Water
Read the condition rather than the substance. Clear and calm suggests clarity; murky suggests confusion; a flood suggests being overwhelmed by feeling you cannot contain.
Dreams about nature and elements
Fire
A contained fire and an uncontrolled one read very differently: one is drive, the other is anger or a situation past the point of management.
The ocean
Jung treated the sea as the collective unconscious. Practically, its state maps onto emotional weather — and depth onto how much is out of view.