Universal Dream Symbols: Fire and Water

Water exists everywhere life exists. Often paired with fire as being essential for life, water offers a slower, heavier, more comforting presence than its searing counterpart. Water, unlike fire, purifies without destroying and so factors in the religious rites of various faiths. This is seen in the Catholic water of baptism, suggestive of the waters of birth and new life.

Water is often seen as being a feminine principle, one of passivity and yielding, however it should not be seen as symbolizing powerlessness. In Taoist thought, water embodies the power of adaptability and fluidity. This is seen in the example of water both flowing around a rock, and at the same time eroding the rock. This is not suggestive of weakness, but of adaptation.

This adaptive quality of water is further embellished in its womb oriented imagery, where new life is surrounded by an existing life, nurtured until it grows to its own maturity where it can break away. Water as a concealing expanse, can be a symbol for the dreamer's unconscious, having the duality of containment of the chaotic and potentially, violent, hidden aspects of the psyche, as well as the sustaining source of conscious life.

These two symbols hold a duality that in psychoanalytical terms can signal a merging of the conscious and unconscious, leading to further evolution of the human psyche. Whether they be embraced as a peek into the darker nature of the dreamer, or as a tool of spiritual development, these universal dream symbols can be a key to discerning the individual's interpretation of where, and how they fit in both their subjective and objective universes.

Whether you dream of warming in fire or drowning in water, in order to understand dream symbols from a personal viewpoint, the dreamer must immerse themselves in the imagery and seek the full potential these significators have to offer in the dream. Whether you are washing away an old idea, or burning old perceptions until they turn to ash, fire and water signify markers of passage for the dreamer, whether it be from a state of sleep to waking consciousness, or having a deeper, wide ranging and universal meaning.

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