An ambivalent symbol since it corresponds to the creative power both
of nature and of time. On the one hand it signifies fertility and the progressive
irrigation of the soil; and on the other hand it stands for the irreversible passage of
time and, in consequence, for a sense of loss and oblivion (8, 60).

Rapid and flowing muddy river indicates great troubles and difficulties. But a river
with calm glassy surface foretells happiness and love.

To see a clear and calm river in your dream, indicates that you are just going with the flow. You are allowing your life to float away. It is time to take a more decisive role in directing your life. Alternatively, a river symbolizes joyful pleasures, peace, prosperity and fertility. If you are crossing a river in your dream, then it represents an obstacle or issue that you need to deal with in order to move closer toward your goal. It is also reflective of a new stage in your life. If the river is muddy, then it indicates that you are in turmoil.

To see a raging river in your dream, signifies that your life is feeling out of control. You are feeling emotionally unsettled. Alternatively, a river means you are ready to confront life's challenges and life's twists and turns.

To dream that a river is comprised of flowing red chili, refers to the raw emotion, and intense passion or anger that is flowing through you and yearning to be expressed. meanings by DreamMoods.com

To dream that you are bathing in a river, represents purification and cleansing.

If you see a clear, smooth, flowing river in your dream, you will soon succeed to the enjoyment of delightful pleasures, and prosperity will bear flattering promises.

If the waters are muddy or tumultuous, there will be disagreeable and jealous contentions in your life.

If you are water-bound by the overflowing of a river, there will be temporary embarrassments in your business, or you will suffer uneasiness lest some private escapade will reach public notice and cause your reputation harsh criticisms.

If while sailing upon a clear river you see corpses in the bottom, you will find that trouble and gloom will follow swiftly upon present pleasures and fortune.

To see empty rivers, denotes sickness and unusual ill-luck.

Seeing a clear, calm-flowing river in your dream means that you are allowing your life to float away and it is time that you take a more decisive hand in directing your life. A river also symbolizes joyful pleasures, peace and prosperity. Seeing a raging river means that your life is feeling out of control. Seeing a muddy and/or raging river means tumultuous times and jealousy in your life. Seeing empty rivers in your dream, forewarns of sickness and unexpected bad luck.

Water sustains life and is the most abundant compound in all living things. It may represent the flow of your energies, the path of your life, or the passage of time. It also may be symbolic of your emotional happiness. Examine the details of your dream. Is the water clear or murky? Is it rapid, turbulent, or stagnant? Are you just floating along its currents or actively controlling your movements? Consider these factors and see how they can be associated with daily life.

To dream that you are in or see a boat, signifies your ability to cope with and express your emotions. Pay particular attention to the condition and state of the waters, whether it is calm or violent, clear or murky, etc. Are you "smooth sailing"? Alternatively, you may be ready to confront your unconscious and unknown aspects of yourself. The dream could be telling you not to rock the boat and to stay out of harm's way.

To dream that you are trying to jump off a boat, suggests that you want to confront those difficult emotions and approach your problems head on.

Boat signals forecast bright prospects, if upon clear water. If the water is unsettled and turbulent, cares and unhappy changes threaten the dreamer. If with a gay party you board a boat without an accident, many favors will be showered upon you. Unlucky the dreamer who falls overboard while sailing upon stormy waters.

To sail in a boat or ship on smooth waters is lucky. On rough waters, it is unlucky. To
fall into water indicates great peril.

Dreaming that you are in or see a boat means you ability to cope and express your emotions. Pay particular attention to the condition and state of the waters, whether is is calm or violent, clear or murky, etc. Are you "smooth sailing"? Alternatively, you may be ready to confront your unconscious and unknown aspects of yourself. Dreaming that you are trying to jump off a boat, suggests that you want to dive directly in and confront those difficult emotions and approach your problems head on.

As mentioned in all relevant dream symbols, bodies of water represent your unconscious, your emotions and your accumulated soul experiences. Depending on the content of the dream, several different interpretations could be made. The boat in your dream could represent you and the manner you navigate through your emotions. It could symbolize the voyage of your life, an adventure and exploration of your unconscious, or a connection to the people in your dream by pointing out something that all of you have in common ("in the same boat"). When interpreting this dream, consider the kind of voyage and the type of boat. Superstition-based dream interpretation books say that if the voyage is calm, you should go forward with your plans. However, if it is a very stormy voyage, get ready for an emotional upset (or challenge), and if the boat is sinking, be prepared for a hidden danger.

Dreaming that someone or something is smaller than usual, represents feelings of insignificance, helplessness and unworthiness. Alternatively, you may be literally trying to "knock" this person down to size. Perhaps it suggests that you or someone in your life has an inflated ego and need to be taught a lesson. Dreaming that you are small and everyone is normal sized, suggests that you are suffering from low self-esteem and/or a sense of helplessness. Perhaps you are being overlooked.

To dream that spring is advancing, is a sign of fortunate undertakings and cheerful companions.

To see spring appearing unnaturally, is a foreboding of disquiet and losses.

Dreaming of the season of spring means new beginnings and creative endeavors. It is also a symbol for virility and fruitfulness. Seeing a water spring, symbolizes your emotional energy and expressiveness. You have the tendency to make your feelings and opinions known. You may also have the ability to draw on your inner resources.

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.

In the Zohar, the ‘magic head’ stands for astral light (9); in mediaeval art
it is a symbol for the mind (46) and for the spiritual life, which explains the
frequency with which it appeared in decorative art. On the other hand, Plato in
Timaeus asserts that ‘the human head is the image of the world’. In corroboration
of this, Leblant points out that the skull, the semi-spherical crown of the human
body, signifies the heavens. Clearly, the head-symbol here coalesces with that of
the sphere as a symbol of Oneness. It had the same significance in Egyptian
hieroglyphics (19). The eagle’s head has been used as a solar symbol and an
emblem of the centre-point of emanation—that is, of the cosmic flame and the
spiritual fire of the universe (4). Two, three or four heads shown in juxtaposition
symbolize a corresponding intensification of a given aspect of head-symbolism.
Thus, the Gemini, a symbol of the duality of Nature, or of the integrating (but not
unifying) link between the two principles of creation, are represented by beings
with two heads or two faces, like the Roman Janus for example. Hecate is depicted with three heads—she is called triform for this reason—a symbolism
which may be related to the ‘three levels’ of heaven, earth and hell, as well as to
Diel’s three ‘urges of life’ (15). The juxtaposition of four heads or faces, as in the
image of Brahma the Supreme Lord, stems from the same symbolism as that of
the tetramorph (60). A factor of major importance bearing upon the symbolism of
the head is mentioned by Herbert Kühn, in his L’Ascension de l’humanité (Paris,
1958). He makes the point that the decapitation of corpses in prehistoric times
marked Man’s discovery of the independence of the spiritual principle, residing
in the head, as opposed to the vital principle represented by the body as a whole.
Kühn adds that Neolithic thought was very close to the mediaeval in its conviction that an eternal and invisible essence underlies all appearances (Plate XV).

To see a head in your dream, signifies wisdom, intellect, understanding and rationality. It may also represent your accomplishments, self-image, and perception of the world. The dream may also be metaphor to indicate that you are "ahead" in some situation or that you need to get ahead.

To dream that someone is trying to rip your head off, suggests that you are not seeing a situation or problem clearly. Perhaps you are refusing to see the truth. You have to confront the situation or the person despite the pain and discomfort you might feel in doing so.

To dream that you have two heads, indicate that you need to learn to ask for help and accept assistance. Consider the metaphor "two heads are better than one". Do not try to do everything yourself.

To see a person's head in your dream, and it is well-shaped and prominent, you will meet persons of power and vast influence who will lend you aid in enterprises of importance.

If you dream of your own head, you are threatened with nervous or brain trouble.

To see a head severed from its trunk, and bloody, you will meet sickening disappointments, and the overthrow of your dearest hopes and anticipations.

To see yourself with two or more heads, foretells phenomenal and rapid rise in life, but the probabilities are that the rise will not be stable.

To dream that your head aches, denotes that you will be oppressed with worry.

To dream of a swollen head, you will have more good than bad in your life.

To dream of a child's head, there will be much pleasure ill store for you and signal financial success.

To dream of the head of a beast, denotes that the nature of your desires will run on a low plane, and only material pleasures will concern you.

To wash your head, you will be sought after by prominent people for your judgment and good counsel.

Seeing a head in your dream means wisdom, intellect, understanding and rationality. It may also represent your accomplishments, self-image, and perception of the world. Dreaming that someone is trying to rip your head off, suggests that you are not see a situation or problem clearly. Perhaps you are refusing to see the truth. You have to confront the situation or the person despite the pain and discomfort you might feel in doing so.

A head symbolizes intelligence, logic, wisdom and making decisions. A dream of a head may mean that you are changing your mind about something or are unable to make up your mind. A dream of a headless body may be a warning that you aren't thinking clearly - you're "losing your head."