The Dream Book of Self-Knowledge
- the state and quality of the water tells us of the quality of the contact with the emotional level (bathing), whereas ice water of crystal purity is best for progress to the spiritual level; the water's quality corresponds to an understanding of moral purity at that given moment, therefore we encounter dirty water during the successful self-improvement process and wonder how we once bathed in it (the dream can go so far in the allegorical assessment of the past that what the dreamer once felt was clean water is shown in his recollection as muddy or sludgy).
- the shallows as a place of safe bathing: a positive clash with the emotional content of one's psyche.
- the colder and cleaner the bathing water, the better the moral purification.
- bathing man: represents the emotional animus and a bathing woman represents the emotional anima.
- bathing a child: the person bathing a child not belonging to the family is the emotional animus or emotional anima; if the person bathes his own child it attests to important work by the dreamer on his own self-improvement, though only on the level of unifying instinctual antitheses.
- bathing with arousing erotic images: the dreamer is unable to maintain the purity of the emotional content of his own mind and draws instinctual images into it; these images usually result in a fall to the instinctual sphere in which emotions no longer dominate.
- bathing with an animal, bathing an animal: the dreamer's emotions (water) gradually transform the instinctual symbol; a fast transformation depends on the purity and temperature of the water (the colder the water, the faster the transformation).
- other bathers: the unconscious is alerting the dreamer to the need for moral cleansing.
- a naked pair bathing (woman and man): if sexuality does not enter into the image then it is a unifying image of the emotional level (emotional anima with emotional animus); for more on this complex unification of antitheses see the Animal – Animus and Coniunctio archetypes).
- a bathing youth: the dreamer's attempt to transform the increasing power of animosity and egotistical desire into emotions.
- deciding to bathe instead of departing on a journey: the dreamer has realized (even if subconsciously) that moral cleansing is more important for further development than continuing on the life journey with his present foundation (unsound mindset).
- unwanted bathing: if the dreamer does not try to change, instincts will remain an unpleasant emotional bath.
- dangerous bathing or dangerous water: the dreamer is riskily attempting to overcome his own emotions; such a dream image foretells dangerous and fateful moments.
- bathing in lake waters: an attempt to strengthen the emotional content of the mind.
- bathing with clothes on: in clashing with the strongest aspect of the emotional level (water) the dreamer is still unable to free himself from the personality (for a description of the personality see the Persona archetype).
- bathing naked: "stripped" of his personality, the dreamer lets powerful emotions affect every part of his instinctual body so as to better withstand the rigors of temptation after moral cleansing.
- regular dream baths: usually a foretelling of the future defeats of instinctual symbols and personifications.
- bathing and the moral cleansing contained in it offer the dreamer the chance to return to images of the past and to rectify mistakes that he once committed to free himself from their consequences (karma*26 and the Law of Karma*34).
