Snakes invading my family home

[nekotcha]

This dream could perhaps have just as easily been listed under "nightmares," however when I dream like this I usually find that they come true in unexpected ways. So I've learned not to ignore them, or brush them off as being the regular variety of subconscious expression.

This dream was very vivid, and left me afraid that something is about to happen. Also, snake dreams have been a running theme for me - sometimes even coming in the form of a leviathan chasing me. With that said, I will begin...

I dreamt that I had come back from shopping with my family. I had arrived in a van with my cousins, and uncle, and aunt (who had actually recently died in real life), at my grandmother's house.

In my real waking life, my grandmother's house is up for sale, since she moved over a year ago to an assisted living facility.

My mom and stepdad were also there in the driveway, getting out of their car. And so was my grandmother, who was standing in the driveway. Suddenly my step dad was running around with a snake in his hands, trying to get it out of the yard.

When he put it down, it tried to slither its way in to the van, but then my grandmother grabbed it, holding it in her hands. Was weird because she normally can't even stand without holding on to her walker, but there she, while stooped over, had it stetched across both hands. She looked right at me and said something that I can't remember.

Then I got out of the van as snakes began to crawl inside, only to find that the yard was infested with them.

I saw my neighbor's cat walking amongst the snakes. At first it seemed to show caution, and I tried to get her away. But she just nonchalantly laid down on her side infront of a hissing snake. The snake just stood by hissing, but did not attack her.

I then found myself running in to the house with my family. The snakes were everywhere on the floor. Most of them coiled up. My grandmother and I ran back to my old bedroom that I used to have there. The snakes had over taken the room, except my bed, my old real waking life bed, was still there, and it was fully made with sheets and covers and a blanket, and my grandmother pointed out that there were no Snakes on my bed. My bed was the only place in the house that wasn't snake infested.

I can't quite remember exactly how she phrased it when she pointed it out, but the emotional feeling was playful or jestful, like "Look who's bed is clean" or something. Which I think reffered more to the fact that the bed wasn't exactly made, as the sheets were a bit unfolded to the side where I had gotten out. Strangely though, the unfolded side was against the wall.

Then we ran back down the hallway. Running past snakes that were now everywhere, even falling from the ceiling.

I woke up.

[Athanor]

While there are many varied meanings which can be put forth about the image of snakes in dreams, basically they represent what we are most afraid of and therefore, how we are dealing with certain potentially upsetting aspects of our inner and outer life.

Lots of times, this fear we have is really about our own instinctive nature, but this instinctual side unfortunately doesn’t listen very much to our wish that it would just go away.

Since dreams speak via analogies, it’s no accident that the long sinewy shape of a snake is just like the human brain stem and spinal cord which in turn is where our deepest and most instinctive automatic responses come from as opposed to the other more “human” parts of the brain.

So as a very general example, a girl or guy may like to usually foster only a friendly atmosphere and she/he may be shocked by some frighteningly cold thoughts or emotions about someone that may appear at times.

However, these can sometimes be deep natural self-protective reactions that somehow have to be paid attention to and worked at to find their true meaning.

For example, a deep instinctive part of ourselves may “know” that another person’s words or actions are tending toward harming us in some way, so a sudden, cold and decisive emotion appears on the scene to give us the strength to stand up and defend ourselves if necessary.

In this approach to your dream, the idea would be that around the time it occurred, it would have been best for you to get comfortable with being around such potentially valuable instinctive reactions (snakes everywhere).

It could be, for example, that the dream is showing in symbolic terms how you usually react to issues which attack your basic sense of security and perhaps also is giving a few clues on how to deal with them.

For example, the dream could be suggesting that you have a lot of inner and outer support already which can help a lot during upsetting challenges if you were only able to take a deep breath and call this idea to mind (van full of relatives, mom, dad, step dad, grandmother).

The “ground” on which you can base your own sense of confidence and strength is your own deep feminine nature (grandmother’s house) which can provide you with quiet hunches and feelings for instance that can carry you through difficult situations pretty well (grandmother is strong and later takes a snake in her hands).

The dream shows your step dad as quickly taking action. The image of a male in the dreams of a girl often symbolizes her own inner attributes of being able to think effectively, being assertive and able to focus on what she really wants to achieve in her own heart.

It’s possible that the dream is showing that, while it’s good to have this so-called “masculine” side well developed and conscious inside you, it’s probably best to always stick close to your feminine side as well since your grandmother is the person most involved with you and the snakes in the rest of the dream.

Maybe while she was holding the snake, she was telling you that you had to do the same thing, that is, be brave and face head on what you are afraid of.

If you aren’t able to do this over time, the dream could be saying that your fears might tend to paralyze your forward motion through day to day activities too often (van gets filled with snakes).

Your nonchalant neighbor’s female cat likely also symbolizes your feminine nature’s instinctive side which knows that fears are just part of life and that you can “get along OK with them” (the cat is wary at first but then relaxes near the hissing snake which in the end doesn’t attack her).

It’s possible that the scene with your grandmother and your old bed is trying to point out symbolically that you might tend to prefer staying unconscious (asleep) about any ongoing anxieties and worries.

This apparently can work for a while (no snakes on the bed), but this way of acting might represent a “wall” to ever really solving the problem deep down (covers show that you get on the “wall” side which maybe “blocks” any real progress in dealing with the situation as shown by the snakes being everywhere and even falling off the ceiling).

If you happen to be a little shy, then many situations can be especially frightening, so you might like to read a couple of books on assertiveness such as “Asserting Yourself” by Bower and Bower, or “Your Perfect Right” by Alberti and Eammons. They would provide some straight-forward ways of expressing yourself which would help to build up your confidence over time.

As the eminent psychiatrist C.G. Jung says in Dream Analysis, Bollingen Series XCIX, “So whenever life means business, when things are getting serious, you are likely to find a saurian on the way. Or when vital contents are to appear from the unconscious, vital thoughts or impulses, you will dream of such animals”. Dr. Jung was referring at the time to images such as crocodiles, tortoises, snakes and lizards.

So to emphasize the importance of the need for you to get in better touch with your instinctive side, you were likely experiencing what are sometimes called “synchronistic events” (or more simply, “meaningful coincidences) when you had dreams or snakes or other images which later seemed to come true in some way.

Such incidents occur when there is no “cause and effect” involved but instead, for example, a dream and a later seemingly connected outer event are linked instead by meaning.

This may all sound too confusing and off-the-wall, but if you’re interested, you could find out more about “meaningful coincidences”, in Robert Hopcke’s book “There Are No Accidents”, Jean Shinoda Bolen’s “The Tao of Psychology”, and “At the Heart of Matter: Synchronicity and Jung’s Spiritual Testament” by J. Gary Sparks.

Anyway, without knowing much about you, this approach to your frightening dream may not fit your personal circumstances very well, but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.

[VenusInChains]

Whenever I dream of snakes, it means there is someone in my life that I should be weary of. Snakes are cunning, and some people can be like this also. Maybe there is someone in your family disputing over the will of your deceased aunt. The snake hissing at the cat could mean that this person has a lot of aggressive things to say, and the cat laying on it side infront of the snake could mean that someone is bowing down or giving in to what this person (the snake) may want.

[nekotcha]

I know I took a longtime to finally readthis...but..

Yeah, thank you both.
As far VenusinChains observation goes,that was what the dreams usually meant. And given the current events in my life, that kind of fit, but that didn't fit the entire puzzle.

This was the first snake dream like this. Usually they were really direct, and pointed to the individual to avoid. In the past though, I'd end up succumbing to the snakes. Which lead to a rather big ordeal in my life.

Since then I've done a lot of work weeding out the bad, and trying to move on with my life. And my life has changed drastically in just the past couple years.

I have a bad habit of falling in to cycles where I'm unable to see my own strength. I may be aware that I've grown in some areas, but then I'm blind to other areas of growth.

Athanor's interpretation was pretty spot on. Your interpretation answered the dream, and surprised me at parts. I'm a male, but have always felt more in touch with feminine energies, so it was interesting that you were able to read that. It was also amazing that my shyness came through - although I've become a little better, being assertive hasn't really been something I'm good at.

I really do tend to "sleep" through things. I tend to be passive, waiting for storms to pass. And sometimes, it's not something that will just pass. Such as my current situation. I've landed myself in to a snake pit, and the only way out is to start taking a more direct approach.

I'll have to re-read that Jung book again sometime. I read that about decade ago when I was still in highschool, and it had awakened a lot of my spiritual awareness. Him and Campbell...read a lot of Joseph Campbell. I'llvie the other books a look too. Especially the ones of being assertive.

Just amazing insight. THANK YOU.