Fishy Dreams

I had a strange dream last night. (It's also strange that I remembered it, that doesn't happen too often). Most of my dreams that I remember are strange really, but they usually mostly seem to be a pretty random stringing together of events. This one felt symbolic though.

Part of it I realized I had dreamt several times before, but first a bit of background: In my childhood bedroom, the first one I'd had to myself, there was a little white shelf attached to the wall. The bottom shelf was about eye level, so the top part was tall enough I had to get a chair or something to see it properly.

In the dreams I've had before, there was a fish on that top shelf. Kind of a big goldfish. But he wasn't in a tank or anything, just lying on his side on a plate. Alive, not moving much, and every so often I would pour some water on him to keep him alive, but mostly I kind of forgot and neglected the poor thing.

Somehow, in this dream, G and I were going to do something, take him out somewhere, and I checked on him to see that he seemed to be barely alive, and was getting kind of slimy since the water I poured over him just kind of sat and stagnated in the plate. I felt horrible for being so neglectful and started filling up the bathtub, carefully checking that the water wasn't too warm or too cold, terrified that I'd put him in and he'd just float on his side, dead.

But I put him in the water and he immediately started swimming around, splashing and playing, happy. I thought, "oh crap, we better get him a tank!"

Don't ask me why I hadn't gotten a tank at the same time I got the fish, or why I left him there on a plate for so long. Completely unlike waking me when it comes to fish! In fact I woke up and scolded myself for putting him in the bathtub water, because I had several fish growing up and I know they're supposed to be in purified water! And when you change the tank you're supposed to leave some of the old water in and mix it with the new stuff so they're not completely shocked at the new water.

But obviously, this was not a normal fish, this was a dream fish, and I'm left wondering what part of me/my life the fish represents, that I've been neglecting on a top shelf, that would only take a little bit of space and water to be happy and healthy again. G thinks that the fish is me, that I need to take better care of myself altogether. That's true, but I have a feeling it's more like a specific part of me, and of course I want to relate it to songwriting and performing, and that maybe it won't take as much as I think to be ready to put myself out there in front of people. Maybe both things are right.