What Does Dreaming About a Mermaid Mean?

Psychologically, the mermaid is a rich, layered symbol — a being of two natures (human above, fish below) at home in the deep waters, which makes her a powerful image of the depths of emotion and the unconscious, and of the mysterious, alluring feminine. As a creature of the deep sea (and water is emotion and the unconscious), the mermaid often touches deep, hidden feeling, the call of the unconscious, and what lies beneath the surface.

She carries several charges. As allure and the mysterious feminine, the mermaid touches beauty, fascination, mystery, and the enchanting, elusive feminine. As temptation and illusion, the 'siren' side touches a beautiful but dangerous allure — being lured, enchanted, or drawn toward something fascinating but potentially perilous (the siren's song that draws sailors to the rocks). As duality, her two natures touch a divided or hidden self, two sides of your nature, or something not fully one thing or another. As the elusive, she touches a longing or fantasy that can't quite be grasped. Whether the mermaid enchants and beckons, lures dangerously, swims free in the depths, or remains elusive usually mirrors deep emotion and the unconscious, the alluring and mysterious feminine, temptation and a beautiful-but-dangerous draw, a duality or hidden side, and an elusive longing or fantasy.

A Freudian reading would attend to the mermaid as the alluring being of the deep — beautiful and enchanting above, yet of the watery depths below, evoking desire, the mysterious feminine, and the pull toward the deep and the forbidden. The mermaid can embody alluring desire bound up with the depths and with a dangerous, enchanting pull, the fascination that draws one toward the deep waters.

Her enchantment and the siren's lure carry the charge of desire and of the dangerous, drawing allure. What the mermaid evokes — fascination, longing, the pull of the enchanting and elusive, the danger beneath the beauty — tends to point at the dreamer's relationship to desire and the deep: the alluring, mysterious draw, the pull toward the depths of feeling and the forbidden, and the fascination with what enchants but cannot be safely grasped.

While the mermaid is not Scripture's figure, the tradition speaks to what she embodies — the enchanting but perilous allure ('the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb... but her end is bitter'), the call to guard against deceptive, drawing temptation, and the depths and the deep waters. The mermaid's beautiful-but-dangerous, alluring nature touches this theme of enticing allure and the wisdom to discern it.

A mermaid dream, read this way, can touch alluring temptation, the deep waters of feeling, a hidden or divided nature, or an elusive longing. A biblical sensibility might weigh the mermaid as an image of beautiful but perilous allure — a prompt to discern the enchanting draw that may have a 'bitter end,' to guard the heart against deceptive temptation, and to seek what is true and safe over the siren's song, while attending wisely to the deep waters of one's own feeling.

In Islamic sensibility the mermaid, a being of myth and the deep, touches the recognizable themes of alluring temptation to be discerned and guarded against, the depths (of feeling and the unseen), and the call to seek the wholesome over the merely enchanting. The mermaid evokes alluring temptation, the deep, and the call to discernment.

A mermaid dream, in this frame, might point to an alluring temptation, deep or hidden emotion, a duality or hidden side, or an elusive fantasy. Held with humility, it can invite discernment of the beautiful-but-dangerous allure (not drawn toward what enchants yet may harm), care with the deep waters of one's feeling, and the seeking of what is wholesome and true over the siren's enchanting but perilous call — guarding the heart with wisdom and modesty.

In a Hindu frame the mermaid resonates with the divine and semi-divine water beings — figures part-human and part-fish (as Matsya, the fish, and the water-dwelling celestial beings) and the apsaras whose enchanting beauty can allure — touching the depths of the waters, the alluring, and the dual-natured. The mermaid evokes the water-beings, alluring beauty, and the dual-natured depths.

A mermaid dream, in this frame, can point to deep emotion and the depths, alluring beauty or temptation, a duality or hidden side, or an elusive longing. The tradition's note attends to the depths and the alluring: the dual-natured being of the deep waters, beautiful and enchanting yet of the depths — an invitation to attend to the deep waters of one's feeling, to discern the alluring draw with awareness (not swept away by enchantment), and to integrate the dual or hidden sides of one's nature.