Dream Dictionary Boats

May represent adventuring into the unconscious (self examination of one's life through reflection and exploring one's life.

Emotional self; riding the waves of emotions (water symbolizes unconscious.

The deepest unconscious where one finds repressed, forgotten emotions. Also is a symbol for mother, your own mother or Mother Nature. May symbolize creative potential.

May be a feminine symbol, representing the mother, or some other woman, or women in general. In a man's dream it may symbolize the anima. The vessel {emotions-attitudes-belief system} in your life that you have attached your being to.

Coming into a harbour may mean finding/wanting a refuge from some particular problem. Putting to sea may symbolize and exploration of your unconscious.

May symbolize some aspect of the feminine, either with a plainly sexual reference or with reference to the unconscious. May symbolize transition if the boat is crossing a narrow stretch of water. If in a dream you miss the boat, you have failed to take advantage of an opportunity that offered itself to you.

A bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind. What is the dream trying to tell you?

Basic Meaning: A boat often symbolizes an aspect of the feminine, a reference to the unconscious.

(1) Because of their connections with water, boats may symbolize (some aspect of) the feminine, either with a plainly sexual reference or with reference to the unconscious (in the case of a male dreamer, the reference may be specifically to the anima), (See Anima/Animus or with reference to mother or Great Mother.

(2) Leaving one's own shores for a foreign country may symbolize entry into the unconscious insofar as the latter is unknown and frightening - alien, in fact.

(3) If the boat is crossing a narrow stretch of water, it may symbolize some type of transition: for example, moving from one phase of life to another, or making a new start and a clean break from the past.

(4) If in the dream you miss the boat, the meaning would seem to be obvious: you have failed to take advantage of an opportunity that has offered itself - perhaps an opportunity to open new vistas in your life.

Eric Ackroyd

Example in a Dream

You are in a boat drifting far from shore with sharks swimming all around you.

Possible meaning for a male: The boat would be an anima symbol representing the feminine aspects of the male psyche {compassion, tolerance, patience, ready to forgive}. Drifting far from shore would mean you are drifting away from these unifying feminine aspects. The sharks may represent those other internal aspects that want to assail you {in order to force you back to shore} or other people or circumstances in your waking life that are causing you to drift away from the natural feminine tendencies.

Possible meaning for a female: For a woman the meaning may have the same interpretation, you are drifting away from those essential feminine aspects. But it may also symbolize that you are moving away from those negative aspects {sharks} that can prevent you from an understanding of a higher self {the Great Mother}. It also may be a reference to your actual mother, an unconscious need or desire to move away from her destructive {sharks} attitudes. the meaning may have the same