“when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water” – Carl Jung (Collected Works, Vol 9, p.1, para. 16)
After having recurring dreams or visions of large waves crashing over me, or my home, as well as real-life occurrences of flooding in my city and even neighborhood, I decided to do a little bit of research into this phenomena. It turns out this is a common occurrence for many people. The meaning we give things is very personal, so whatever water symbolizes for you personally may be very different than what it symbolizes for anyone else. My intention in this article is to offer a starting point for a personal exploration of what this symbol may hold for you. For this purpose, I offer a number of questions to consider with each of these potential interpretations. I hope they stir curiosity for you and invite you to look deeper into your own mind and heart.
Water as a Metaphor of the Unconscious
Dreams and visions often emerge spontaneously. Both Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, the fathers of depth psychology and psychotherapy, believed that the unconscious part of the mind is the place of origin of such images. According to Jung, “water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious” (Collected Works, Vol 9, p.1, para. 40). The unconscious is the part of us that is unknown to us, which is still under a sort of mystery. Because of the unconscious, we maintain the ability to surprise ourselves every now and then, we do things we didn’t know we were capable of, we say things we later don’t know where they came from. Because the flooding is so massive, intimidating, and overpowering, we could therefore see it as a symbol of our consciousness being overpowered by our unconscious. What we are unaware of in ourselves is invading our consciousness. This could mean that an inner complex is taking hold of us and that further inner work is necessary. more “A symbolic meaning of flooding…” …