Symbols / The ocean

Dreaming about the ocean

A reading for meaning, not prophecy

The ocean is read as the vast unconscious and fortune's depth — in the East boundless wealth and feeling (海), in the West the collective unconscious itself, in Ibn Sirin's tradition a great power and the vastness of a matter.

Three readings

In Chinese tradition · 周公解梦 · 海

周公解梦 reads the sea as boundlessness — vast wealth, emotion, and possibility; a calm sea marks fortune wide and steady, a raging one feeling or circumstance beyond your control. Its tide is the rhythm of your larger fortunes.

In Western psychology · Jungian

Jung read the ocean as the collective unconscious — the deep shared source of all the psyche's contents. To stand before it is to face the vastness within; to swim in it, to be in contact with depths far larger than the personal self.

In Islam · Ibn Sirin

Ibn Sirin read the sea as a great power — a ruler, a vast authority, or an immense matter; to cross it safely a great affair navigated, to drown in it being overwhelmed by something far larger than yourself. Framed as meaning: what vastness are you standing before?

Common variations

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