Do Dreams About Fish Signify Wealth?

Since antiquity, fish have symbolized wealth in people’s minds. For early humans, catching fish likely meant abundance. As a result, many ancient dream-interpretation texts claim that dreaming of fish foretells financial gain. In real life, though, dreaming of fish doesn’t always signal prosperity.

For example, a man dreamed he was playing on the beach and saw many fish in the water, with a few people going into the sea to catch them. He wanted to join them but was afraid of sharks, so he stayed on shore. Later, when he finally worked up the courage to go in, there were very few fish left.

This dream mirrors the experience of many people today. They may want to start a business, knowing it could bring great wealth, but they’re held back by fear of risk. Interestingly, sharks are also fish, but in this dream they symbolize danger rather than wealth. By the time the man mustered the courage to enter the sea, he found that others had already seized the opportunity to make money—or that earning money was no longer as easy as it first seemed.

A similar dream involves someone seeing many fish in a pond. He wanted to catch a few to eat but found the fish extremely unattractive and disgusting. Here, fish represent wealth, while the ugly fish symbolize ill-gotten gains or dirty money. Therefore, in dream interpretation, the first step is to determine whether fish represent wealth; the next is to analyze the fish’s appearance, type, and location to understand what kind of wealth they signify. Sometimes, fish may represent not only tangible monetary wealth but also intangible spiritual wealth.

For instance, someone dreamed that he was raising many goldfish in a pond, but the water was running low. He hurriedly searched for water and finally found a faucet, but no water came out. Meanwhile, the water in the pond continued to drop, many fish died, and the remaining ones were barely alive. Upon reflection, this person felt he couldn’t find nourishment for his soul and sensed that his inner self was becoming impoverished.

Fish can also symbolize sexuality. At the Banpo site in Xi’an, a pottery vase featuring a fish-bird motif shows a fish with its mouth wide open, swallowing a bird’s head. Look closely and you’ll notice the bird’s head resembles a penis, while the fish’s mouth resembles a cross-section of a vagina—a striking image that hints at a primitive understanding of anatomy. It represents sexual intercourse. In Chinese, the term “fish-water joy” refers to intimacy between men and women.

Sometimes a dream can have two different interpretations, both of which are valid. Dreams often function like a grand pun. Jung noted that fish—especially those living in the ocean depths—symbolize the lower centers of the human psyche and the sympathetic nervous system. This makes sense, as in dream interpretation fish often stand for the subconscious or human intuition. In some artists’ dreams, they represent elusive, mysterious inspiration.

Fish can also signify “opportunity,” as the word “fish” sounds similar to “encounter” in Chinese. For example, a girl dreamed of a large red carp falling from the sky. She wanted the fish but was afraid of being swallowed, so she tried to use a chair to block its mouth to keep it from consuming her. However, as she hesitated, the fish disappeared.

This dream suggests that the fish represents a fleeting opportunity. In this dream, the fish symbolizes not only opportunity but also sexuality, reflecting the girl’s ambivalence toward a certain man.

Dreaming of a whale is different from dreaming of ordinary fish. To begin with, it can symbolize your mother or femininity. If the whale is about to swallow you, it may represent a domineering mother or an overly close relationship with your mother that hinders your development as an independent individual.

Additionally, being swallowed by a whale symbolizes entering the subconscious (which can be frightening), with the outcome being the discovery of your true self—often represented in dreams by precious stones or jewels.