Author

Subject: Snakes

Catherine

02:41 05/02/2000 

I was given a pet snake by my grandfather. It was a huge constrictor snake, but it never attacked anyone.

I carried it around with me and petted it, like a lap dog. I was walking around a neighborhood of warehouses as if they were the normal buildings everyone lived in.

It was growing dark so I decided to put my snake in my room so he could sleep while I went out.

I got in some kind of old truck, but it wouldn't start. My snake got upset and slithered off, and I couldn't find him again.

I rounded up my friends and tried to find my snake, but all we found were tiny little foot-long snakes. They were all over the lawns of these warehouses.

I went inside, upset that I couldn't find my snake. I was sitting on a table and a bookshelf fell on me. It didn't hurt but I struggled with it like it was a person, and I could hear it talking to me.

After a while, I went back outside to attempt to find my snake again. My mother was walking among the little snakes, very scared and trying to dodge them. I finally found my pet snake and went home.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

Jane Anderson

09:29 08/02/2000 

Hi Catherine,

There is a lot in your dream and it is a very powerful one. Here are some starting points: others may wish to add more:

Snakes can mean a number of things in our dreams, but they do have a deep symbolism, across the world, as the healing energy within ourselves. (Snakes are incorporated into many healing legends and stories and health symbols such as our western medicine caduceus.)

Your grandfather gave you the snake but you put it in a dark place and lost it. Your grandfather in a dream can symbolise the 'old and wise' part of yourself: it seems you have a wise understanding of healing but you have pushed it into the dark (into your unconscious). The healing you feel you have 'lost' may either be healing skills (a sense of knowing) or the need to heal something within yourself.

In dreams, the bite of a snake often symbolises the moment of facing the pain of a healing, afterwhich we move on, healed, refreshed. Your snake, being in the dark, can neither bite you into healing nor be used by you to facilitate healing in others.

The warehouses may symbolise storage, again giving rise to the idea that you may have put healing into storage. You also dreamed of a truck that wouldn't start: a truck may symbolise work ( a practical way of getting around) as warehouses may also be used for work purposes. So here you can see healing could be coming up in the context of work: only the snake is lost and the truck is going nowhere! (Cars in dreams often symbolise how you're going about your life, your drive and direction.)

Jumping on a bit, the bookshelves fell on top of you: to me this suggests that knowledge (books) is getting in the way of your healing. Either the 'wrong' kind of knowledge - or, possibly, if you are a student, the feeling that your study is getting 'on top of you' (as literally shown in the dream). Do you feel the weight of too much study or the 'wrong' kind of knowledge?

The little snakes are possibly smaller areas of healing or healing-knowledge that you are dealing with in your life now - but you know they are nothing compared to the big one.

There is more - but there are some clues there Catherine. Hope it helps.

Some liken snakes to symbols of sexuality, and with your note about petting the lap dog, this could be an angle here, but I feel the healing one is overwhelmingly where this dream is at.

Let us know how you feel about all of this!

Jane Anderson

Catherine

09:15 09/02/2000 

Your idea of healing sounds very accurate, and the "wrong" kind of studying is exactly right!

I remembered the other day the name of my pet snake. It was Joe, Joey, or JoJo, something with "Joe" in it. I don't know if that would help.

Thanks for the insight!

Catherine

Jane Anderson

13:49 09/02/2000 

Pleasure Catherine,

The name may be a personal symbol for you: perhaps start by thinking of people you have known with this kind of name and see if some quality (of these people) emerges. If you're Australian, and if the snake was Joey, then as a joey is a baby kangaroo, maybe there is a clue here. (E.g. healing/healer around something Australian ...)

Stay with it - you'll get it.

Another way to discover a personal symbol is to write a free form poem on the title 'Joe' - just let it flow, no need for rhyme or reason - and see what comes up. What usually comes up comes from the same source as the dream - and you 'bingo'!

Jane Anderson