Big fish

“I don’t remember my dreams,” Bella said, “except a snippet last night about some fish being too big for a fish tank.”

“Well, that’s a start,” I said. “Those few words alone raise some interesting questions, like what are you trying to squeeze into your life and why doesn’t it fit comfortably? And where do you need more space to be fully alive?”

Bella (not her real name), a journalist, was interviewing me for a piece on dreams. After the interview, I texted to ask permission to blog about her dream while protecting her identity. She offered a little more:

“Dad and I had a fish tank, and Dad wanted more fish, so we went to the shops and bought some. When we got back, we noticed the fish were way too big for the tank and it would be cruel to try and fit them in with the other fish. The dream was set at my childhood house where we had a pool. We kept the fish in the pool while we tried to figure out how to get them into the tank. I was upset for the fish.”

I knew it was late in Bella’s time zone, so I texted just one more question. “How exactly did you feel beneath the upset?”

The answer pinged back immediately. “Stressed that they weren’t going to be happy in that tank and that they wouldn’t be able to have the best life they could.”

If I were sitting down with Bella for a longer conversation, I’d ask her about the purpose of the fish tank in her dream. Was it for relaxation: to sit and watch the fish navigate their tiny world? Or was it for display: to exhibit various species and add to the room’s décor? Did they have a fish tank when she was a child, and, if so, what meaning or purpose did it hold in her life back then? We’d be exploring the fish tank symbol. Is she trying to squeeze too much into her life, diminishing space to relax? Was she encouraged to ‘be on show’ in childhood, or not be on show: to be small (like the small fish in the tank), to not take up too much space? Yet it is her dad in the dream who wants bigger fish. Does she feel encouraged or pressured by her father to take on something bigger, or be bigger in some way?

Everything in a dream represents something about the dreamer, so the big fish represent something about Bella that is big and needs more space to thrive. So why is she still thinking about how to fit this big energy into the tank at the end of her dream?

Bella may read this and recognise some practical elements. She may relate it to writing a book, or an article, and trying to fit too many big ideas into it. She might decide she needs to edit it down to make it fit the desired product (the required tank). Or she may relate the dream to ‘shopping’ for bigger projects and then getting stressed because she feels she’s taken on too much or can’t see how to fit it all in with the beliefs she learned from her father as she was growing up. If she sees the purpose of a fish tank as display, she may recognise that she’s focussing more on display (on what things look like) than on giving herself and her ideas space for growth and development.

Why did she dream about fish in a tank? Why not birds in a cage? Or tigers in a zoo? Does she feel like a ‘big fish in a small pond’? Does she talk about ‘fishing for ideas’? Is her dream reflecting the metaphors she uses in her waking life?

We tend to dream about animals when our animal (instinctive) nature is aroused, or when something is shifting in our unconscious, an energy we are becoming aware of but that has not yet found a voice. (Energies that have found a voice are more likely to be symbolised in dreams by people speaking words.) A powerful exercise is to close your eyes and ‘feel’ your way into a dream animal, or even adopt a body position that feels like the animal and move around. Bella might try to move like one of the big fish in her dream as it waits in the pool to be transferred to the tank. What does it feel like? What does the fish want to tell her? What can the big fish teach her about this part of herself? What does it want?

There’s emotion in Bella’s dream when she feels it would be cruel to try to fit the big fish in with the other fish. This adds colour: she is being unkind to herself at some level. She is stressed that the fish weren’t going to be happy and would not be able to live their best life. Yet still, at the end of the dream, she has the big fish waiting in the pool while she works out how to get them into the tank. Maybe there’s a way to integrate the small and big fish so they can live in harmony in the tank, but that doesn’t feel quite right, does it?

What Bella needs is to integrate the big fish energy into her life by giving it more space, possibly space away from the need to be ‘on display’. She may need to let go of some of the smaller fish (smaller things perhaps related to childhood) in her life so she can dedicate more room to bigger things. Symbolically she perhaps needs to put the fish in a bigger pond – not a bigger tank, not an artificial pool – but somewhere where she can feel connected to them and nurture their (her) best life.

From a dream alchemy perspective, she might imagine herself as a big fish swimming in a big pond, living her best life. She might then extend that feeling to herself as a woman, having the space to live her best life.

No dream – or dream snippet – is too small to offer rich rewards.

The questions and reflections I have posed here are a small sample of the territory Bella and I might explore during a dream consultation or during dream therapy. But the bottom line is clear: Bella’s best life is not to be found trying to squeeze that big fish energy into a small tank, but the end of her dream shows she is trying to do exactly that. Her focus is still on the problem of getting the fish into the tank. Time to shift that focus, Bella.

 

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