The recurring dreams in my life have to do with water and fish. I have had many tidal wave disaster dreams. But more than that I dream of aquariums. Sometimes they are fish tanks like the ones I own, sometimes giant ones like those in Monterey or Long Beach, sometimes they are huge pools, but never natural, always man-made structures. My aquarium dreams can go two ways: the fish are dying and/or turning into monsters, or the fish are doing well and they are happy. It seems pretty easy to figure out that when I'm stressed I dream of stressful fish tanks. The thing is, I'm not quite sure what it means when I dream of happy fish tanks. If I'm happy, why would I have a dream about it?

So last night I dreamt of a huge tank that seemed to be made of cement. It was a cylinder about 20 feet deep and about as wide as the average backyard kidney shaped swimming pool. This tank was the site of a Fear-Factor type challenge. This guy had to dive into the tank and try to find all the tiger barbs (small black and white striped fish) that he could and grab them and throw them out of the tank. I was there, sometimes in the tank, sometimes hovering above it. I was acting natural, as if I were the host of the show or something like that. I was judging and criticizing the guy's technique; he was catching very few fish. I knew all the fish were hiding near the bottom where there were sunken objects like old tires and boxes, and he had to go deeper. I remember he grabbed a couple fish and threw them up onto the side, and I felt bad for the fish but I didn't show it, I had to be professional about the situation. Eventually the guy gave up and he didn't do very well. The tank then converted into more of a public pool but there were still fish in it and trash at the bottom. There were a few women and young girls sitting along the sides the pool in old style swim suits. It felt like the 1920s now. I saw a tire near the surface of the water that had an eel in it that appeared to be dead. I looked closely at it and decided it wasn't completely dead. I grabbed it and slowly waved it around in the water until it came back to life. I let go and it swam away but it stayed near the surface and I was afraid someone else would catch it. It swam toward the girls and I was afraid it would scare them but they didn't see it. Eventually it seemed to feel better and it went down and disappeared safely underwater. I felt good.

I think this dream is about how I hate and fear a lot of things in the world, and I pretend these things don't bother me. I think I am the eel.