Dreams about boats occur quite commonly, and there are a lot of versions of them.
As a general rule, the dreamer is traveling by a small, two-people boat, or by a cruise ship, experiencing the best travel in life, or an unplanned trip. The vibe of dream may be calm or nervous – the dreamer may be enjoying the cruise, or be afraid of his life. In a nightmare, the dreamer’s boat is sinking or about to experience a sea disaster.
How to interpret a dream about a boat?
Various means of transport symbolize various aspects of our personality – our body, our relations with the others, our whole life etc.
Boats symbolize the connection between the consciousness and the unconsciousness. Long cruises may be the metaphor for our attempts to discover the mysteries of our mind. It is also worth paying attention to the condition of the boat – whether it is shoddy or stable, small or big, but also what our role on the boat is (it is particularly important if we want to know whether we take responsibility for our feelings, or we hold others responsible for it), how the water looks like, etc. Having problems with boat may mean that we can not deal with stress or an emotional trauma, etc. A hole in the boat and water pouring in may be a warning against our secret which may see the light of day.
A boat may portend changes in life, it proves that we are ready to accomplish a mission. If we are rowing in a dream, it is highly probable that we will succeed in real life, especially in the financial sphere. A rubber pontoon is a bad sign – it portends failures in love, maybe also financial losses.
How would Freud interpret a dream about a boat?
According to Freud, boats and other sailing units are the symbol of uterus – and he would also interpret a dream about a boat in this context.
How would Jung interpret a dream about a boat?
Jung believed the water to be connected with the feminine energy and everything what unaware. He used to assign a massive archetypical meaning to water containers, especially those extensive like a sea or an ocean. Means of transport which appear in our dreams symbolically describe the form of the psychic life of the dreamer. A boat cruise is the metaphorical attempt to explore the dreamer’s soul. The bigger the boat is, the more obvious are the attempts.