Dreaming Lens: Were you swimming or were you watching someone else swim? Was there a specific purpose or destination involved, or were you swimming for pleasure? How difficult was it to stay on your course? What sort of body of water were you in? Were you swimming above the water or down deep fully immersed?
Personal Focus: Water represents the emotional realm of our feelings, both conscious and unconscious. Swimming is specifically about progress and making your way through the emotional territory in your life. The intimate connection suggested by being immersed in water makes this an image that reflects your personal emotional journey as an individual. The effort of propelling yourself forward is completely self-motivated and generated exclusively by your own body. This reveals how effectively, or ineffectively, you are pushing yourself through an emotional challenge in your life.
The ease, pace, and depth of your swim offers a great deal of texture for you to investigate. The harder you have to work, the more effort is required to arrive at your destination of emotional growth. How fast you are moving will inform you of the speed of the process you are undergoing. The level of immersion communicates the emotional territory through which you are traveling—being on the surface reflects the emotions you are aware of, whereas swimming underwater implies deeper areas of feelings that reside in your unconscious mind.
The body of water you are in plays a strong role in arriving at an accurate interpretation. Small amounts of contained emotion connected to single issues in your life will be reflected by images of man-made constructions, such as pools or spas. A natural body of water expands the symbolic meaning to processes that are shared with others. The ocean represents the collective unconscious and an emotional connection to the human race. A lake might be more personal, but is reflective of your life as a whole. Water that flows, such as a river or a stream, connotes issues of emotional flow and the expression of your feelings.
Swimming upstream might mean that the current challenge is significant and requires effort. Moving with the current or tides could indicate that surrender to the emotional shifts is taking place. The fear of drowning can represent being overwhelmed by the transition you are in. Swimming laps might point to facing a recurring emotional issue that you are confronting over and over again. Competitive swimming could indicate that your struggle is both visible to others and may be producing elements of performance anxiety.