There are two principal aspects to cloud-symbolism: on the one
hand they are related to the symbolism of mist, signifying the intermediate world
between the formal and the non-formal; and on the other hand they are associated
with the ‘Upper Waters’—the realm of the antique Neptune. The former aspect
of the cloud is symbolic of forms as phenomena and appearance, always in a state
of metamorphosis, which obscure the immutable quality of higher truth (37). The
second aspect of clouds reveals their family connexion with fertility-symbolism
and their analogous relationship with all that is destined to bring fecundity. Hence
the fact that ancient Christian symbolism interprets the cloud as synonymous
with the prophet, since prophecies are an occult source of fertilization, celestial in origin (46). Hence also the conclusion of Bachelard that the cloud should be
taken as a symbolic messenger (3).

To see fluffy, white clouds in your dream, signify inner peace, spiritual harmony and compassion. An issue in your waking life may be clearing up.

To see dark or stormy clouds in your dream, symbolize depression or anger. It indicates an impending eruption of emotions. Alternatively, it represents a lack of wisdom or confusion in some situation. Thus, the dream may be a metaphor for your "clouded" way of thinking.

To dream of seeing dark heavy clouds, portends misfortune and bad management.
If rain is falling, it denotes troubles and sickness.
To see bright transparent clouds with the sun shining through them, you will be successful after trouble has been your companion.

To see them with the stars shining, denotes fleeting joys and small advancements.

Dark clouds indicate great sorrows that have to be passed through. But they will
pass away if the clouds are moving or breaking away.

Clouds are made of air and water, two of the four basic elements. Some would say that the soul is represented by air and spirit by water. Your positive energy and idealism could be represented by white clouds and your more negative personal characteristics, and private thoughts, by dark storm clouds.

To see a busy town in your dream, signifies warmth and compassion. You are sociable and get along with others.

To see an abandoned or empty town in your dream, suggests that you are feeling rejected by society. You may be isolating yourself from others.

Realistic philosophy sees chaos as the earliest state of disorganized
creation, blindly impelled towards the creation of a new order of phenomena of
hidden meanings (22). Blavatsky, for example, asks: ‘What is primordial chaos
but the ether containing within itself all forms and all beings, all the seeds of
universal creation?’ Plato and the Pythagoreans maintained that this ‘primordial
substance’ was the soul of the world, called protohyle by the alchemists. Thus,
chaos is seen as that which embraces all opposing forces in a state of undifferentiated dissolution. In primordial chaos, according to Hindu tradition, one also
meets Amrita—immortality—and Visha—evil and death (9). In alchemy, chaos
was identified with prime matter and thought to be a massa confusa from which
the lapis would arise (32); it was related to the colour black. It has also been
identified with the unconscious. But it is better to regard chaos as the state
preceding the condition of the unconscious.

To see friends in your dream, signify aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to incorporate and acknowledge. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Alternatively, dreaming of a friend, indicates positive news.

To see your childhood friend in your dream, signifies regression into your past where you had no responsibilities. Things were much simpler and carefree. You may be wanting to escape the pressures and stresses of adulthood. Consider the relationship you had with this friend and the lessons that were learned. Alternatively, the childhood friend suggests that you have been acting in a childish manner. You need to start acting like an adult.

To dream that your best friend is dying, suggests that some aspect or quality that your best friend possess is dying within your own self.

To dream of friends being well and happy, denotes pleasant tidings of them, or you will soon see them or some of their relatives.

To see your friend troubled and haggard, sickness or distress is upon them.

To see your friends dark-colored, denotes unusual sickness or trouble to you or to them. To see them take the form of animals, signifies that enemies will separate you from your closest relations.

To see your friend who dresses in somber colors in flaming red, foretells that unpleasant things will transpire, causing you anxiety if not loss, and that friends will be implicated.

To dream you see a friend standing like a statue on a hill, denotes you will advance beyond present pursuits, but will retain former impressions of justice and knowledge, seeking these through every change. If the figure below be low, you will ignore your friends of former days in your future advancement. If it is on a plane or level with you, you will fail in your ambition to reach other spheres. If you seem to be going from it, you will force yourself to seek a change in spite of friendly ties or self-admonition.

To dream you see a friend with a white cloth tied over his face, denotes that you will be injured by some person who will endeavor to keep up friendly relations with you.

To dream that you are shaking hands with a person who has wronged you, and he is taking his departure and looks sad, foretells you will have differences with a close friend and alienation will perhaps follow. You are most assuredly nearing loss of some character.

Seeing your friends in your dream means aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to integrate these rejected part of yourself. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Additionally, this symbol foretells of happy tidings from them and the arrival of good news. Seeing your childhood friend in your dream means regression into your past where you had no responsibilities and things were much simpler and carefree. You may be wanting to escape the the pressures and stresses of adulthood. Consider the relationship you had with this friend and the lessons that were learned. Alternatively, the childhood friend may be suggesting that you have been acting in a childish manner and you need to start acting like an adult. Dreaming that your best friend is dying, suggests that some aspect or quality that your best friend possess is dying within your own self.

The myth of the creative storm (or creative intercourse between the
Elements) is universal: among the Nordic peoples it appears in connexion with
Thor, in Assyrio-Babylonian mythology with Bel, in the Germanic with Donar,
in the Greek with Zeus, among the Slavs with Peroun, and so on (38). The storm,
like everything else that occurs in heaven or descends therefrom, has a sacred
quality about it.

To see and hear a storm approaching, foretells continued sickness, unfavorable business, and separation from friends, which will cause added distress. If the storm passes, your affliction will not be so heavy.

To see a storm in your dream, signifies some overwhelming struggle, shock, loss or catastrophe in your waking life. The storm also represents unexpressed fears or emotions, such as anger, rage, turmoil, etc. On a more positive note, the storm symbolizes your rising spirituality. It may signal rapid changes ahead for you.

To dream that you take cover in a storm, foretells that whatever disturbance or problems is occurring in your life will quickly blow over. Consider also the phrase "weather the storm", which refers to your ability and strength to withstand whatever comes.

Seeing a storm in your dream means overwhelming struggle, shock, devastating loss and catastrophe in your personal affairs. The storm also represents unexpressed fears or emotions, such as anger, rage, turmoil, etc. On a more positive note, the storm means the rising of spirit within. Dreaming that you take cover in a storm, foretells that whatever disturbance or problems is occurring in your life will quickly blow over. Consider also the phrase "weather the storm", which suggests your ability and strength to withstand whatever comes.

The storm in your dreams may be a reflection of some difficulty in your life. Consider all of the details and notice if you took shelter from the storm or were you swept away by it. Did the storm pass you by, were you safe, or did you suffer? All of us experience difficulties in life and our dreams make an attempt to bring us into awareness and out of denial. Think about the storms in your life, how you will weather them, and what you can do to make them subside.

To remember something in your dream, indicates that you have learned something significant from your past mistakes or previous experiences. The dream may also serve as a reminder of something important that is occurring in your waking life. You are so worried that you will forget something that the preoccupation has made its way into your dream.

To see a couple in your dream, symbolize marriage, your parents, or a relationship. Consider what the couple are doing in your dream for additional clues about their significance. It may point to something that is lacking or missing from your life.

To see mountains in your dream, signify many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome. If you are on top of the mountain, then it indicates that you have achieved and realized your goals. You have recognized your full potential. Alternatively, mountains denote a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth.

To dream that you are climbing a mountain, signifies your determination and ambition.

To dream that you fall off a mountain, refers to your rush to succeed without thoroughly thinking about your path to success. Perhaps you are being pushed upward into a direction that you do not want to go or that you are not ready for. Falling off a mountain also means that you have a tendency to give up too easily or escape from demanding situations. You take the easy way out.

To dream that you hit something or someone, symbolizes unexpressed anger and aggression. You tend to keep your negative feelings inside instead of expressing them in a healthy way.

Dreaming that you hit something or someone, is symbolic of unexpressed anger and aggression. You tend to keep your negative feelings inside instead of expressing them in a healthy way.

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 see or dream that you are on a pier, represents self-reflection and introspective into your unconscious. You are ready to explore and grow as an individual. The dream signals emotional and spiritual growth.

To stand upon a pier in your dream, denotes that you will be brave in your battle for recognition in prosperity's realm, and that you will be admitted to the highest posts of honor.

If you strive to reach a pier and fail, you will lose the distinction you most coveted.

Seeing or dreaming that you are on a pier, represents self-reflection and an introspect into your unconscious. You are ready to explore and grow as an individual. The dream signal emotional and spiritual growth.