Dream Symbols: Sharks
(Antithesis: A tool of Deconstruction)
Food: Raw experience
Teeth: Core assumptions about life
Water: The world of meaning (love and emotions)
Blood: A promise
Sand: Memories that are so small it is hard to make a conclusion about or to build anything out of them
Boat: Emotion-based relationship
Can a shark really smell one drop of blood in a whole pool of water?
It seems to be true. Is that significant to what sharks might mean in dreams? Part of elucidating the nature of a dream symbol is compiling the notable traits, and see if there is a direction they all can point towards. What helps this process, is if there is a trait that is quite particular to it. One trait that is particular to sharks are the multiple rows of somewhat disposable teeth. Teeth are core assumptions about life rooted in memories(rock). When reality is more solid than the assumption we are using to process it, then the tooth or the assumption will break.
Eating is taking in raw experience and processing it. A shark is willing to break a whole row of teeth just to tackle one big meal. A sharp is an apex predator, and doesn’t seem to be scared to take anything head on and tear into it. What leads a shark to find a target? One thing is the scent of blood. Blood symbolically is a promise. The “blood of the covenant,” or “blood brothers” are a couple terms that show that symbolism. When a shark smells blood, it is following up with a promise. Blood is supposed to stay inside an animal, and so if it is leaking out that means something is wrong. Blood is not supposed to just be flowing with the current, it is supposed to flow with the anatomy of the body.
A shark doesn’t care that there is only a small amount of blood leaking, and that’s what it symbolically means. It is willing to pull on the thread that is loose to unravel the whole sweater. That promise, or consistency that is leaking, or doesn’t match up, might reveal a bigger problem. That problem in the present moment might get a lot bigger as it is being torn into, but the heart is not interested in covering up things that aren’t right. The heart wants to set things right, even if it means bloody chaos to get there.
Society is built around ease. Society enables us to avoid thinking, doing, or feeling anything difficult. There is a lot of complexity to life and social life in particular, and society just tries to ignore it until the perfect storm where sharks ride tornados into the city and start challenging the assumptions society is based on. Yes, Sharknado is built on dream symbolism. That isn’t saying much, because every story is. It is impossible to tell a story without dream symbols coming into play. I have only watched a 10 minute summary of Sharknado, but though the lens of whether creating a deep relationship is worth it or even possible in this superficial word, I am sure that you will find some insight. You could also pick any other movie or story with sharks and see if the theme of challenging assumptions seems relevant to the role the shark plays in the story.
Another thing about sharks that I found interesting is that they use electroreception to detect prey. “Electroreception is when sharks detect the electrical impulses that are given off by every living thing. Sharks have the ability to detect these impulses because they have lots of small pores in their skin around their snout – known as the ampullae of Lorenzi. These pores help sharks to detect their prey at close range, even if they are hidden underneath the sand.” This means that sharks are good at pushing through the nebulous fog that keeps us from challenging the assumptions head on. Many of the assumptions we hold we don’t know we hold them, and likely have no idea at what cost holding them comes. If you dream about sharks, it might be your heart suggesting the next step is to sniff out a spot in the fog to take a bit out of and clear things up.
One last thing about sharks is that they are cold-blooded. This symbolically shows that they are more of a mind thing and they are driven by cold, hard logic rather than warm emotion. In the yin and yang symbol, they would be part of the white dot in the middle of the black. In many stories this is symbolized as the sage or mentor who somewhat harshly challenges the main character’s assumptions about life. The mind deals with logic, and sharks are the part of our psyche that is capable of swimming in the world of emotion and meaning by not acquiescing to it. It is tough love.
Remember, all of the characters in your dreams are parts of you. You are not the shark in someone else’s life. The shark symbolizes the part of you that resists embracing assumptions that couldn’t possibly be completely true.
