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Interesting. What I find most interesting is the similarities between your dream and some of mine. In some of my dreams recently which I thought were most meaningful, I too was heading for a destination, was on the way, but did not know which way to go. I am going to guess that for both of us this dream journey may represent the spiritual growth journey that we are both undertaking, we are both currently in our life seeking improved understanding of our spiritual path. For myself (and this may or may not apply to you), I have decided that the reason I do not know which way to go in my dreams is because there is more than one path that will lead me to my destination, and also the spiritual growth mostly happens on the way, so it is not the reaching the destination that is most important, but the choices I make along the way, the challenges I face, and whether the understanding brings me closer to God and the truth or further away.

I think in your dream you need to go through parts of the city you would not choose to go through and through squares filled with garbage, maybe because some of the parts of your journey are not easy and there may be no "nice and clean" way of getting to where you have to go, but I believe that we learn from the parts of life that are not clean cut that are not nice and do not fit neatly into our idea of what life "ought to be" like. In the garbage filled square, the may be no right path, perhaps you need to choose the least of all evils at times, and perhaps it matters less which path you choose at that point in life because you will have other choices which can lead you to your destination not just this one point, but perhaps it is the reasons for why you choose one path rather than another that are important, that help you grow, and reach a better understanding of God and of yourself? Do you avoid the path of the snake because it is avoiding temptation? Or do you take that path to confront the challenge? Perhaps both choices are correct but in different ways, and both choices are problematic in other ways?

Hi, perhaps the snake only meant to tell you that you should avoid that path, or perhaps that you think you should avoid that path. Maybe that certain location where you found the snake represents something, perhaps a memory?

I'm sorry, I kind of (really really) suck at dream interpretation. Just remember that only you have the final say on what a particular dream element means to you.

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I think Joanna gave a very good answer.
Here is my interpretation of your dream, which may be wrong in places of course:

CHOOSING YOUR RELIGION
You were back where you were before you moved to Israel to follow your faith.
Back to a new beginning, to before choosing your religion - of knowing yourself and what God expects from you.
You had to get to the center of your main self, your spiritual center.
This was about your personal walk in that area.

NEW TERRITORY
You had to go through surrounding areas in yourself that you hardly ever went to, but had to go through them because they were on the shortest, the most direct route to your main center.
You entered a vacant area of yourself, that was strewn with heaps of trash.
Perhaps the religious area that should be built on has useless garbage instead. But in the distance you could see the center you want to be.
This might mean you tried to take a short cut, which seemed direct but resulted in garbage. Or I think more likely to go the right direct way, you had to go through uncharted territory and you saw some huge garbage in the way of getting there.

VARIOUS PATHS
But there were various paths you could go through this vacant area, leading to various exits out of the empty area to the fulfilling one. And you weren't sure which path to take.

GARBAGE SNAKE
You tried one which seemed promising but were startled by the sight of your snake again, now bigger. With mottled coloration, like a copperhead, might mean the dirtiness of trash, which it moved through. So this snake seems to symbolize the potential poison of trash.
Maybe you didn't see it in your thought, so could not track where it was going, and maybe couldn't see where it had been or come from. You only saw that it was there, in the middle of it, moving through the trash, but you knew exactly what it was.
Maybe more likely, the snake represents the problem of the Samaritan religion in your view, where it can lead you, and you following. So that can explain why no head or tail. Unless perhaps it means you have not thought it through yet, or you can't accept the thought of it, nor can see the consequences - which really is similar to following it and being led.

RE-TURN
You turned around and took another path that seemed to lead towards your destination.
So perhaps this is you refusing the religion at this point.

WAKE UP
And then woke up when your alarm went off - perhaps corresponding to the alarm in your head - if you suspect that garbage will remain whichever way you go.
It does seem like a catch 22 situation you are in.
Maybe you woke up to that message or that you are going around it, or think you have to. And that can explain why the snake is so huge, and why your thought did not connect with it fully, which could have then controlled things.
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SNAKE SYMBOL
The snake might symbolize temptation, but that is from another religion you wouldn't be seen dead in.
Although it might depend on what you think of a snake. So if you see it as that, it might be but sometimes others think that too, just because it's the first thing they associate with a snake.
Always to me, a snake means danger, or potential poison.
Because the one-off Adam and Eve story is far outweighed by the common reality of snakes being what they are.
Also, snake dreams are one of the most common dreams.
But it might seem to amount to the same thing. Your temptation/thought of the new religion has some small poison.
But it can be quite different, if your thought or reaction is the poison.
Though it sounds like they are good Samaritans.

That comes back to your idea in your first post.
Is it your bad or good side, both, or God testing you?
Maybe your good side moving beyond your stagnation has revealed some rubbish, that is getting in your way.
The beauty of dreams is that they are like God - in the sense they cannot be fooled - and they only tell the truth plain and simple, and probably distill your experience to its most pure form to what halts your progress. But maybe even you saw consciously the only thing standing in the way to what you want is garbage.
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YOUR QUESTIONS
'Is it a pitfall to be avoided or a challenge to be surmounted?'
Is a very good quest-ion and maybe exactly what you have thought about the real experience, especially if the dream is about the thought of going Samariton.
First, if you see what the rubbish is for what it is, that might clarify it.
Is it your religious stagnation, or your disdain at your current religion, or can it be the impossible complications of going Samariton now - like disrespect to your family??? Maybe the lot.

'Should I have continued on that path?'
Whether your spiritual path or the Samaritan path, you seemed to see there was too much garbage, whether from you or the world, in the way.

'And why did I see only part of the snake (not its head and not its tail)?'
I think you may be able to put a head on it now, and maybe a tail. Maybe it also fits with you see just part of the religion - the middle of it, not the business ends.
This snake was [i]much[/i[ bigger, but I think it was how big the associated garbage has become, which must be just that - nothing - to your real mind.
If it is the same as the small snake, it has grown during the couple of weeks since your last dream, in your ongoing conflict.