I have frequent dreams about fish. Typically, they are at a pet store or aquarium and a few somehow manage to get out of their tank. I then spend the rest of the dream scrambling around, trying to pick them up, put them in a container, and then return them to the proper tank.

Usually, I screw up. I either cannot catch them as they flop around and drop through a floor vent or get eaten etc., or the container I found for them had a leak and the water all drained out and they dried up. The worst one, though, is when I finally get them into a tank only to discover it was the wrong one, and they get eaten by the other fish that were already in there. Or they have some sort of disease and I'm trying to save them but always make it worse somehow. I always fail, and I always feel terrible.

Last night however was different. This time I found a fish, a beta that I had when I was 12 named Ray. I was very attached to him in the two years I'ld owned him, and cried for days after he died. In the dream I somehow found his body only to discover he was still alive. I put him in his old tank, and while both him and the tank where a little beaten up looking (the tank was cracked and dirty, the fish's tail wasn't as beautifully long and he wasn't such a vibrant blue as he once was), but I knew he'd be okay. I just knew he'd get better.

I know it's just a fish, but I'm usually so distressed when I have dreams about them. I always fail. They always die. But when I saved Ray, I felt a certain amount of peace that I usually don't have in dreams.

Maybe it's nothing, but I'm curious if anyone has some ideas on what this might mean.