Monthly Archives: November 2011

i hate snakes.  i think most people do.   i may be making that up but it’s true – at least in my mind.

so, the other night i’m happily sleeping having a nice dream where i find myself walking along a beach.   i pick up a small shell, maybe 2 inches wide and take it home with me – which, btw is not something i would normally do but in the dream it seemed perfectly reasonable.   when i got home,  which was my apartment on east 55th street that i moved out of in 2002,  i put the shell in the bathroom sink and made plans to wash it later.   when later arrived,  i noticed a serpent like head seemed to be growing out of one end of the shell.   omg – there was a snail in my shell, i thought – and i really hate snails.   at nearly the speed of light the head kept growing and began to look remarkably like a snake head rather than a snail.  i began to panic and a snake tail emerged from the other end of the shell.  it was truly disgusting.  i grabbed a washcloth and threw it over the snake in the sink but the snake was growing so fast that one washcloth wasn’t enough.  i grabbed two more washcloths & tossed them on top of the snake.  i don’t normally use washcloths so it was a bit bizarre that i had three in my e. 55th street bathroom in this dream –   i’m just reporting the facts as they occurred.   believe it or not, the snake was growing at such a rapid rate, it wasn’t 5 seconds before his head emerged again – pushed right through 3 washcloths –  and he was looking right at me.  i could tell he had some kind of a personality too.  his eyes were more human shaped than round like a snake’s should be.  it seemed as though he was smiling at me a little and thinking something like,  ”you silly girl,  do you really think three washcloths are going to keep me from doing whatever i please?”

i darted into the living room,  pulled a beach towel from the top shelf of the closet and ran back to the bathroom to smother him.   by the time i got there, he was easily 4 feet long, his chin was resting on the ledge of the sink and he was starring at me head on,  smiling.  in my haste to awaken at that moment, i kicked ivan who was sound asleep at the foot of the bed then sat up for a moment and tried to shake the nightmare.  it turns out it was one of those dreams that continued on each time i closed my eyes.

after several attempts to sleep some more i was forced out of my own bed by a snake with human eyes.  i looked up snakes in two different dream dictionaries and this is what i they said:

1. In some cultures snakes are highly regarded and symbolize the ability to transcend into higher levels of consciousness or into areas of knowledge that exist outside perceived time and space. Snakes emerging out of the ground may represent your unconscious or repressed materials coming to your conscious mind.

2. Snakes can indicate that you have a counseling ability. In these dreams the snake is non-threatening. In the Chinese astrological system, people born under the sign of the snake are said to be wise and wisdom in dreams indicates counseling.

i feel better now.

*

“When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?”
 Rene Descartes