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
I dont usually dream. I mean almost NEVER. The last 2 nights i have dreamed. First of a white and tan snake that wasnt poisonous and I wasnt afraid of that shed, then ate the shed. The 2nd was a red and tan snake that puffed out its head like a cobra, but i knew it wasnt poisonous because it bit me and didnt leave a mark on my hand, I was scared of it but i held it and took it outside to release it. Both snakes were crazy long in my dreams.
I have searched for the color meanings, and the reason for fear of one and not the other with no luck.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
lyn
Lyn – The tan is an in-between colour that only has a relaxing feeling to it. The white is usually used to meet purity or the ability to go beyond the physical senses. And red has a meaning of difficult emotions such as fear or danger – a warning.
Dangerous snakes sometimes have vivid colours, saying, “I am not to be messed about with.” But dreams snakes cannot hurt you and there is no need to be frightened of them. Even if they bite you, as in your dream there was no harm – but if there is harm the only thing you will meet from the bite is your own poisonous emotions that you have injected into yourself – such as fear, hatred, malice, wanting to kill or even jealousy.
The snakes are worth allowing to live with you. They are your own natural drives that can be very useful.
Tony
I had a weird dream:
A. Because I remembered it so well.
B. Because of what happened in it.
I saw a Ghost with many small snakes her mouth, like she was speaking:
I was walking on a trail, some where, I did not know, at that time (I was on vacation at a nice hotel somewhere). Off the trail, I saw an portable generator, with its top off (being worked on, tools still laying there) just off the trail. I walked over to it. Suddenly got that spooky “someones watching me” feeling. I decided I needed to go. As I walked back to the main trail 20 Ft. a way. I felt as someone was right behind me. As I turned, no one was there. As I turned back, she was there. I dont know who she is. I’m frozen in fear. She mouths to speak, but many tinny snakes pop out her mouth like its speaking (snakes not what scared me, but the semi-see-through woman, with flowing dress, and no legs or feet). I get the flight-fight thing. I feel my self running out of control, off the path, through the forest. Suddenly I realize, I’m not actually running. Suddenly. I’m just standing, where I saw this ghost, by my self. I decide, I should leave. As I walk away. I get that “feeling” again, and the feeling I better not turn around. But I got to. And I do. I see nothing. But the fear, skyrockets. I turn, expecting something bad in my exit direction (motel in view), but lucky, nothing. I walk back to the motel…
Bruce – I feel that you confronted an ability you have that badly frightened you.
It starts with you in a relaxed holiday mood, and that is important. Then you see a generator that needs work done on it. Now in the language of dreams a generator is about extra mental of personal energy, and the more of that sort of energy you have the more your brain wakes up. Lots of people shut it down with alcohol, frequent sexual activity, or overeating. But in your case you got near to a new level of your brain working. It enables you to see into the invisible world – a ghost as you called it – and that really scared you.
But everything you dream about is created by you while asleep. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-magical-dream-machine/
So I wonder why you created this frightening image. Was it because your associations with the invisible world are ones that scare you. Some people will not even talk about ghosts or the dead. In a sense it is a corny sort of image that could be put in tunnel of fear to scare people. Anyway it can do you no harm unless you run from it. Better to walk up to it and see what is hiding behind the costume.
Seriously – you can walk up to such image and see what lies behind them. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-in-your-dream/ as to how you can do it.
But you have a talent for seeing the invisible, and it would be good idea for you to study it and use it without fear. Maybe read http://www.amazon.com/Story-Edgar-Cayce-There-River/dp/0876043759/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316424879&sr=1-1
Tony
My reply to your comments (From: 2011-08-24 5:18:17)…
Interesting.
I’d have had dreams that have happened. I guess this is why, this one, concerned me. Although, this one felt different. Slightly, less-real.
So the woman who began to speak, but instead, little snakes came out her mouth not that significant?
Bruce – Yes it is significant, but it is difficult to know what it means to you unless you imagine yourself in the dream and become the woman with snakes coming out of her mouth. You need to allow it to develop to understand it.
But it is a part of your thoughts and feelings, so is like a ghost that has not real body – like thought. It has a frightening effect, and could be something that really scared you that was spoken to you when a child. When I explored it I felt it as someone trying to scare you, someone with a temper.
Tony
I had a dream last night…and all I remember of it is I open my front so I can head to work. sitting on my porch is a black snake… but I was not afraid of it. I just step around it. My kids are in the dream and they tell me that there is a snake but I just camly let them know I was aware of that. What does this mean?
Tracy – First it means you are one in a hundred, because you didn’t react in fear.
Then that I was black means it is something that was unknown – unconscious – and is there on your doorstep hoping to be noticed. The snake can be a powerful force for healing or personal change – or it can be scary if one is frightened – because it is your emotional energy. And that energy can be creative or destructive for instance as fear and hatred it can poison you.
Also that you are telling your children that you are calm and aware of it is a real stroke of motherly genius. Because in dreams no harm can come to you unless you are terribly frightened, even though only a rapid heartbeat. And your snake obviously want to be a part of your life – remember that each dream image is a pert of yourself hiding under the image. So any fear of the snake is fear of a part of your own abilities, and snakes can be great protector and healer – also an expander of your horizons. Remember that the Egyptians used to put a snake coming out of their foreheads as symbol of wisdom and insight. So welcome the snake.
Tony
Tony- I had a dream last night that i was walking upto an old wooden barn that was being re-roofed and as i turned the corner i saw the greenest grass and a ladder leaning against the barn and then two snakes slithering around the ladder. One snake was a bright yellow and the other was a bright yellow and orange. I climbed up the ladder and as i got to the top I saw my daughter running towards me and I am trying to get her to stop and them i wake up. I was wondering if you could tell me what it means, I don’t usually remember my dreams and this one has me wondering!
Amber – The greenest grass is a sign that there is a lot of growth in your life, very vigorous growth. And the old barn is another sign that changes are taking place in your life. The new roof shows there is something important from your past that deserves preserving. It can also mean you are developing new coping strategies, developing the qualities on your life that lead to wholeness.
The snakes can also point to a growth of awareness, depending on how you relate to them. The ancient Egyptians always showed a snake emerging from their forehead, showing their wider awareness. And the ladder is a climb toward the same thing. From a ladder you have a wider view of your surroundings. Climbing a ladder is a sign of attainment through effort.
But then, from the height you can see your daughter and call to her to stop, presumably because of the snakes. Fear, whether it was because of the snakes or because of the ladder, was no cause for fear. You showed no fear when you climb the ladder, and you need not show fear because of your child self.
The whole dream is very positive.
Tony
This dream happened in a Big hall like room, there were long rods overhead hung like clotheslines
A snake was coiled up in one of those rods, i wanted to save the snake and realease it into the wild, so i took a bucket and called a professional snake catcher.
I wanted to capture the snake with the bucket but had no clue how to, so we got hold of some big bedsheet or sari and got the snake on the ground ( I dont remeber how, I think the snake catcher did it when i wasnt looking) and we were trying to direct the snake into some opening and it was working .. the snake was going towards the opening so he could head out but i got thinking that this is going to well and now something will go wrong and the snake might turn back and .. then i woke up
Gayatri – It seems you have some apprehension about the snake being near you, and you could have left it high on the rod.
Obviously I say that with the realisation that everything you dream is an expression of a part of you. A snake for instance is usually an expression of you emotional and sexual energy. Or it can also depict the fight or flight instinct. It is also an image connected with the force, purpose or energy behind that power of growth and unfolding.
You didn’t want to kill it, but you did want it out of your life. But if you could accept it, it can be a very powerful part of you as the following dream says:
Tony
Tony, I had a dream last night that greatly distresses me. I was in the back yard and saw many, maybe a hundred full grown vipers all coiled together in a tree. They were on the branches and in the crooks of the tree. I remember being amazed so I ran in to get my cell phone to take some pictures and call animal control to come get them. When I came back outside my 3 yr old grand daughter was running across the yard to me and a large viper in the grass bit her arm..then bit her in the back as she was trying to run to me. I remember feeling panicked and not knowing if I should take the time to try to get the poison out of the bites or just throw her and her baby sister in the car and drive to the hospital, and then I woke up still feeling that urgency to keep her calm and get her to the hospital. I have read what I can on snakes but most deal with them biting you and not someone else. Can you help me in interpreting this?
Wendy – Something we need to remember about our dreams – and of course my attempt to understand your dream – is that dreams are not about our outer waking life. They are about our inner life, the life of our feelings, emotions, beliefs, and our contact or lack of it with our Core Self. You could think of dreams like political cartoons that summarise what is going on inside us.
The vipers, your grand daughter, are images showing you things going on within your own psyche or soul. The vipers usually depict an enormous ball of energy – emotional or biological – for good or ill. It depends upon how you see and direct that energy whether or is positive or negative. The difference is whether you are frightened of that energy or whether you relate to it easily. For instance a fear of illness can direct your emotional energy in a really destructive way. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/emotions/ for a fuller look at this. Particularly read the case of Norman Cousins in the link.
What sort of emotional energy the ball of vipers represents I do not know form you description. It could link with sexual shock or fear, with fear of your own energy or of negative emotions generally. Whatever it was it put poison into the child within you – not your external granddaughter.
“I woke up still feeling that urgency to keep her calm and get her to the hospital”. That is an important comment your dream makes – keep calm; calm your fears; go to the healing centre of yourself in meditation or prayer.
Tony
I had a dream last night of a dark colored snake in a few different places. At first it was just on the floor coming towards me and i was afraid and ran. Then it reappeared on the ground againg coming at me and i was afraid and ran. The last time i saw it was actually in a large pet carrier with my cat. I was afraid this time but not for me for my cat. SO i opened the door and the snake came at me and out of fear now for me i grabbed the head of the snake and killed it with my hands. What could this mean?
Antiebobo – Snakes are about our fundamental psycho-biological energy. This is like the electricity supply to your house – it is invisible until it is used for power, light, communication, heat and all the other uses. So it is divided in your body in a similar way – movement, sex, emotions, speech, thought and higher perceptions.
But I in your case it was expressing as the flight and fight instinct felt as fear. Fear of what I wonder?
It is a rule in dreams that you are in the midst of a full surround virtual reality. As such nothing can hurt you, but as when we are watching a film we get involved in, we do feel feelings and react to the images. So considering the image of the snake is just a way of expressing your feelings of fear – why are you feeing that now?
It is better to let the snake come up to you and do whatever – as it cannot hurt you. And if you can do that y8ou will become a master of your fear reactions.
Killing the snake will do no good because your dreaming mind can create it all over again – nothing can die in a dream. Killing it only represses the fear and it will surface again sometime.
Tony
Can you please help me interpret my snake dream? I had a dream of a giant black and white snake stretching two blocks. Very very large, its head is a beautiful woman. This snake is domesticated by a bad powerful politician. Snake was yelled at by its master while a lot of people were watching and it sadly turned around and went back to its pen which is a barnhouse. In the same dream it says the snake has a baby, it is medium size like the Anacondas I saw in the movies, I only saw the neck to head part, it was emerging from a swamp approaching a child, I rescued the child 2 times from the snake. These snakes didnt seem aggressive. They looked tamed and calm. The other snake I saw was a little white snake about 2 feet but very aggressive and poisonous. It was chasing us and ended up biting the lady next to me. I was not afraid of the 2 big snakes, but I was scared of the little white one, thanks God it didn’t bite me. I felt so sorry for the lady who got bitten. Would appreciate an interpretation.
Marlina – I believe the huge snake represents the enormous force or energy that moves people. It is difficult to know what to call it, but it is being dominated and humiliated by “a bad powerful politician”.
If you look around you perhaps you can see this for yourself, especially as your dream self can. Look at it this way – a rabbit can make a house to live in all its life with only a couple of days work, yet we have to pay for a house all our life in one way or another. People are manipulated by governments or powerful people so that only a tiny proportion of people have health care, and even those have to pay heavily for it.
So the beautiful woman who is the head of the snake – which has enormous power if it was aroused – lives in barn house.
Fortunately you have saved some children from the swap – these are probably parts of you that are growing and learning.
Then the white snake I have a feeling that in some way it is connected with sexuality. I believe you are a very feeling person but are scared of being bitten by some aspect of sex you see as poisonous. I am guessing but there is something that you are scared of being influenced by.
Remember the power of the beautiful woman.
Tony
i had this dream.. my sister in law gave me 2 orange snakes. one big one small.we put it in a basket. the big one just stay quietly in the basket. the small one got out. i chased after it. i got a long wood and caught it. the small snake crawled fast up. i caught it with my left hand and returned it to the ground, then it crawled up fast again. just as it was about to bit my right hand with open mouth, i woke up. what is the meaning of my dream? thanks
Roda – I feel this is about your relationship with your sister in law. Something has passed between you that has two sides to it. It is probably words than can be harmful or poisonous if you do not handle them with care – handle her with care. So be careful what you allow into your system.
Tony
Had a dream last night that we (me and my husband) drove up a drive way and when he got out of the car there were several snakes around hissing. He told me to shut the door but the window was still down and the snake slithered in the window and came up to my face in was moving back and forth (kind of studing my face) – I was scared and I slowly turned my head the other way and gently raised my hand to push it away and it left . When I got out of the car, I asked my husband where all the snakes went and he said into the holes (there were several holes around) – Also the driveway we drove up was the next door neighbor to my childhood crush on my grandmother’s street
Emily – This appears to be about a mixture of feeling you have about your husband and your past crush.
The snake represents your emotional or even sexual energy that you dealt with very well. It was a confrontation with feelings and emotions – maybe with sexual connections – that could have been poisonous if you had not pushed those feelings away. Of course a snake can also be a very wonderful energy of uplift, the very opposite of poisonous.
I wonder if you had been thinking of your past crush and compared your feelings with those you have with your husband. Quite a dangerous thing because the crush might have turned out worse.
The holes around where a warning that such feelings can easily arise out of their holes at any time – especially if you invite them by thinking along the same line.
Tony
What a load of garbage do you people seriously believe this crap? Read the Bible and you’ll find your answer whoever wrote this is obviously clueless and lost….
Mike – I have read the bible, many times, in various translations. But there is a part of it you seemed to overlook – Mathew 007:001 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Tony
My dad had a dream of a lot of snakes they were black and white and one had legs
Mimi – Has your father been anxious about making decision? I ask because of the white and black snakes, which could mean a sway between good and bad.
But it is difficult to interpret a dream with so little description.
Tony
hi dear toni,
i am a new dream interpreter (for other dreamers) and live in in israel. in my quest of becoming a better dream interpreter i’ve been searching for good dream interpretations’ dictionaries, and so i found your site and am overwhelmed with it’s richness and depth. i’ve declaired to to my fellow interpretes on the dream forum i co-write with them, thst you are my new guru 🙂
(my present one is krishnamurty..) anyway you are marvelous, a true and helpful revelation to me.
the reason i’m writing to you, besides experssing my gratitude for your work, i wanted to correct you on the hebrew translation you talked about for the word NAHASH.
it’s not: “The Hebrew word for the serpent in the Garden of Eden is Nahash. That can be translated as blind impulsive urges, such as our instinctive drives. ” but rather – acting as a snake, being manupulative, for selfish reasons.
the extra meaning you gave is metaphoricly corect and connected to that, but it’s not a direct translation or can easiely be be translated to this meaning. i hope i am clear enough.. (the difference of languages..)
if you decided to answer me back, how will i be able to see your reply? will you send your reply to my email box, please?
Yasmin – What a wonderful surprise to get your post. And thank you of what you say about my work. If I am in fact your new guru it might be good to continue communicating.
As for the Hebrew, I am not a Hebrew scholar, but I have read and poured over the work of someone who was. And I wonder if the difficulty lies in the way it was explained to me, that Hebrew is a sign language, so every letter has a meaning, and the translation I worked from looked at every letter – not word – and gave a new meaning. But in this translation Adam is plural word and is not about an individual. I will send you the whole work so you can judge for yourself.
But you are right, I was in a hurry to synthesise something to long to make any real sense of. So I will have another go at it.
Tony
Hi Tony
Had a dream last night where there was initially a rather dark snake under a chair ready to strike – had many dreams like that in the past – full of fear about being attacked and killed. But then the dream moved to a lighter room with a an open cream door. Two ‘snakes’ were slithering around – one was bright yellow and the other a bright orange. They were simply slithering up and down and I wasn’t afraid of them. I noticed that perhaps they weren’t real snakes because they seemed to slither etc but they seemed to be covered chain links moving as snakes move but underneath the covering were chain links – not too sure what all this is about – would you have any pointers. Many thanks Liz
Liz – The dark snake that is ready to strike is an expression of fearful emotions or dark feelings that can ‘strike’ you at times. But the shift in light shows a different response to things that previously felt threatening.
In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy you. 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.
The positive side of 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.
So in your dream you shifted from a negative, destructive to a healing snake, shown the bright colours. As for them being links in chains, I have to guess. The thing is they are still alive and moving, so I think it expresses a great strength. So instead of being capable of attacking you they can be a protective power.
Tony
Many thanks Tony – very helpful and ‘fits’ given the kind of inner work I have been doing and what’s happening at present. Thank you.
Thanks for your comments Liz.
Sometimes I work for hours alone at my computer, and so it is a great refreshment to hear from you.
Tony
I had a dream of an albino snake (i wasn’t scared), then it was stuck/coiled in a sink drain, I was then scared it would bite me if I tried to remove it. I think the dream setting was at an old friend’s house, or the old friend was at the scene. I can’t remember.
Tam – If you had let the snake bite you, all that would have happened would have been you feeling emotions of fear you had been avoiding facing.
When something goes down the drain it is seen as gone, banished. So your feelings did not want to be banished but felt.
Let me explain 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.
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.
Tony
Hi Tony,
I have two pet snakes at home. I had a dream that both my snakes were attacked by other animals and remember clearly that one of my snakes were bit so that just his head and a little bit of his ‘neck’ was left and my other snake was also injured but I can’t recall how. I’m not sure what other animals were involved but I do remember there was a mouse as well. The mouse was chasing something and caught it and the snake caught the mouse and then something caught the snake and tried to eat it leaving the head part behind. I was not afraid in my dream at all. I also saw and ex boyfriend in my dream but there were no bad feelings. What could this mean?
Hi MJ – I have a sense that you enjoy handling your snakes. Their smooth body and aliveness probably give you a pleasure. And it is that that has been injured or killed. Also it is in the area of the throat, the area of expression that the killing took place. So I wonder whether you have any sense of that.
The animals can represent the instincts we have within us such as the flight or fight, or the sexual instinct, and it feels like a hunter thing going on but I cannot clarify it.
Tony