensible to the consciousness. On the other hand, secondary symbolisms
are derived from associated objects such as water-containers, and also from the
ways in which water is used: ablutions, baths, holy water, etc. There is also a
very important spatial symbolism connected with the ‘level’ of the waters, denoting a correlation between actual physical level and absolute moral level. It is
for this reason that the Buddha, in his Assapuram sermon, was able to regard the
mountain-lake—whose transparent waters reveal, at the bottom, sand, shells,
snails and fishes—as the path of redemption. This lake obviously corresponds to
a fundamental aspect of the ‘Upper Waters’. Clouds are another aspect of the
‘Upper Waters’. In Le Transformationi of Ludovico Dolce, we find a mystic
figure looking into the unruffled surface of a pond, in contrast with the accursed
hunter, always in restless pursuit of his prey, implying the symbolic contrast
between contemplative activity—the sattva state of Yoga—and blind outward
activity—the rajas state. Finally, the upper and lower waters communicate reciprocally through the process of rain (involution) and evaporation (evolution).
Here, fire intervenes to modify water: the sun (spirit) causes sea water to evaporate (i.e. it sublimates life). Water is condensed in clouds and returns to earth in
the form of life-giving rain, which is invested with twofold virtues: it is water, and
it comes from heaven (15). Lao-Tse paid considerable attention to this cyclic
process of meteorology, which is at one and the same time physical and spiritual,
observing that: ‘Water never rests, neither by day nor by night. When flowing
above, it causes rain and dew. When flowing below, it forms streams and rivers.
Water is outstanding in doing good. If a dam is raised against it, it stops. If way is
made for it, it flows along that path. Hence it is said that it does not struggle. And
yet it has no equal in destroying that which is strong and hard’ (13). When water
stands revealed in its destructive aspects, in the course of cataclysmic events, its
symbolism does not change, but is merely subordinated to the dominant symbolism of the storm. Similarly, in those contexts where the flowing nature of water is
emphasized, as in the contention of Heraclitus that ‘You cannot step twice into
the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.’ Here the reference is not to water-symbolism as such, but to the idea of the irreversible flow along a
given path. To quote Evola, in La tradizione ermetica: ‘Without divine water,
nothing exists, according to Zosimus. On the other hand, among the symbols of
the female principle are included those which figure as origins of the waters
(mother, life), such as: Mother Earth, Mother of the Waters, Stone, Cave, House
of the Mother, Night, House of Depth, House of Force, House of Wisdom,
Forest, etc. One should not be misled by the word “divine”. Water symbolizes
terrestrial and natural life, never metaphysical life.’

This indicates birth (of some person).

To dream of clear water, foretells that you will joyfully realize prosperity and pleasure.

If the water is muddy, you will be in danger and gloom will occupy Pleasure's seat.

If you see it rise up in your house, denotes that you will struggle to resist evil, but unless you see it subside, you will succumb to dangerous influences.

If you find yourself baling it out, but with feet growing wet, foreshadows trouble, sickness, and misery will work you a hard task, but you will forestall them by your watchfulness. The same may be applied to muddy water rising in vessels.

To fall into muddy water, is a sign that you will make many bitter mistakes, and will suffer poignant grief therefrom.

To drink muddy water, portends sickness, but drinking it clear and refreshing brings favorable consummation of fair hopes.

To sport with water, denotes a sudden awakening to love and passion.

To have it sprayed on your head, denotes that your passionate awakening to love will meet reciprocal consummation.

The following dream and its allegorical occurrence in actual life is related by a young woman student of dreams:

``Without knowing how, I was (in my dream) on a boat, I waded through clear blue water to a wharfboat, which I found to be snow white, but rough and splintry. The next evening I had a delightful male caller, but he remained beyond the time prescribed by mothers and I was severely censured for it.'' The blue water and fairy white boat were the disappointing prospects in the symbol.

To see water in your dream, symbolizes your unconscious and your emotional state of mind. Water is the living essence of the psyche and the flow of life energy. It is also symbolic of spirituality, knowledge, healing and refreshment. To dream that water is boiling, suggests that you are expressing some emotional turmoil. Feelings from your unconscious are surfacing and ready to be acknowledged. You need to let out some steam.

To see calm, clear water in your dream, means that you are in tune with your spirituality. It denotes serenity, peace of mind, and rejuvenation.

To see muddy or dirty water in your dream, indicates that you are wallowing in your negative emotions. You may need to take some time to cleanse your mind and find internal peace. Alternatively, the dream suggests that your thinking/judgment is unclear and clouded. If you are immersed in muddy water, then it indicates that you are in over your head in a situation and are overwhelmed by your emotions.

To dream that water is rising up in your house, suggests that you are becoming overwhelmed by your emotions.

To hear running water in your dream, denotes meditation and reflection. You are reflecting on your thoughts and emotions.

To dream that you are walking on water, indicates that you have total control over your emotions. It also suggests that you need to "stay on top" of your emotions and not let them explode out of hand. Alternatively, the dream is symbolic of faith in yourself.

Seeing water in your dream, symbolizes your unconscious and your emotional state of mind. Water is the living essence of the psyche and the flow of life energy. It is also symbolic of spirituality, knowledge, healing and refreshment. Seeing calm, clear water in your dream means that you are in tune with your spirituality. It indicates serenity, peace of mind, and rejuvenation. Seeing muddy or dirty water in your dream indicates that you are wallowing in your negative emotions. You may need to devote some time to clarify your mind and find internal peace. Alternatively, it suggests that your thinking/judgment is unclear and clouded. If you are immersed in muddy water, then it indicates that you are in over your head in a situation and are overwhelmed by your emotions. Dreaming that water is rising up in your house means your struggles and overwhelming emotions. Hearing running water in your dream indicates meditation, reflection and pondering of your thoughts and emotions. Dreaming that you are walking on water, suggests that you have supreme and ultimate control over your emotions. It may also suggest that you need to "stay on top" of your emotions and not let them explode out of hand. Alternatively, it is symbolic of faith in yourself.

To dream that you are recycling, suggests that you are trying to sort out aspects of your life. You are trying to learn from your past mistakes and turn them into positives. Alternatively, the dream may mean that you are reliving the past. It is time to move forward.