Dreaming about
the ocean

The ocean is the one thing on earth most of us will never see the end of, even from a plane, and that's what dreams use it for. Dreaming about the ocean usually reflects something too big to take in at once: a feeling that has no edge, a decision with no obvious answer, or the future in general. But it can also be the opposite, a wish for open space after weeks of feeling hemmed in.

The sea itself tells you which. A flat, glittering ocean on a summer morning is a very different dream from black water at night with waves taller than your house. Where you were matters just as much, whether that was on the beach, in a boat or swimming so far out that the shore had gone.

What dreaming about the ocean means

Water in general tends to stand for feeling in dreams, and the water page covers that side. The ocean adds three things a lake or a bath doesn't have, which are depth, distance and a horizon you can't reach. Each one gives a reading.

A feeling with no bottom

You can see the bottom of a pool, but not of the sea, and English talks about "a sea of grief" or "an ocean of love" for that reason. An ocean dream often comes when something you feel is bigger than you can measure, whether it's grief, love or a fear that hasn't got a name yet. Did you look down into it, or keep your eyes on the horizon? Looking down tends to mean you're ready to go into the feeling.

Not knowing where you are

Sailors said someone was "all at sea" when they'd lost their bearings, and the phrase has outlived the ships. A dream of open water with no land in sight usually means the same thing, that you're in a situation (a new job, a new country, a change in your health) where none of your usual landmarks help. It doesn't mean you'll sink, but that you haven't found your direction yet.

Room to breathe

Plenty of ocean dreams are happy ones. If you were walking along the beach at sunrise or floating on your back in warm water, the dream may be about freedom, about a part of your life that's finally opened up (or a wish that it would). They often come in a cramped, busy season, as a holiday your mind takes without you.

A sea change

The phrase "sea change" comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest, where it describes a drowned man slowly turned into coral and pearl. We now use it for any deep, slow transformation. If the sea in your dream changed color, rose gently or carried you somewhere new, think about what has been changing in you over months, not days.

Dreaming about swimming in the ocean

Swimming is the most searched ocean dream, and how it felt is nearly the whole reading. Strong, easy strokes in clear water point to confidence in a situation that would scare most people, while struggling against the current or being pulled out points to feeling carried by events you can't control. If you swam out far and liked it, ask whether you're ready to go further into something new than you admit. If it turned into drowning, the feeling has become too heavy to stay on top of.

Dreaming about ocean waves

Waves are the ocean's mood, and we've all stood in the shallows waiting for the next one to hit. In dreams they usually stand for feelings that come in sets, one after another, faster than you can recover. Small waves you play in point to emotions you can handle and even enjoy. A huge wave rising over you, one of the most frightening ocean dreams, often comes when you see a crisis coming and feel there's nowhere to run. There's more on this on the waves page, including tidal waves.

Dreaming about being lost at sea

Being alone on the ocean with no land in sight is the dream of uncertainty in its purest form. It often turns up after a big life change, when the old shore is gone and the new one isn't visible yet. If you were in a lifeboat or clinging to wreckage, you're probably getting by on very little support. And if a ship or a coastline appeared at the end, the dream may be telling you that you can already sense a way out.

Dreaming about dark or deep ocean water

Dark water you can't see into is the ocean dream that leans toward fear of the unknown. Something might be down there, a shark or a whale or nothing at all, and the not knowing is the point. These dreams often come when you suspect there's more to a situation than you can see, or when old feelings you've kept down are starting to move. And clear blue water tends to mean you're seeing a situation for what it is.

Dreaming about sea turtles

Sea turtles have been swimming the oceans since the age of the dinosaurs, they travel thousands of miles, and the females usually return to nest on the coast where they were born. A sea turtle in a dream tends to carry that patience, a slow, steady way through something big, or a coming home after a long time away. There's more on the turtles page.

Dreaming about looking at the ocean from the shore

Standing on the sand or a cliff and just watching the sea is about distance. You're close to something big (a feeling, a decision, a new stage of life) but you haven't gone in yet. If you felt calm, you're taking your time, but if you felt the pull to walk in and didn't, ask what's holding you back.

Dreaming about the ocean according to Jung and Freud

The two founders read the sea in different directions.

Jung on the sea as the unconscious

Jung wrote that water is the image of the unconscious you'll meet most often, and he put the sea and still waters on his list of symbols of the mother.^[1] An ocean dream, read his way, points down, to what lies under your waking life, and back, to where you came from. A dreamer standing on the shore is at the border between what they know about themselves and what they don't.

Freud on the sea and birth

Freud saw births in water dreams, with a baby's arrival pictured as tumbling into water or climbing out of it.^[2] Walking out of the waves onto the sand, through his lens, might be about your own birth, or about a fresh start big enough to feel like one, like a move abroad or the end of a long illness.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of the ocean in dreams

The sea in the Bible

The Bible treats the sea as wild and dangerous. Jonah is thrown into a storm and swallowed by a great fish,^[3] and Revelation imagines a new heaven and earth where "there was no more sea".^[4] If your ocean dream felt like a threat, the tradition knows that feeling well.

The seas in the Buddha's first great dream

In the Anguttara Nikaya, a collection of the Buddha's discourses, he describes five great dreams from the night before his awakening. In the first, the earth was his bed, a mountain his pillow, and his hands and feet lay in the seas.^[6] The text explains it afterward, as fulfilled when he awakened.

Questions to ask about your ocean dream

Dreams follow what we live through by day,^[5] so start with your week before you start with the sea.

• Was the ocean calm, rough, dark or clear?
• Were you in it, on it, under it or watching from the shore?
• Could you see land, and did you want to?
• What did you feel when you looked out at the horizon?
• Which part of your life feels endless right now, with no shore in sight?

When you tell Oniri the dream, it asks this sort of thing first and reads your ocean with what you answer. And if huge waves or drowning keep waking you at night, these tips on having fewer nightmares are a good place to start.