Too Many Sea Creatures For The Small Fish Tank

[Lammergeir]

This was an odd one. I was talking with my parents at their house, and they tell me to go to their backyard because there's a gift for me outside. So I go and I see what would be considered a large fish tank by normal standards, but not nearly large enough for all of the poor sea creatures that were wriggling and writhing about outside of it, suffocating as they did so. There was a variety of them; colorful fish, spiny starfish, and slimy slugs. There was even a sea turtle. So I begin to panic because there is no way I could support all of these fish with such a small tank. Why would my parents foist this onto me? I don't even have the resources to support all of this. I do all I can to get everything into the water, but little by little everything ended up dying. It was horrible to watch everything go by suffocating or drying up in the heat of the day, and worse knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It was very, very sad.

 

[Dean]

Hey - that's quite a dream and I can imagine this would be really heavy to wake up to.. I come from a Jungian background and from that perspective, there is some really powerful symbolism in your dream. I have experienced the aquarium/fish tank symbolism at least 4 to 5 times over the last 7 years, so that might be helpful here... I will just mention here an overall theme that I feel your dream is expressing. If you wish to know more, I'm happy to expand..

In the Jungian world, we see that we are far more than just our ego - and that the maker of your dreams is the Unconscious, what Jung also called the Self. I think it's clear from all the symbols in your dream, that it is not meant to be taken literally - it is a metaphor for the inner world within you. Because it is a metaphor, I would see 'your parents' in this dream as your parents in the inner world - so the gift of the fish tank is from your inner Self. The theme that the tank was not large enough for all the sea creatures is for me a powerful image. In the Jungian world, the Self is transpersonal and vast when compared to the ego. So I see the potential for this dream as saying that your Inner Self wants you to commit to the inner journey and with that, your worldview (beyond the current materialist, reductionist paradigm that is so prevalent in today's world) will need to open up further and expand significantly, because currently it will not be able to hold (the fish tank not being big enough) a deeper understanding of yourself and the cosmos itself. Sea life and especially the sea turtle in your dream has such significant meaning within this area...If you search for "What is Depth Psychology" in youtube, the first video that comes up of about 8 minutes is a really good explanation of what I've discussed above..

All the very best

Dean