snakes

[sweetbeefaerie]

Dreamt that I got a tiny baby snake as a pet and I was keeping it in a cardboard box and it got out and lost in my house. When I found It it had grown and was nesting in the wall with another snake I’d never seen before and the snake apparently belonged to a neighbor and we decided we wanted the snakes to live together because they were Inlove so we decided to trade them off every week

[travellight27]

A baby snake is just someone in your life who has the potential to betray you or strike out at you.....a baby one..someone who has these potentials in a small way, but you need to beware of them now, before their qualities can harm you. You feel comfortable with this person (suggested by the nesting in the wall). Be careful that someone is not sharing your secrets or is using two of you to put a wedge between you.

[Wakinyan]

My view at dreams is that dreams mostly display inner dynamics, which usually means that everything in the dream is parts of ourselves, representations of different aspects of our psychology, personality, and so forth. So there are different ways of looking at a dream. But if you'd look at a dream as a display of an inner world, the snake might be a symbol of our instinctual self. For instance, if you are a lot "up in your head", being very intellectual about your life situation and so on, you might dream of snakes, the one-sidedness of our rational intellect awakens the snake in our dreams. Your snake is tiny and slips away and grows to be a big snake like things that slips away from our consciousness tends to do in the unconscious, and I'm with this story so far. But the ending leaves me blank. If you want further feedback from my part of the wood, would you like to elaborate a little bit; I'm not sure if I don't understand the ending because it gets lost in translation so to speak (English is not my native language), if there's a piece missing, or simply because this is one of them dreams I can't really connect to for one or another reason.

[JoannaB]

Do you like reptiles in real life? Some people do. Some people do keep snakes as pets. If you are one of those people then obviously that changes things for the dream interpretation. It could be that you care about snakes literally. And it could be that you care enough about them that you would want them to be happy and have a mate. If you do not care about snakes in real life though then yes the snake is much more likely to stand for something. But I personally do not believe that one interpretation fits all people. You are the best interpreter of your own dreams, and most likely to figure out what makes sense to you.

[Multivoxmuse]

Snakes are usually a symbol of the unconscious. I really need to know more about this dream in order to begin interpreting it. Most importantly is how did you feel at each point? Did you feel protective of the snake? Were you afraid of someone attacking it while you had it in a box? Do you know the neighbor in real life? Do you remember anything else, even seemingly insignificant details?

[JoannaB]

Another thought that occurred to me: If you know the neighbor in real life, could this dream be about you having a crush on this neighbor? Your snake seeks out and mates with neighbor's snake. That of course will only work if your genders and sexual orientation work for that interpretation.

[Wakinyan]

But I personally do not believe that one interpretation fits all people. You are the best interpreter of your own dreams, and most likely to figure out what makes sense to you. That's a good point, JoannaB.

[travellight27]

Absolutely true Joanna......but before they can be their own best interpreter, people need to do some study, learn the universals symbols and how the dream speaks to us in parables. People need to take responsibility for their dreams and educate themselves so they can interpret their own. Not enough people are doing that. TL

[JoannaB]

Ah, see that's where we disagree travellight27. I do not believe that learning universal symbols is going to help one interpret one's own dreams. I believe that dreams are formed from the knowledge that a dreamer already has, and there is nothing universal about that because each of us has different knowledge, different experiences. Sure there are some things that many people share especially if they grew up in the same culture, but I believe that dreams are formed out of our experiences as individuals, things we struggle with, our hopes and wishes and fears and dilemmas. Sure there will be symbols, but if a person does not know a symbol already on some level, they will not dream it that way. yes, others can help give ideas, brainstorm, but there is no way that someone else can tell me what my dream means which I could not have figured out myself if I had just thought about it and self-analyzed. Others can save me time and effort. They can bring to my conscious mind's attention something that my subconscious already knows. But they cannot tell me anything about my dreams that I could not figure out myself without research but just based on self analysis because these are my dreams. And anything we say to any other dreamer, they should follow their gut feeling, if an interpretation sounds wrong to the dreamer then it is wrong, and the dreamer will know when the interpretation is right. And even if the original poster of this thread were to say "I know what it means: it is a reminder for me to buy a snake skin purse for my neighbor as a wedding present!" As long as that made sense to the dreamer it would be the correct interpretation, even if you and I were to shake our heads in disbelief.

[travellight27]

Yep....I disagree. I do believe there are universal symbols, but of course, if a dreamer has had unique experiences that revolve around a specific symbol...a moment in time that made that symbol something more personal, then that changes it up. But I believe it's up to the dreamer to find their own answers.

[sweetbeefaerie]

Snakes are usually a symbol of the unconscious. I really need to know more about this dream in order to begin interpreting it. Most importantly is how did you feel at each point? Did you feel protective of the snake? Were you afraid of someone attacking it while you had it in a box? Do you know the neighbor in real life? Do you remember anything else, even seemingly insignificant details? I do not know the neighbor. They were a blur(at least in my memory of the dream). I felt protective over the snake like you would over a special pet. Also, I should really have mentioned how I feel about snakes, as many people have conflicting feelings on snakes. I used to be scared of them growing up and they symbolized evil to me(growing up christian) but my views are completely different in this age of my life and after finding out they were my chinese animal, I explored the meaning of snakes further and my research lead me to think of snakes as beautiful spiritual creatures perhaps representing spiritual wisdom. also sneakiness a little too. the dream is now so far away that it is hard for me to remember the emotions very well, but I do remember being worried and flustered when the snake was missing, but when I found it nesting in the wall with it's lover, my heart was warmed by it

[sweetbeefaerie]

Yep....I disagree. I do believe there are universal symbols, but of course, if a dreamer has had unique experiences that revolve around a specific symbol...a moment in time that made that symbol something more personal, then that changes it up. But I believe it's up to the dreamer to find their own answers. I think you're both right I believe there are universal symbols because of our humanly shared knowledge and understanding of things, but of course a person's own personal experiences throughout their life logically play into their dreams just as much. it's a synergy of personal and shared experiences and knowledge.

[JoannaB]

I do not know the neighbor. They were a blur(at least in my memory of the dream). I felt protective over the snake like you would over a special pet. Also, I should really have mentioned how I feel about snakes, as many people have conflicting feelings on snakes. I used to be scared of them growing up and they symbolized evil to me(growing up christian) but my views are completely different in this age of my life and after finding out they were my chinese animal, I explored the meaning of snakes further and my research lead me to think of snakes as beautiful spiritual creatures perhaps representing spiritual wisdom. also sneakiness a little too. the dream is now so far away that it is hard for me to remember the emotions very well, but I do remember being worried and flustered when the snake was missing, but when I found it nesting in the wall with it's lover, my heart was warmed by it Aha! I think your finding out that the snake is your Chinese animal probably has significant influence on the meaning of this dream. Was there anything in the Chinese zodiac interpretation for snake that you found out that has particularly staid in your mind? Could it be that you feel like you have been missing something in your life that is affiliated with people who are snakes according to the Chinese zodiac? Perhaps something you have found again or something you wish you had found again in your life? If I were you I would review the Chinese zodiac interpretation of snake again, ideally from the same source as where you read about it before. maybe something in that will ring a bell for you to help shed a light for why you had this dream. It could be that the snake is a symbol in your dream based on something you read about the snake according to Chinese. It could also be that this dream does not have any further hidden meaning after all. It is possible that since you read that the snake is your Chinese animal, you think of it as your animal, and in your dream that gets translated to pet. People do loose pets, so you may expect to loose your pet in your dream. When you find it, you come up with an explanation for why it was missing: it mated. So your subconscious asks itself: where did that other snake come from? And so you rationalize in your dream that it must be your neighbor's snake. So it is quite possible that the dream is only about the snake being your Chinese animal, and the rest is just the progression of events in your dream without hidden meaning.

[Superman1]

Ah, now that your snakes mean beautiful spiritual creatures perhaps representing spiritual wisdom, that explains both how a snake can be good and maybe what the dream means. I don't think it has to mean more than that. As well as being a good example a symbol can have more than one meaning - the universal factual meaning - even if one is a belief. Maybe you were cultivating your beautiful spirituality, that at least in this new path was just beginning or a baby, but was confined in you. But this quality cannot be confined. It is free. So it got out, you lost sight of it or what it should be. Then you saw Spirituality can only include others ~ or if it's to be complete ~ it cannot be selfish or just you. And maybe you wisely saw the meaning of Spirituality is to love others. You had a wall up against others who you had never seen before in this new area of yourself. Maybe you were being a bit snaky! Err sneaky. So you saw you wanted the two sides to live together. That spirituality is sharing. Maybe also that it's a trade off between the two - you and others - suggesting it also has to be about your own development.