Dreaming of blue : what can this symbol evoke?

The colour that recedes

The blue of the sky and of distant mountains belongs to no object : it is born of the thickness of air separating us from them. Come closer and the colour disappears. It is the only hue that is an effect of distance.

Dreams use it exactly so. Blue there accompanies what is desirable and out of reach : a project always postponed, a person one idealises, a future imagined better than the present. It is not a sad symbol ; it is that of the far-off keeping its colour as long as one does not approach.

The question it poses is precise : what you look at with that intensity — have you approached it lately? Some things do not bear being reached, and the dream says so without reproach.

A cobalt blue filling the whole space

Cobalt blue is a deep, saturated blue, the one Chinese potters used to decorate blue-and-white porcelain. Its name comes from the German Kobold, a spirit of the mines: miners gave this name to the deceptive ore. When this blue fills the whole space of a dream, the distant stops being distant: one is inside what one usually only looks at from afar. The dream may speak of a complete immersion in an inner state, an emotion, a calm or a depth that envelops everything. It may also say that a desire or an ideal, long seen from a distance, is now all around you. The question is what you felt in this blue: peace, or a kind of absorption whose edges can no longer be seen.

The colour made latest

Ancient peoples named red, black and white long before blue, and many languages long confused it with green or grey. It took time for it to become a colour in its own right, then the favourite of the greatest number.

That late history lends the symbol a useful nuance : blue is a calm, soothing colour, and that reputation is recent. Dreams often use it to speak of an appeasement obtained rather than given — a peace that took time and was not held in advance.

What to remember is what the blue covers. A deep, even blue speaks of a real calm ; a cold, metallic blue says something else — a distance taken, sometimes necessary, sometimes excessive.

What the blue colours changes the reading

• A very blue sky or horizon — what is desirable and kept at a distance, whose colour comes from remoteness.
• Deep blue water — what lives beneath the surface, looked at without entering.
• A cold, almost metallic blue — a distance taken, protective or excessive depending on context.
• An ordinary object turned blue — something familiar that has receded without moving.
• A blue paling as one approaches — the discovery that what was desired lost its colour up close.
• Being surrounded by blue — an enveloping calm, often after an agitated period.
• A cobalt blue filling the whole space — being enveloped by what was distant, a complete immersion in an inner state.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology takes an interest in colours as affective tonalities rather than codes : blue is associated with distance and withdrawal, without that being negative — stepping back is sometimes the only way to continue. It notes that vividly coloured dreams often accompany intense emotional states, whatever the hue. Other readings retain the religious use of blue, reserved for celestial figures.