Dreaming about
an aquarium

An aquarium is a piece of the sea you can keep in your living room, as long as there's glass between you and it. You can watch the fish for hours, and many people find it calming, but you can't reach in and you can't swim. Dreaming about an aquarium usually points to that arrangement in your own life, feelings you keep behind glass where you can see them, even admire them, without letting yourself get wet.

The side of the glass you were on matters most. Looking into a tank is a dream about watching. Being inside one, with faces pressed against the glass, is a dream about being watched. And a tank that cracked or overflowed is about what happens when the glass stops holding.

What dreaming about an aquarium means

Water in dreams usually stands for feelings, the part of the mind we don't see directly. An aquarium is that water put in a box, which gives the dream its main readings.

Feelings kept at a distance

The most common reading is containment. An aquarium dream often comes when you're handling a feeling carefully, grief, attraction, anger, by keeping it where you can see it but not touch it. That can be wise. It can also mean you're watching your own life from behind glass, interested but not involved.

Feeling watched

The other side of the glass is being on display. People say someone lives in a fishbowl when everyone can see what they do, and a dream where you're the one in the tank can be about a public role, a family that watches your every move, or a job where every mistake is noticed.

A small world

An aquarium is a whole world in miniature, and if your dream felt cramped, it may be about a life that has got too small, a town, a job or a routine you've outgrown. A big fish in a small tank is an old picture of that.

Dreaming of fish in an aquarium

The fish themselves usually stand for feelings, ideas or parts of you that you keep contained. Bright, healthy fish swimming calmly suggest you're at ease with what's inside. Fish circling the same path over and over can be about thoughts you keep going round. A single fish alone in the tank is often about loneliness.

Dreaming about a broken aquarium

Glass cracking and water pouring out is a dream about feelings breaking out of where you've kept them. It often comes after holding something in for a long time, frustration at work, grief, a secret, when a small crack is starting to spread. If you were rushing to save the fish, ask what you're trying to protect as it all spills out. Sometimes the broken tank is a relief.

Dreaming about a dirty aquarium

Green, cloudy water and fish you can barely see point to neglect. Something you're responsible for, a relationship, your health, your own feelings, hasn't been cleaned out in a while. Dead fish floating at the top are a stronger version, about something that has already died from lack of care. Cleaning the tank in the dream suggests you're ready to deal with it.

Dreaming about being inside an aquarium

Being in the tank, with people staring in, is about feeling watched, judged or trapped. You can see the world but you can't join it. These dreams can come with a new job, a public role, a family under scrutiny, or after something embarrassing became known. If you could breathe easily, you may be more comfortable in the spotlight than you think.

Dreaming about visiting a big aquarium

Walking through a public aquarium, under tunnels of water with sharks and rays passing overhead, is a dream of exploring the deep safely. It often comes when you're curious about something big or frightening, a new field, a hard topic, your own darker feelings, and want to look at it without being exposed. If the glass seemed thin, or a shark came too close, the curiosity has some fear in it.

Dreaming about an aquarium according to Jung and Freud

A tank is water, fish and a glass box at once, and each man left a vocabulary that fits part of it.

Jung: the unconscious at a measured volume

The image Jung used most often for the unconscious was water.^[1] Aquariums weren't something he wrote about, so this is his idea of water stretched to fit the glass. A tank is that water in a size you can supervise: the fish are thoughts and impulses you can watch rising and sinking, with no risk of being in over your head. Then the side of the glass becomes the question. Looking in is a dream about observing your own depths, and being inside, with faces pressed to the pane, is a dream about the persona, the mask you wear in public, with everyone looking in.

Freud: fish, boxes and a wish in plain view

Freud listed fish among the dream's genital symbols, and boxes, cases and cupboards among its symbols for the womb.^[2] A literal reading of his list would see a glass box of fish as desire kept in a container, and he was open that his reading was sexual. His wider rule helps even if you set the list aside: a dream disguises a wish because the wish can't be shown openly. A pane of glass is a good picture of that, with the wish in full view and out of reach. He still asked first what aquariums and fish mean to you, so a childhood fish tank or a dentist's waiting room comes before any list.

Questions to ask about your aquarium dream

Start with which side of the glass you were on, then look at the water.

• Were you looking into the tank, or inside it?
• Were the fish healthy, sick, crowded or alone?
• Was the water clear, dirty, or escaping?
• What feelings have you been keeping behind glass lately?

When you describe the dream to Oniri, it asks things like these, then reads the dream from what you tell it.