Snake
Snakes in dreams often represent the energy keeping us alive at a basic level. But we can express this energy in many ways such as kindness, love, anger, killing things, creativity and so on. See Levels of the Brain and Dreams – Snake Dreams
Example: Dreamt that a snake – a huge python – had raised me. I had the sense that it had cradled me in its coils when I was a baby, and that it had taught me without words how to survive. This was a sort of jungle/life wisdom.
It is usually depicting the fight or flight instinct. It is also an image connected with the force, purpose or energy behind that power of growth and unfolding. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us, particularly the primal urge to survive. It leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully. The ancient civilisation of the South Americas, saw the snake as a messenger of the gods. And it can be if we relate to it well, because it represents the force of Life in us – surely worth listening to!
The snake can bite you, and its venom may flow throughout your being and kill you. Most of us are very frightened of this. The reason being that the venom will certainly cause death- it does this by the power of growth, which will be the death of your old self as you outgrow it. It replaces the old personal interests and fears with a self that is part of the one great life. So the fear of the snake is not because its venom is deadly, but because it transforms. It turns you into a being who is part of the whole. It robs one of the artificial walls placed between self and the collective pool of life consciousness.
Moses saw the energy of this inner snake in the form of the burning bush. During the exodus the Israelite’s lost faith and were smitten by fiery serpents, so God told Moses, “Make thee a serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it on a pole, and it came to pass, that if a fiery serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” An apt description of the healing qualities of the awakened snake energy. Some of the Israelite’s even began to worship this symbol, and the practice of worshipping the brazen serpent on the pole as a god was either passed on, or was revived later. Bronze and stone serpent artifacts have been found in excavations in Canaan, Gezer and other parts of Israel!
That energy, like electricity in a house, can be heat, power, sound or vision, and lies behind all our functions. So in some dreams the snake represents our sexuality; in others the rising of that energy up our body to express as digestion – the intestinal snake – or as the creative or poisonous energy of our emotions and thoughts, even disease. In the throat it becomes the destructive or constructive speech and language – expressed or repressed feelings and speech. In the head it becomes thinking, perception and higher cognition.
The ancient civilisation of the South Americas, saw the snake as a messenger of the gods. And it can be if we relate to it well, because it represents the force of Life in us – is surely worth listening to!
The snake can represent many different things, but usually the energy that expresses as our life processes. If we think of a person’s life from conception to death, we see a flowing moving event, similar in many ways to the speeded-up films of a seed growing into a plant, flowering and dying. The snake depicts the force, purpose or energy behind that movement. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us – that leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully
In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy you; the awful things we do to ourselves, to Life in us. We tend to depict this facet of the snake as biting or attacking us, even though we have ourselves given rise to such poisonous emotions as hate and guilt. Because our thinking and emotions are an expression of our life energy, you are capable of directing the creative force of life toward self destruction. As an example of this, a dreamer exploring her snake dream saw that it represented her flight or fight instincts. This linked with her aggressive and protective feelings in connection with the way men had acted with her. The problem was that the snake was in a poisonous, strangling and killing mode. This, she realised, showed how she had withheld, strangled, her anger about what had happened, and that anger was turned inward, poisoning or strangling her flow of full life.
The opposite is also true. The power of life and death can be directed creatively. Then the snake is seen in its healing role in dreams, and in ancient times was shown in the form of the staff with two snakes coiling up it – caduceus – still used today as a symbol of the medical profession. See: Energy Sex and Dreams
Example: Dreamt I was on the side of a very steep hill. So steep I could only just hold on. It was very rounded and grassy. I was near the top clinging to the grass. There seemed to be many snakes, lizards about. Occasionally one would leap at me and bounce of my coat. I took care to keep my hands covered. There was a woman, who seemed to be something like a secretary, who was advising me. I was then in a wood. There seemed to be a lot of apprehension and fear. Some robbers had stolen my pony. The fear went when I realised that there was no need to walk through a swampy area of the wood. Only the robbers, or rough types knew the way through. I turned to the right out of the wood.
In exploring his dream this is what he received – The dream shows you bringing your love to the crown. The dream was the way of sorting out your problems over sinking or rising. You can reach the highest either way. Sinking is the way of letting go. This was represented by the swamp. The way of bringing love to the crown is the way of rising. The hill represents your present situation. The clinging means you try too hard. There is no need to bring so much effort. The snakes represents your lower powers trying to break into consciousness. These must be directed to the crown. These are the forces which help you break through. They stimulate you to rise. The woman is love giving you advice. Love will direct your efforts. The part where you walk through the wood means you look for life through delving within. The swamp is swamping my consciousness. Your consciousness must live, not drown, in the deep waters of life. This can be achieved only by bringing unification to those urges seen as the brigands. These and the snakes are much the same. Your soul must live without division. When the soul brings union within itself, so it achieved union in the whole. This way is a way of love.
It doesn’t matter that your dream snake bites you – after all it is an aspect of you, and the only poison you will meet is the poisonous emotions you have been injecting into yourself – and they need to be felt to clear them out. See Our Reptilian Brain
The snake can shed its skin, and so symbolises self transcendence, rebirth.
The alchemists put a gold crown on its head, symbolising expanded or spiritual consciousness arising from the same energy as sexuality. Often a diadem, gem, or light is at its brow symbolising the possibility of expanded consciousness, or awareness of the eternal nature, and life in eternity. Christ is sometimes depicted as a crucified serpent, suggesting the mystery of Life nailed to physical awareness of the senses. See: Reptile.
Example: I just woke up from a bad dream. I saw that I was in a car without a driver and I was sitting on a snake which I could not see but only slightly feel under me. I was afraid that the snake might bite me because of the bumps during the car drive. And then it does bite me. It was painless but I felt blood oozing out of my tummy. Then suddenly I saw a stranger in the driver’s seat who was a lady whom I don’t know. And I am just praying her to drive me to the hospital and she refuses to drive. I was spooked big time and I am on the internet now. Came across your website. I hope I can find an answer. Please help me.
The snake is your dream snake and should not be confuse with an actual snake. It is your basic energy, like electricity in your house, and as such can be expressed in any number of ways. This links with the car, another form of energy, expressed as a way of getting where you want. But the snake energy you are sitting on, not knowing how to direct it, yet you can feel it wriggling at the base of your trunk. You are scared of what this energy will express as if you allow it, but sitting on it is not good, because your thoughts and feelings, your imagination are the way we direct this energy. And what did you do, you felt fear it would bite you, and that is where you directed it. Fortunately you were not scared enough to direct it to inject you with the poison of your own fear. But it did cause an energy leak that you realised you needed help with.
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The Hebrew word for the serpent in the Garden of Eden is Nahash. And to be understood we have to understand that Hebrew is a sign language, one that each letter of the alphabet had a particular meaning. And there is no indication in the ancient Hebrew that this was a snake. It has been translated as snake because the original meaning was lost. It can be seen as a divine force that expressed in seven levels or ways – so much like the ancient symbol as it was understood by older cultures. For full explanation see Hebrew Translation. |
Example: A dream told me by a woman I met in Mexico. She said that she dreamt a large snake was crawling up the bed and then bit her on her left breast. She said she then tried to suck out the poison.In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy us. We tend to depict this snake biting or attacking us, even though we have ourselves given rise to such poisonous emotions as hate and guilt. Because our life energy flows into thinking and emotions, we are in this way directing the creative force of life. Directing it negatively has the power to bring illness and death, for we are dealing with the power of life and death itself.
I asked her to explore the dream by imaging herself as the snake, feeling it biting her. The result was that a story unfolded. She had felt, rightly or wrongly, that her husband had been unfaithful, and she had felt bitter and revengeful. But instead of expressing those feelings they had turned inwards and poisoned her, leaving her depressed. So the snake was an image of her poison biting her and poisoning her life. So do not be afraid of a snake biting you. It is not dangerous. The dangerous part is avoiding the bite, because the poison stays in you unmet.
The opposite is also true. The power of life and death can be directed creatively. Then the snake is seen in its healing role in dreams, and in ancient times was shown in the form of the staff with two snakes coiling up it – caduceus – still used today as a symbol of the medical profession.
Example: ‘A small snake about a foot long had dropped down my shirt neck. I could feel it on the left side of my neck. Fearing it was poisonous and might bite me I moved very slowly. At one point I put my head on the ground, hoping the snake would wish to crawl away. It did not. Then I was near an elephant I loved, and hoped it would remove the snake. It did not. Even as I slept I felt the snake was an expression of the attitude of not sharing myself with anybody except family.’ David T.
For months prior to the above dream David had experienced a great deal of neck pain. After discussing the dream with his wife, and realising much of his thinking and feeling was in-turned, the pain disappeared. So the snake was both ‘poisoner’ and ‘healer’ representing the power of David’s negative and introverted emotions and thoughts on his body. This may be why snakes are used as a symbol of the medical profession.
Example: ‘I was in a huge cathedral, the mother church. I wanted to go to the toilet/gents. As I held my penis to urinate it became a snake and reached down to the urinal to drink. It was thirsty. I struggled with it, pulling it away from the unclean liquid. Still holding it I walked to a basin and gave it pure water to drink.’ Bill A.
Here the connection between snake and sexuality is obvious. But the snake is not just Bill’s penis. It is the direction his sexual urges take him that he is struggling with. Out of his sense of love and connection with Life – the cathedral – he wants to lift his drive toward something that will not leave him with a sense of uncleanness. In this sense a snake might be something one wrestled with, depicting the wrestle one has with inner drives and hungers, especially sexuality or anger. The Mother Church was a form of initiation into a much wider view of spiritual beliefs. It came about because his sexual drive was directed more upwards rather than out of his genitals.
Example: “Tony taught me a process in which a dream could be interpreted and understood by assuming that everything, people and objects alike, in a dream represented aspects of the Self. Sitting cross-legged on the squishy, old-fashioned sofa in the living room of my sadhu’s cave opposite Tony, I’d close my eyes and mentally return to a dream I had the previous night.
So if I dreamt about a tree, I would ‘become’ the tree, assume its personality and respond from its viewpoint. He’d ask ‘So what kind of tree are you? Are you big or small, old or young? What do you look like? Where are you growing? Why are you in Tiziana’s dream?’ This sounded like a silly exercise at first, but I was soon enough convinced of its validity.
Other dreams taught me about my psychological and emotional processes, such as in one dream, in which I was in a dark forest with a female friend. We hid behind a felled tree. From our path towards the left, we saw a big black snake approaching. It was absolutely enormous and had no head. We were exhilarated and scared. Next, a badger walked past. Then, to our wonder, a gang of wolves came by. In my consequent interpretation I saw that the headless snake stood for `my sexuality and my often ‘headless’, raw desires. The badger signified my illusions that needed to be ‘killed’ and transformed by the pack of wolves, who represented my growth and evolution. Although painful, my intuition – symbolized by the female friend – knew that I had to go through the fear and ‘be killed’ in order to grow.
Overall, together with the practice of LifeStream the dream work helped me to retrieve and untangle many clues and memories that were buried deep in my unconscious.” See Life’s Little Secrets
The Africans believed the dream of a snake round the leg signified slavery, while the dream of a dragon round the body is a symbol of bondage in Artemidorus.
A crowned or light encircled snake: When our blind impulses our instinctive or unconscious urges and functions are in some measure integrated with our conscious will and insight, this is seen as the crowned snake or even winged snake. It shows real self awareness and maturity.
Unfortunately, as Jung points out in Man and His Symbols, people in modern society, whether black, yellow, brown or white, have lost their sense of nature and the cosmos as being anything other than processes without consciousness or living feeling. Jung says, ‘No river contains a spirit, no tree is the life principle of a man, no snake the embodiment of wisdom…No voice now speaks to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear.’
Black King Cobra: The king title shows the important role the snake will have in the life of the dreamer. That it is black indicates that it is only just becoming a part of their conscious life.
In coils of snake: Feeling bound in the blind impulses or habitual drives and feeling responses. Instincts and habits can be redirected, as illustrated by Hercules labours.
Sitting on snake: Mastery of the instinctive nature and transformation and the making conscious of the wisdom and power resident in the unconscious.
Snake biting you: Unconscious worries about our health, frustrated sexual impulse, our emotions turned against ourselves as when internalised aggression poisons us causing very real illness, so may be shown as the biting snake. It may also suggest an influence in ones life – the venom – that takes away ones identity and perhaps opens one to a life beyond self, the spirit.
Example: I realised as I explored my dream of being bitten by the snake I had thought about this a lot already and that losing ones identity meant in this case not being tied to ones family so rigidly, no longer relating to people as if from a single fixed gender, also there is the possibility of getting insight into the person you are meeting more fully, because the artificial barriers of gender, family ties, nationality and creed have been dropped. These barriers prevent us from actually knowing each other very fully in everyday life, and are operative in most of us without our realising it.
As I think about this I wonder whether this is part of the way we create identity. It appears to be made from many sources. For instance the family physical – DNA – inheritance plays a very great part, as does the information of behaviour repertoire handed to us when young. The cultural patterning given with language shapes our mind, and the chemical importance is also being seen lately. All of these produce the person we call I. Yet the ‘I’ is capable of being radically shifted, simply by taking a drug or medicine. This often reshapes the way we see ourselves, so an evolution in the process of identity building has occurred. Identity in the end is not a set of beliefs or behaviours. The I is not limited to these. See Programmed
So as I faced this part of the session I wondered what I would be saying goodbye to if I allowed myself to be bitten by the serpent and its poison transform me. I felt that although I would lose my old connection with my family I would bring them a lot more than in the past because my being would itself be much larger and connected. I saw this as if I were living in a courtyard, and that courtyard was my family life, my work life, and was made up of my sympathetic connections with my children and the powerful bonds that led me to favour them over others. If these bonds dissolved they would no longer be favoured above others out of the same powerful ties. The ties would dissolve, but of course they would still be people I had a lot of connections with because of friendship and common goals, etc. So I would relate to them out of something other than family feelings. We would be drawn together or pushed apart out of the same influences that attracted or repulsed in general.
I felt then that I did want to be bitten by the snake. I trusted the larger life. I want my life to have connections with it and my actions to flow out of these wider connections.
At one point it was like being shown something. On my computer I have a small program to do my accounts on. I take a lot of time putting information into this program to keep my accounts straight. It was as if the wider life said to me, “You don’t need to all the time look after your own affairs in this individual way. There is a wider life in which the ‘accounts’ program is built-in. Every action you do, every interaction is recorded automatically, and so you no longer need a personal piece of software”.
Snake biting others: Biting remarks; a poisonous tongue; emotional energy turned against oneself or someone else.
Snake coiling up tree, pole, cross: The blind instinctive forces of life emerging into conscious experience – in other words the essence of human experience with its involvement in pain, pleasure, time and eternity; the process of personal growth or evolution; healing because personal growth often moves us beyond old attitudes or situations that led to inner tension or even sickness.
Snake coiled around you crushing you: The way you are caught up and constricted in your own or other peoples emotions. Being crushed by emotions, fears; struggling with powerful emotions and urges.
Snake Colours – Green: Our internal life process directed – perhaps through satisfied feelings, love and creativity – into a healing process or one that leads to our personal growth and positive change. White: Eternal aspect of our life process, or becoming conscious of it. Blue: Religious feelings or coldness in relations.
Snake in connection with any hole: Sexual relatedness.
Snake in the grass: Sense or intuition of talk behind your back; danger; sneakiness.
Example: I dreamt I was outdoors walking through open ground, maybe at times gardens. I was with others – not sure who, and we frequently came across large snakes which we reacted to as if they were venomous. Then I came across a lot of them and they swarmed onto me. I froze, terrified that if I made a move I would be fatally bitten. But they just swarmed over my body and got under my clothes without harming me. Gradually I relaxed and slowly began to move about with the snakes still on me. They started to feel like a built in defense system which would attack anyone who was aggressive to me. At one point several large and aggressive dogs walked past me. They turned as if thinking about attacking, then appeared to sense the snakes and ran off cowed. As time passed the snakes felt like part of my body.
Snake with tail in its mouth: Sense of the circle of life – birth, growth, reproduction, ageing, death, rebirth; the eternal.
Useful questions and hints:
What is happening with my dream snake, and what is the significance to me personally?
What does this indicate about the way I am direction my life energy?
Is this depicting my life energy expressing some positive potential or healing
Comments
Sorry I wrote something wrong. “There was a lot of traffic and I knew I wouldn’t get home in time to save my mom.”
I woke up so shaken up I went to my mom to hug her, it’s 5a.m.
I just woke on from a nightmare and found this site trying to understand my dream. Please help.
I dreamt I was in a small blue car with a male coworker who’s a friend that was driving, my mom next to him and I was in the back right seat. At a traffic light an Asian man that was in his car got out and started screaming at us. He took out a log from his car started hiring the hood of the far, then he took out a large off-white boa Constrictor and took it to the driver’s side. He somehow had access to to open the car doors where we felt safe. He put the boa in my friends face and he grabbed it and put it in his mouth. Some it was venomous and bit him. He started dying. Then the snake went to my mom’s side and took its tongue out and inserted it between her left ear and eye. The snake left and she started getting sick. Her tongue turned black. Somehow she decided to go home as I went driving for an antidote… I went to a farther away store and was directed to the antidote by a clerk, she was smiling. I got it and went to my car something had happened to someone else at the car park, a hit and run. There a lit of traffic when I got on the street and I knew I would get home in time to save my mom so I decided to wake up. Boas aren’t venomous, why would it have poison?
I have a pending trip with my mom to the countryside this week, I’m wondering if we should go.
I had a dream that a guy Im currently dating but married to yet was living with me and we had two little baby girls about a year apart. One was 1 year old and the other was a newborn. In my dream I was married to the guy Im dating now and we had pet snakes that we kept in our bedroom. The two babies were laying on our bed and I was sitting indian style on the floor when their father came into the bedroom with a sack of new snakes. He started. taking the snakes one by one out the sack and placing them into the aquarium. There was all different snakes but this one green vine snake with bright yellow eyes somehow got out the sack and we couldnt find it. We freaked out thinking it was on the bed with the babies so the father grabbed the girls and took them to thier cribs until we found the snake. The next thing is Im once again sitting down on the floor indian style and the father comes back into the room starts looking for the snake. All a sudden I felt the snake crawling up my side and I was scared and anxious and stayed still as I possibly could. I told my husband to hurry up and come get the snake off me. H grabbed the snake but loosely as if he didnt care if it bit me. The snake then lundged foward and bit me in the face between my ear and right eye and the father was laughing almost as if hed let the snake bit me on purpose just because he knew the snake wasnt poisionous. I was mad at him for allowing the snake to bite me but then I woke up. Now I cant figure out what to make of my dream. Sometimes now in real life I always feel like at times he doesnt care. He always tells me he loves me but his actions say otherwise. Im always doing sweet little things for him and he never does anything. He has this “OH WELL” attitude when we fight he never shows emotions and laughs at things that arent funny when he knows Its hurting me. He always says he’ll change and start being more open emotiinally with me but he never even makes an effort. I just hope I dont keep dealing with him and end up marrying him and having two kids before I finally decide to leave him, like in my dream.
Three nights ago I had a dream that a snake with yellow and black stripes ( more yellow) is in my room. I asked one of my sibling to get rid of it. He didn’t listen and then I noticed the snake is on the wall and hanging on a white rope and trying to go to the roof of room. As I was looking at snack and scared I woke up. However., I separated from my husband who financially damed me and I am thinking to make my final decision.
Pd About my waking life…
well, I recently went to the amazonian jungle where one night i saw the same boa than in my dream. In the Amazon, i was terrified thst a snake could attack me while i was sleeping. Especially an anaconda. Btw, in my last night dream, I had 2 contradictory positions :
– saying that the black snake had disappeared so it wasn’t useful trying to find and kill him
– second, shouting that this was an anaconda and that we had to kill him, which panicked me because i don’t know how to kill an anaconda. The same fear i had every night before sleeping in the jungle.
And for the scene at my parents’ house, maybe it’s linked with a quite bad relationship i have with them after a sad childhood, victim of my mother’s crazyness depression indifference and emotional abandon towards me. Nowadays, i can’t stop feeling guilt of their unhappiness. I live very far from them and I know that my parents aren’t happy and still live together while they even don’t speak to each other for… decades.
many thanx again
Eden
Hi Anna and Tony,
I dreamt of several snakes last night.
first, I remember a small tree like a bonsaï at home. Later, this tree happened to be a snake; the dead aspect of this small and dark/grey tree became to be a snake ! He was threatening me : while I was climbing my parents’ house stairs, he was following me. At that moment, the snake was quite big like 2 meters, dark with blue and red spos. He was quitz far from me, in the first step of the stairs so I could escape.
In another time, i was with my best friend (a girl) going out of a building heading home I suppose when i saW on the other side of the street a beige boa constrictor. It was absolutely huge – beige/brown. I again felt a lot of fear. This snake muted, some “legs” appeared. My best friend told me “relax,look, it’s not a snake but a dinosaur”.and true, actually it looked like an iguana. And it left on the opposite side of us. I remember having looked back once to be sure it was not attacking me, and effectively it was heading to the oposit side.
how would touyou analyse both dreams please ?
many many thanx :))))
Eden.
Hello Tony. I need help with a snake dream. I’m in a house that at times appears to be my boyfriends apt, and at times another home with a high wooden fence I’m not familiar with. These snakes seem to know which side of the house I’m on they are poisonous snakes and very large. I and my mom manage to cut them in half they all die eccept one. My mom picks to up bring it over and tells me it won’t bite! I avoid it as she holds bringing it close to me. It bete me on my rightbhand and could feel the venom move all the way down to my toes.I woke..
Hi Tony,
I need your kind assistance in understanding the interpretation of this dreamdream.
Myself and my daughter was taking a walk in a neighborhood and there was a wooden house on my left side with a shrub to the left side of the house. When I looked at the shrub which was a rich green in color, there was a slender snake coming out of the shrub. (I believe it was a garden snake) The was different colors of gold or yellow, green and the remainder of the body was an off whitewhite. The snake looked at me and I at it and it flew thru the air from quite a distance and bit in my neck and flew to the other side of the street and flew through the air and bit me on my handhand. It did not have wings, however not once touching the ground and slivering.
Hi Tony/Anna. I had a dream that I was at a park. As I was leaving I walked past an old man. He started screaming that there was a snake. By the time anyone heard him, it was already right beneath him and it bit his upper thigh. I was the closest to him as it happened and was scared so I ran. My sudden movements attracted the snake so it started chasing me and bit me on my leg too. I tried grabbing its jaw to release its fangs off my leg. I got him off but he kept chasing me. He bit me again and then suddenly I was at home. I think the snake was trying to get to one of my cats so I found my younger brother and told him to kill it with a knife. He was trying to cut/slice its head off but I told him that stabbing it would be better so he finally stabbed the snake through its skull and it died.
A little background on my waking life..I work for the family business that my parents created and will take over once they retire. My parents and I also want my brother to help with the business but he doesn’t want to. I am not forcing him to because I know how difficult it is to work with family and would want him to do something he’ll enjoy. I’ve been stressed out with work because some of my family members aren’t doing a great job at work which puts me in an awkward position because I want what’s best for the company. There’s a lot of politics and mistrust within the business/family because of the power struggle. I’m not sure if the snake biting is a good or bad sign and what it meant when my brother had to kill it for me.
Any interpretations would be helpful 🙂
Thank you!
Dear Jane – Thank you for sharing so much about your waking life; it is so helpful to get a better understanding of your dream.
Your dream starts with you being in the park and a park is merely a symbol for your public self.
The public self is the view of oneself by others as conveyed through public information, public action and interaction with others. The public self generally depends on the public for definition, but is also an individual’s view of how he or she fits in and actions taken while in public.
You are warned by the wise old man that there is a snake and he also shows you that the snake will bite.
To understand this inner aspect of yourself please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-wise-old-woman-wise-old-man/
Running away from this situation is a symbol of avoiding something; trying to get away for instance from your emotions and so not meeting problems (your inner problems first) in a way that will resolve them.
Your dream then shows you that you cannot run away from yourself and so the snake bites you and it even manages to find its way into your private self and you think it is trying to get to one of your cats as well.
I see the cat as a symbol of your creativity, which is a very real part of a woman’s makeup. It is obviously linked with sexuality as that is a woman’s creative process, but it doesn’t have to be sexual as it can flow in any direction she chooses.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/energy-sex-and-dreams/
The way I see it is that your dream expresses that you are sacrificing parts of yourself “because I want what’s best for the company”.
Your brother represents your inner part which you expressed in this way “I would want him to do something he’ll enjoy”.
And so this inner part of you is capable of stabbing the snake; of killing your “what is best for the company” thinking habit.
I trust that reading this article will give you a hand in a challenging time for you:
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/wisdom-in-us-as-old-as-time/
It will be helpful to explore this dream for yourself as well using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
I hope this gives you a start.
Anna 🙂
Hi,
I’m wondering if could please interpret this dream?
I was outside when I saw a poisonous tiger snake. I tried to move up onto a low wooden walkway but was heavy and could hardly move. With significant effort I heaved myself onto the platform and lay on my back. My feet were touching a fence at the end of the walkway so my knees were lifted making me feel cramped. I pushed myself away to straighten out and prepared to lay still and let the snake go away. I noticed I was wearing a helmet as I slid along the walkway. However my movement attracted the snake and it climbed onto the walkway and slid around my head/helmet and bit me on the middle of my middle finger of my left hand several times which was very painful. I woke up. I have dreamt of snakes all my life and although often they are scary they are sometimes not and I don’t have an overly negative view of them. I’m about to make big changes in my life and am trying to take more risks to enable me to live a life more aligned with my purpose.
Thanks for your help,
Bianca
Dear Bianca – Thank you for sharing some information about your waking life too, for it helps me to better understand your dream.
Just as we learn to swim by gradually facing and overcoming our fear of sinking, so we learn to take risks, to love, be creative, successful or expressive, by meeting – in dreams and in life – the fears which hold us back.
You wrote “I’m about to make big changes in my life and am trying to take more risks to enable me to live a life more aligned with my purpose” and it is your courageous decision which enables you to meet your fears, which is very helpful.
Being heavy in your dream and hardly being able to move are symbols of fear and probably of being a bit too serious about what you would like to achieve.
So ask yourself “how many strings you have attached towards being able to live the life you are aiming at”?
An example:
“If you want to write a book, it can be a creative project, a joy to contribute, with no strings attached. But it can also have an arrowhead and string that goes right back to a vulnerable place in you. You need to write a book in order to be an author, because if you are an author, you will gain respect and then you will be okay. Or if you are an author, your now deceased mother will be proud of you finally and then you will be okay”.
Please continue reading at http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/fear-is-another-word-for-hope/
The wooden floor is a symbol for your basic attitudes and wearing a helmet has to do with protection, probably protecting the ideas and thoughts about the changes you have in mind so you can continue despite the fears you are facing.
The fence is a symbol of a barrier you meet in yourself and you have enough inner power to move away from it and release some of your inner confusion/resistance – cramps in your conscious self – which kept you from moving on.
There is no way you can avoid being bitten by a poisonous snake in this process of inner changes and growth.
Most of us are frightened of this. The reason being that the venom will take away your personal sense of self – it faces you with the death of yourself which we often perceive as painful.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-archetype-of-rebirth-or-resurrection/
To better understand the meaning of being bitten in your left hand please read
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/left/
I trust I gave you a start and perhaps you feel like exploring your inner world yourself too
for I believe that it is an important dream.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
i had a dream about one cobra and one another black long snake mating in the rain and then they transform to humans and after few minutes again to snakes and went down.
What does this dream mean……..giving a bath to my friends 4 pet brown snakes, one of which is in my left ear, the rest are coiled up just chillin out. I’m not scared. Until my friend checked on me and said their color looked different. Like it had rubbed off in the water. And I felt bad.
Jojo – Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. So the person you dreamt about is not them, but is a dream image made out of your feelings and memories.
Some bathing dreams often depict the bath as a form or ritual which is getting one ready for something, perhaps a new experience, or the deepening of one’s experience in an important area of your life, such as sexuality. Such an initiation might involve the meeting with your feelings or fears about your relationship or your life situation – perhaps meeting your own male/female self more fully.
In regard to the symbol of bathing, I wonder what you associate with the brown snakes.
In general a brown animal is a symbol of your natural urges that you are probably comfortable with.
Are these snakes a symbol of the way your boyfriend wants to express his “natural urges” (sexuality?)?
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working
I trust you are familiar with the expression “an earful”.
Are you afraid that you will feel bad that your natural inner growth will colour all your future sexual experiences with your boyfriend in a way he does not approve of?
I hope I have given you something to reflect on Jojo and perhaps you can continue to explore this dream (and future dreams) for yourself as well.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
Felt like one of those journey dreams and I’m just walking in the middle of it don’t remember how it start or anything. At the creek or could be a river I’m not sure.. The water was clear the air was nice and crisp not cold just perfect was a nice sunny day, cooler… perfect temperature and there was a small little waterfall. I was trying and somewhat struggle to catch fish with my hands. this fish is a size up from my palm slightly smaller silverish… As I was focusing on the fish, I jumped because I just realize a big snake …looks like a Chinese dragon with bright yellow color… I was a bit scare of it, maybe because of the unknown …the snake bit the fish n looks like trying to give the fish to me… The fish was floating in the water lifeless and the snake just remain the same positions about couple feet away from me. I didn’t feel any threats. And then I woke and remember that I have to write this dream down my dream about a big snake.
Come to think of it… It wasn’t a snake. It was a dragon, floating on top of the water
Elyse – A beautiful, insightful dream! And perhaps you will decide one day to write down all your dreams?
I feel the waterfall is a symbol of letting go of some of your “intentions” and with that release you were able to create a “more” receptive state of consciousness; which is what your fishing is about.
“More” receptive, because you were still somewhat struggling and allowing the deep insights of processes to become known is merely about surrendering.
The essentials of this (spiritual) path, I see as being very much the same as the essentials of going to sleep. In other words we cannot go to sleep while we hang on grimly to self-control or focused thinking. We have to let go of our conscious will. We have to surrender our waking self to that spontaneous action of sleep. We hand over to another level of will which expresses as dreams. That takes trust. It takes courage. It takes time.
Some teachings talk of it as surrender, a yielding to the divine. However, because the idea of a God is foreign to many people, I believe it easier to see it as surrender to what is innate in oneself. This surrender is simply a form of stilling the conscious mind to allow other aspects of self to express. It is an opening of self to receive something that has not yet emerged into the small bright light of our personal awareness.
You were a bit scared at first when you met the dragon, because, as you felt in your dream too, we all tend to be afraid when we “meet the unknown”; when we surrender to “the dragon”; to the Life Force in our unconscious mind, which is forever willing to help us grow if we let it, if we stop striving.
To quote two people’s experience of it:
She says, ‘I do not appear to be guiding the power with my mind, as it seems to be strongest if I try to fix my mind on something else. Eileen Garratt echoes the same opinion. She writes: ‘I have heard it said that in “supernatural” sensing, concentration and meditation are necessary. But this seems contrary to anything which I have learned from my own experience in clairvoyance telepathy and projection. I would say that an ease, a nonchalance about the process, are prerequisites to the production of such states.’ She says later that complete relaxation and surrender of the conscious self, allows the superconscious self to become dynamic and active at a conscious level. This exactly matches what the other woman does in ‘surrendering to God’.
Anna 🙂
I had a dream I looked down at my left forearm and saw what looked to be 3 snake skeletons under my skin. Then flesh came around the bones and I could feel the snakes squirming to get out. It was quite repulsive feeling! Then they dropped out of my arm onto the floor. I was in large public building- a store with lots of people around. Then there were huge snakes throughout the store and the people were scared and angry at me. Asking me if I knew how to catch the snakes.
Hi Tony, can you help me with a snake dream that I had recently? I was in a warm, light, earthly cave with my ex. It was a cave like those Etruscan tombs, and I had a pleasant feeling there, warm light around us, sandy soil beneath us with a leafless tree in the middle, something like Joshua tree. As I was suggesting to my ex that we should move to a gulf next to the cave, among rocky mountains with wonderful turquoise waters, and as we both joyfully agreed, I noticed that there appeared a rattlesnake next to my legs. The moment I recognized her, I wasn’t afraid of her any longer, I ignored her and she disappeared. But then, suddenly, a large cobra head started to come up from the sand, like she was in a box there. I saw her hood and was terrified while my ex was jovially and fearlessly jumping around her as I was shrinking back to the cave walls. The cobra was becoming larger, and larger, and longer, and it turned out that her head was cobra like, but she had a body of a boa constrictor of at least 4 meters coming straight at me. I noticed in dream that in brief moments when I wasn’t feeling afraid of her, she would stop, but as soon as I would become afraid again, she would continue approaching me, and I would recoil to the cave walls fearing her venomous bite and death. I woke up at that moment of fear, partly disappointed for not being able to find “resolution” in a dream. The thing is that I like and appreciate snakes very much and this dream disturbed me because I simply don’t like mixing reverence with fear. Especially that I believe that she was there to help. In reflecting on this dream, I thought that the snake appeared as a symbol of death in terms of death of the old cavelike, cosy and protected life so to be able to journey to another reality – the gulf and turquoise waters. Do you have some comments on it? Thank you!