Dreaming of the Thames : what can this symbol evoke?

A river whose current can run backwards

Most dream rivers symbolise passing time, precisely because they never flow back. The Thames is an exception : twice a day the tide reverses its direction. That property makes it a different symbol, that of a movement which is not irreversible. Dreaming of the Thames therefore frequently evokes a situation where something you believed definitively gone can return — a relationship, an opportunity, an emotion. The river also crosses a capital it cuts in two, which adds a second dimension : it separates as much as it links, and the bridges spanning it then become the decisive detail. Finally, its water is known to be murky and grey, rarely clear : this dream therefore concerns more often what one does not see than what one makes out.

Dreaming of watching the Thames from a bridge

Stopping in the middle of a bridge, leaning on the parapet, and watching the water pass below : this scenario recurs very regularly, and it is richer than it looks. You are then still above what moves, and halfway between two banks. That position frequently reflects an accepted moment of transition : you have left one state without having reached the next, and you take the time to look. The detail guiding the reading is the direction of the current : water moving away towards the sea evokes letting go, water running back upstream evokes a return, sometimes a rumination. Many dreamers do not remember this detail on waking ; if it comes back to you, it is worth attention.

The state of the water and context change the reading

• Grey, opaque water — often evokes a situation whose depth you sense without making out its content, and which it would be unwise to judge too quickly.
• The current reversing before your eyes — frequently reflects a turnaround underway, sometimes a decision you are in the process of revisiting.
• A low tide uncovering mud and objects — can signal the resurfacing of old elements, long covered, which circumstances expose again.
• Crossing from one bank to the other — represents an accepted passage between two states, two milieus or two periods of your life.
• Falling, or leaning dangerously over it — evokes an involvement exceeding what you had planned, in a situation you thought you were merely observing.

A psychological reading, not a fixed box

Some currents of depth psychology see in the river a figure of the course of life, and in its floods or low waters the variations of psychic energy. The Thames adds its reversibility to that reading : it then represents less a linear time than a back-and-forth movement, like that of memory. Others stress its role as an urban border, the river separating two halves of one city like two sides of one person.