Dreaming about dirty water: muddy, at home, flooding or drinking

Dreaming about dirty water: what it usually points to

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about dirty water is not a sign of illness, of the evil eye or of betrayal. The scene tends to show up in phases of vague discomfort: something that bothers you and is not clear, a situation in which you cannot "see the bottom", a heavy atmosphere at work or at home. It also comes from very concrete experiences, like the brown water that runs from the tap when the supply comes back on, a water tank that has not been cleaned in ages or a flooded street after a storm.

The general meaning of water in dreams is in dreaming about water. Here the focus is on murkiness: what dirty water adds, where it was and what you did with it. The opposite version, with transparent water, has its own reading in dreaming about clear water.

Read also: Dreaming about mud and Dreaming about rain or a flood.

Where the murky water in the dream comes from

According to the continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, dreams follow what occupies waking life. In Brazil, dirty water is an everyday subject: a polluted river cutting through the city, summer floods, open drainage ditches, the scare of seeing water from the rooftop tank come out a strange color. People who have been through a flood inside their home may dream of the water line on the wall for a long time.

When dirty water rises, invades or sweeps things away, the dream joins the group of threat dreams. In 2000, Antti Revonsuo proposed that these work as a rehearsal of danger, in which the brain simulates what frightens us most. For people who live in areas that flood, the dreamed flood is a familiar threat, not a metaphor.

It is worth remembering a difference that nature shows well: muddy water is not always dirty water. In Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, at the Meeting of the Waters, the Solimões River, the color of clay because of the sediment it carries, runs side by side with the Rio Negro, dark because of organic matter from leaves and the forest, without mixing for miles. Both are living rivers, each with its own wildlife. In a dream, the color of the water says less than the feeling it left behind.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000.

Muddy, at home or in a glass: the scenes

If there was trash floating, see dreaming about trash. If the water was from the sea and came in waves, read dreaming about the sea and giant waves. And if you were sinking and could not get out, there is more in dreaming about drowning.

See also: Dreaming about a volcano and Dreaming about a desert.

When dirty water deserves care

A single dream about dirty water calls for no action. It is worth talking with a health professional when the scene turns into a recurring nightmare, several times a week, or when it relives a flood you actually went through. Frequent nightmares and nightmares after a trauma are treatable. See how to have fewer nightmares.

There is also a practical side. If the dream came after you waded through floodwater, remember that this water can transmit diseases such as leptospirosis, a common warning from health authorities in Brazil during the rainy season. If you have a fever, body aches or feel unwell in the following days or weeks, see a health service and mention the contact with the water. And if the water at home is coming out cloudy, notify your water utility and check that the storage tank has been cleaned.

Source: Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

Dirty water in dream dictionaries

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for dirty water. The closest one is mud, which the tradition sums up like this: in life, losses; in love, enmity. The reading is much harsher than the one for ordinary water, which the book links to peace and harmony. It is folk tradition, not prediction.

Freud called this way of reading the decoding method: each image is swapped for another according to a fixed key, without asking the dreamer anything. The dirty water of someone who cleaned the house after a flood and that of someone who only saw the scene on television do not tell the same story.

Sources: L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014; Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900.

Murky water according to Freud, Jung and faith

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud tells of a dream of his own on a thirsty night: his wife gave him something to drink from a vessel that was an Etruscan funerary urn, brought back from a trip to Italy. The water tasted so salty, because of the ashes in the urn, that he woke up. The wish to drink was there, but the "spoiled" water interrupted his sleep. Freud also summarizes the ideas of Scherner, for whom a stimulus from the intestines could turn into streets full of mud in a dream. The suggestion is to look first at the body and at the day before.

In Jung's psychology. In Jungian psychology, water is often read as an image of the unconscious, what runs beneath the surface. In the Jungian key, water in which you cannot see the bottom may represent feelings and matters that have not yet become clear even to the dreamer, and that need time to settle, like the earth sinking to the bottom of a glass.

In symbols and faith. The Bible has scenes of bad water that is healed. In 2 Kings 2:19-22, the people of Jericho complain that the city's water is bad, and the prophet Elisha casts salt into the spring, and the water is healed. In Ezekiel 34:18-19, the prophet rebukes those who drink the clean water and then foul the rest with their feet, leaving the dirty water for others. For people of faith, the image can become a question about what we leave for those who come after us.

Bringing both readings together. Research shows where murky water usually comes from: the news, floods, the tap at home. Psychology and faith ask what is still unclear and what needs to be cleaned. Write down where the water was and whether it cleared at the end.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols.

What folk tradition links to dirty water

In Brazilian folk reading, dirty water is one of the dreams with the worst reputation: it is usually tied to illness, envy, gossip or tight money. Dirty water inside the house would be a family fight or trouble at home; a flood of dirty water, difficulties arriving all at once; drinking dirty water, accepting something that does you harm; and seeing dirty water turn clean, a problem solved. These are readings from tradition, which vary from region to region, and not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.