What does it mean to dream about river?
A river often stands for the flow of life or feeling and the passage of time, carrying you onward whether you steer or drift.
Four ways to read it
Each reading below comes from a named tradition and a cited source, so you can see where it came from and decide what fits your dream.
Freud
Freud would read the current of feeling and the course of a life, and at times birth and the body's flow.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung would see the movement of the unconscious and of life itself, the crossing from one stage to the next.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Continuity ties rivers to waking thoughts of change, time, and direction, with the water's calm or rush tracking the mood.
Continuity hypothesis (our summary).Mythological
Rivers divide the worlds in myth, the Styx of the dead, the holy Ganges and Boyne, sacred boundaries and sources of life.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Bulfinch; Frazer).