In the interpretation of dreams, Fish is among the recurring images that traditional dream-books and modern depth psychology have alike tried to read. It is commonly interpreted as the unconscious, fertility, spiritual nourishment, and insight.
Common readings
Living in the deep, the fish is read as a content of the unconscious, and, in various traditions, as fertility, nourishment or an insight rising from below.
The reading of dream symbols has a long documented history, from the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus in the second century to Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and the archetypal psychology of C. G. Jung. Such meanings are interpretive conventions of those traditions, offered here as ways the image has been understood rather than as fixed or established fact; in practice a symbol takes much of its sense from the individual dreamer and the setting of the dream.
What changes the reading
The fish's element and fate order the readings. Fish seen alive in clear water, fish caught, fish cooked and eaten, fish dead on the shore and fish gasping out of water are treated as distinct images, the last commonly read as some living thing kept from its element. Catching a fish leans toward gain and realisation, an escaped catch toward the thing almost grasped. The water itself is read alongside the fish, clear or murky, deep or shallow, since what the fish stands for is taken to live in the condition the water shows.