If you’ve ever dreamt of a river, congratulations. Your dream river actually says a lot about your future based on your present mindset.
It’s actually fairly easy to forget about your river dream because your following dream may be more memorable.
Maybe something happened in the night visions that you had after your dream river.
Maybe in your next dream, you are being chased by a madman or experiencing the unique discomfort of bedbugs, or even leeches.
Rivers in dreams are all too easy to forget.
But they pack quite a bit of meaning.
If your dream focuses almost entirely on this body of water, pay close attention.
You’ve come to the right place if you’re serious about picking apart its rich, nuanced, and often seemingly contradictory meanings.
The general meaning of river dreams

If the main focus of your dream is a river, this can indicate that you need more calmness in your life.
There’s a desire in you for a greater and deeper level of serenity.
This may be due to the fact that you’re facing a tremendous amount of stress in different areas of your life.
Maybe this is the first time you experienced that level of stress.
Or you’re just going through a major transition and you would like an inner source of peace, calm, and assurance.
Your subconscious is projecting to your dreaming mind your need for this type of calm.
Another meaning of rivers in dreams involves inner desires.
We can’t quite put a finger on him.
We can’t even articulate them to a clear degree.
But the feelings that we get for certain situations, realities, or things are quite strong.
In fact, we can even come up with a good reason why we desire certain things.
We just feel that it’s right.
That’s how conflicted, confusing, and highly complicated these types of desires can be and much like being caught up in a river.
If you’ve ever gone river rafting, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
It seems that all these forces are coming at you from all these different directions and you’re just trying to keep your bearings.
You don’t want to tip over.
You just want to keep going forward.
But it’s very hard when you feel that you’re experiencing all these emotions that seem to hit you from all directions.
Another general meaning of river dreams involves upcoming prosperity.
Now, this is not the kind of wealth that you probably imagine.
A lot of people are under the impression that once they make it big and they achieve a certain income level or a net worth level, their life would be smoother from that point on out.
If only that were true.
In many cases, for people who go through a rapid transformation, their income and net worth level seem to be hit by surprise.
It’s as if their old mindset or old mental wallet could not adjust quickly enough to their rising income or net worth.
And by the time they made certain adjustments, the income flow has dried up.
This is this flash of prosperity that a lot of Americans go through.
Maybe you bought a house that was very affordable when you moved in and after a few years, the property prices in your area just skyrocketed.
This is an experience that is all too common throughout the United States and people are just blindsided by this instant prosperity.
Please understand that if you would think like a poor person and no amount of money passing through your hands will make you rich.
Have you ever noticed that the majority of lottery winners go back to their old financial struggles once the money dries up?
You’ll have to expand your mental wallet.
Prosperity is primarily mental and emotional.
Have you ever noticed that millionaires and billionaires who are forced by circumstances to file for bankruptcy, almost inevitably become rich again?
Funny how that works, right?
So it’s not really the amount of money in their bank account, because that can fluctuate.
Instead, it’s what they assume.
Wealth revolves around what you expect from others and yourself.
Change that and you’ll get something that nobody can take away from you.
You get a wealth mindset that will continue to manifest a comfortable financial reality, regardless of where you find yourself.
Finally, the dream river can indicate a sense of anxiety that really sinks all the way to your bones.
Again, you can’t quite figure out where the anxiety is coming from but you feel that something’s about to snap.
You’ll get this sneaking suspicion that whatever good things are going on in your life will be temporary and before you know it, you get back to the same old grind.
What does it mean to dream about swimming in a river during summer?

This indicates a desire for inner peace and quietness in your surroundings.
You may not be an introvert, but taking some time off and just reconnecting with the inner flow of emotions in your inner core, may be just what you need to make better sense of things.
It can also give you the confidence you need to take the next step.
As you probably already know, there are many twists and turns in the path that you have chosen for yourself.
Life has lots of ups and downs.
And if you allow all the stress and inner turmoil that life brings to the table to get to you, don’t be surprised if you find yourself falling into one pothole after another.
By having this inner source of calm, you can find the confidence you need to learn what you need to learn from your failures and keep pushing forward to achieve breakthroughs in many areas of your life.
What does it mean to dream of a clean river?

If the main focus of your dream involves just how clean the water is, maybe this is the frothing of the water, the clarity of the river flow, or something else, this indicates that you desire peace in your work life.
A lot of the information that flows through your mind takes place in the context of work.
Either you’re preparing for work, you’re doing it or you are trying to recover from your stay at the office.
Whatever the case may be, a lot of all this extra information and stuff that you normally wouldn’t encounter come from work and it seems that you suffer from data overload.
It’s as if you’re trying to drink all this information from a fire hydrant.
There’s this strong desire in you to just block everything out and give yourself some time to settle down, so you can incorporate more and process this information more efficiently.
This is exactly what you should do.
Look into meditation or at the very least, pick up a mindfulness practice.
What does it mean to dream of being on a calm river?

When you see yourself on a kayak or a raft, going down a calm river, or maybe you’re witnessing the calm flow over a river in front of you.
This indicates that there are certain areas of your life that which you can draw strength from.
While it seems that most of the things that are currently top of mind for you are going through some changes or even turmoil.
If you dig deep enough, there are certain areas that you can feel calm about.
It seems that not much has changed in these areas and that’s a good thing.
Take refuge in them, draw your strength from them and gain the confidence you need to make sense of the rest of your life so you can keep pushing forward.
What does it mean to dream about an overflowing river?

Your subconscious is picking up signs that there is going to be some material wealth in your future.
The problem is, that you are not mentally ready for this.
This is what damages a lot of people.
Usually, people desire, wealth and fortune.
But the problem with that kind of desire is that there is an unstated assumption.
What we’re saying to ourselves is that “My problems in life are solved by money”.
What happens when the money appears?
Nine times out of 10 your problems remain.
They may take different forms and shapes.
But there are still problems because your mind hasn’t adjusted.
Your issues are not the lack of money, it’s how you frame your challenges.
You have to pay close attention to their expectations and assumptions because these are what hold you back and drag you down, or they can push you forward and lift you up.
It all depends on your mindset.
And unfortunately, a lot of people think that there is something outside of them.
Maybe an instant fortune or a hot crypto play that will magically transform their lives.
If only that were true.
You only need to look at professional athletes in the United States.
In the span of five years, the average professional athlete in the United States declares bankruptcy.
They were poor before, now millions of dollars pour into their lives, and once that’s gone and the career in their career is over, they go back to their old financial struggles.
It’s all about mindset.
So invest in the proper, solitary time to pick apart what you assume about yourself and the things you choose to believe about where you can and cannot go, and who you can and cannot be.
What does it mean to dream of crossing a river?

Your subconscious is trying to send you a bright red signal that you are going to be facing a major choice.
On the surface, it might seem like a simple decision, in fact, might even masquerade as some sort of clerical procedure.
But don’t let that fool you.
Because the assumptions that you bring to the table when it comes to these choices can affect the quality of your outcome.
It’s really important to approach this upcoming choice with the end of the outcome you have that you desire.
Because if you just focus on the choice and you’re not looking long-term or you’re blind to the big picture, your chances of making a mistake go up tremendously.
What does it mean to dream of a muddy river?

People have a complicated relationship with mud.
A lot of scientists are saying that mud is the original birthplace of all life.
But at the same time, most people would agree that mud is something to be avoided because it’s dirty, it’s a stain.
You have to pay close attention to the amount of mud in the river that you’re seeing because muddy water dreams are very turbulent emotionally.
Your subconscious is trying to draw your attention to certain emotional issues in your life through the form of a muddy river.
We’re not to start with muddy water.
We’re talking about a massive flow of water that is muddy.
In other words, there are certain issues in your life that you need to pick apart and take control of otherwise they may overwhelm you.
Because you may think that you are a rational and clear-thinking person.
However, your emotions actually play a bigger role in your decisions, your self-conception, and your assumptions about other people than you care to realize.
What does it mean to dream of a river filled with fish?

When you see this dream, it indicates that there are several opportunities in many areas of your life.
If you’re looking for love, there are opportunities that are right in front of you, but you may be blind to them.
Similarly, when it comes to your career, the challenges that you face at the office might actually be opportunities in disguise.
But you see a river filled with fish in your dream, your subconscious is telling you to start hunting for opportunities.
In other words, open your eyes to the real situation in front of you and you’d be surprised at how many opportunities already exist.
This flies in the face of how people usually approach opportunities.
They think that they have to wait for somebody to bring something to the table.
They feel that somebody else has to do the heavy lifting, and all they need to do is just unwrap those packages.
Life doesn’t work that way.
Opportunities appear precisely because you worked to make them appear.
As the old saying goes, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.
Think along those lines.
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Dream interpretation and symbology have fascinated me ever since I read Freud’s classic, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Ever since, I have explored Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Jungian psychological ideas about the meaning of dreams. Thanks for joining me in my exploration of the amazing intersection between our conscious waking world and the rich expanse of our subconscious-the home of our intuition, instincts, and hidden potential.