Dreaming of a lake — what does it mean?

What does it mean to dream of a lake?

The water lies completely still. The forest on the far side stands twice over, once real and once reflected. There are no waves, no current, nothing in a hurry. Many describe this as one of the most peaceful dreams they have had.

The lake differs from the ocean on one decisive point: it does not move. The sea has tides and a will. The lake has depth, but no speed.

Depth without movement

Stillness as the hallmark

What makes the lake dream distinctive is the absence of event. Nothing rises, nothing withdraws. The dream therefore concerns something happening less often, and a state more often — a period when things have settled.

The mirror lying there

A glassy lake reflects everything above it. That means the dream is often as much about the sky, the trees and yourself as about the water. Many remember the reflection better than the water.

What is nonetheless down there

Stillness does not mean emptiness. The lake is deep, and the dream knows it. A calm surface over something you cannot see is one of the more precise images for a period when everything seems fine without your having looked.

What the lake did

If the surface was perfectly glassy: The most common variant, and the most peaceful. Often described in periods when something has finally settled.

If something broke the surface: A fish, a stone, a hand. The break is usually the whole dream, and what came up is the detail worth remembering.

If the water was black or bottomless: Depth without visibility. Sits close to dreams of murky water, but with calm instead of unease.

If you rowed or swam out: Moving away from land on still water is often described as pleasant, unlike the same act on the sea.

If the lake was frozen: The dream then changes character and approaches ice — something halted rather than still.

The lake as a place you know

Many people dream of one particular body of water they have been to. The place then carries a whole period of life, and the dream is as much about that time as about the water.

The dream differs from the fjord, which holds sea water in an enclosed landscape. The lake has no way out — it is its own, and that is part of why it feels so calm.

Sources and further reading

• Carl Gustav Jung, Man and His Symbols (1964) — on water as an image of the unconscious, relevant to why a still surface over deep water is read as it is.
• Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams (1966) — normative data, relevant because it shows how much space natural settings occupy among dream scenes.
• G. William Domhoff, The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003) — the continuity hypothesis, relevant to the dream arriving in periods that are themselves calm.