The Ocean
Open water, deep water, water without a far shore. The ocean is one of the images people log most in Archetype Matrix.
What Jung wrote
Jung called water the most common symbol for the unconscious, and the sea was its widest form. In his essay on the archetypes of the collective unconscious he describes going down into water as a movement down into the psyche, below the personal layer and into what everyone shares.
The sea in his writing is neither simply calm nor simply dangerous. It is where things come from and where they return. Myths of heroes swallowed by sea monsters and carried through the dark before reaching land again were, for him, stories about exactly this passage.
- C. G. Jung, “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious”, Collected Works, Vol. 9i
- C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works, Vol. 5
What the world is logging
Counts include every entry naming Ocean or Sea.
Logged with the mood
- Calm30%
- Happy22%
- Sad14%
- Angry12%
- Anxious10%
- Excited6%
- Tired4%
- Awe2%
Where it is logged most
- United States21
- Japan3
- Belgium3
- South Africa2
- Australia2
Most common moon phase
Last Quarter (26 entries)
Counted from anonymous Archetype Matrix entries. Updated October 8, 2026.
What we don’t do
We won’t tell you what your ocean means. Jung himself distrusted fixed dream dictionaries and held that a symbol can only be read in the life of the person who dreams it. Archetype Matrix only counts: who logged the same image, where, and in what mood.
Other symbols
ForestSnakeBoatAlienOld WomanShadowLionDogWolfWaterEagleMirrorFishHorseGoldOld Man
