[RoseTiger]

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.

[Thunder Bow]

You felt at peace because you have rescued yourself. You have helped yourself heal. This all about taking care of yourself and your healing.

[Eyes of Blue]

Fish represent an spiritual aspect of your emotional nature and also represent particular spiritual concepts. The dream would suggest that you are having a problem with this aspect of yourself. Aquariums represent a man-made spiritual environment. The fish getting out of the aquarium, reflect the idea that when you use the spiritual concepts you find in such man-made spiritual environment, your spiritual feelings put you into the position of being "a fish out of water", that is, you end up not being in a spiritual environment at all. (Note that water is the main symbol of The Spirit.) You appear to be having a difficult time in "picking up on" this fact.

In your mind you have, or could resurrect a spiritual concept encountered when much younger.
The spiritual environment in which this concept is seen does not look all that good (tank is cracked and dirty) to you. The tail/tale that belongs to this concept could be seen as having been "cut short". The spiritual approval for this concept (the blue colour) does not have the same emotional appeal as it once did. (no longer a vibrant blue) But, it seems certain to recover its former status.

In general dreams with fish can be seen as suggesting that "something fishy" is going on. Something is not quite as it should be.

[RoseTiger]

Wow, that actually made a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time out to read this and respond in such detail.