I am walking on the beach with a few other people. We are on our way to the water's edge. We have come to do a ritual at the ocean. As I get close to the water, I notice a dead fish that has washed up on the sand. It looks like a catfish or a trout. Then I see another fish on the sand. I can see through this fish to the skeleton. I think it is dead also. In the shallow water I see many more fish. There are several dark colored stingrays and some more of the trout/catfish, some more of the "see-through" fish and a halibut. I ask "what happened to all these fish?" I don't know if they are all dead or not but they are definitely acting strange. I wonder if I should try to clean them up before the ritual and realize it is futile, there are too many.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 47

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Los Angeles

Being by the waters edge is often indicative of something that is becoming consciously known or acknowledged. Oceans are usually symbolic of the unconscious mind. The few other people may be apsects of your self, known and/or unknown. These could be attitudes, habits, complexes, etc.

Fish couare often a symbol for personal growth {especially spiritual} or could be unconscious insights to your true self, or that person you truly wish to be or should be in your waking life. A dead fish may indicate you are finally acknowldeging this true self. The dead fish with the skeleton may represent some part of you that is not fully developed, or that true self that has not been acknowledged or let out {your waking life does not reflect this part of you as it should}. More fish in the shallow water may be those things within your sub-conscious, about yourself, ready to be acknowledged and realized, and perhaps confronted. The different types of fish are parts of you, possible your personality or attitudes {things about you that you may not like and have ignored}. The ritual may be your behavior. Cleaning the fish may be cleaning up yourself, or cleaning up your act.

You are at that mid-life stage where changes are persistently occuring. Reflection, looking back and seeing your past {focusing on your past}. Often you see parts that you had not seen before, parts that are good and parts that you are not pleased with. Since many of the fish are dead it may mean these good aspects have not been fully utilized in your waking life. Perhaps this dreams is your reflection and desire to clean up the bad and utilize the good in your waking life. Personal growth is a part of aging, or at least should be.

Let me know what if any of my interpretation stikes a cord and we can proceed from there.
Gerard

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How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Murfreesboro, Tn

Gerard,

Thanks for responding. As I ponder your response, I think that the ritual marks a new beginning while the dead fish mark an ending to some old ideas about God. I had a serious crisis of faith after the tsunami. The ocean has always been my path of spirituality and to have the ocean destroy so many that were on land was very difficult for me to integrate. The fish dying and coming to the surface seem to me to be the unconscious ideas that I held. The stingray is the defense I used against an angry God. Halibut go through a change where one eye migrates and the fish changes it's orientation in the water and becomes a bottom dweller. Seeing things in a new way? I think you are right on about the fish with the skeleton. Right now I think that cleaning up the dead fish is wanting to make a fresh start though I realize that the new beginning (ritual) will have to co exist with the ending or death of old beliefs.

What do you think?

Sandy

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Sandy,
Don't let the tragidy of the tsunami affect your relationship to the oceans. In dreams oceans are a vital link to understanding our true selves. This is because the primitive mind {even before evolution of human beings}links itself to its origin, the oceans. Without water life would not be. Most scientists believe humans first evolved from the ocean. If your faith preludes the belief in evolution then you will never fully understand the processes of the psyche. The human psyche is a part of nature, there is no separation.

Also, nature does not distinguish between good and evil. That is a human concept. Although I firmly believe nature can and will rack havioc upon man because of his destructive attitude towards the environment, it isn't an act of malicious intent. Just like the human body earth is a delicate organism. When it is thrown off balance {as man is doing by polluting the planet, killing off vital plants and animals that make up that balance} it does what comes natural. The tsunami was caused by an underwater earthquake, nothing more, nothing less.
Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 54

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Murfreesboro, Tn

Gerard,

Yes I am seeing that though I originally felt as if the tsunami was a betrayal, I now see that the ocean did what water does. It conducts energy. For it to have done something else would have been a betrayal of its nature.

This has taken several weeks to get to and I think the dream was speaking of the death of an evolved (for me) although fairly infantile kind of faith. One that is rather naive. Back to the drawing board.

Thanks for your help,

Sandy

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Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Los Angeles