Thinking of that song now (if you don’t know, it’s by an amazing ska band called “The Aquabats” – listen to them now), it oddly fits the dream I had last night.
“Big ones, little ones
Fat ones, skinny ones
Protect me from their venomous drug
That springs from the needles of fangs
Attacked by snakes”
Of course there’s more to it than that… but I love that song, so I had to reference it somehow.
So last night had been kind of a crappy night to begin with. I sat by myself on my computer ’til about 2:30am. I tried going to bed, and it was one of those nights where I was tired as hell, but just couldn’t sleep to save my life. (I found out that Jackie was having the exact same problem. Weird.) So, after about an hour of just laying around trying to keep my eyes closed, I did what I always do – started surfing random things on my phone. Spent about an hour reading FML. Read Twitter for as long as I could. Ended up playing PSP for a little bit. I was still up at about 4:45a, and I’d just about had it when I think I finally fell asleep for a little bit.
I woke up at about 7:30a with that all-too-familiar tickle in my nose… blood. I haven’t had a bloody nose in forever, but one decided to wake me up after only about 3 hours of sleep. I dealt with it, and went back to bed. This time, sleep came easy… this is where the dream started, though.
So where I start remembering, I find myself in what feels like a radio station. This isn’t any place I recognized… but it had the distinct feel of work. I don’t remember any of my coworkers either, although I interacted with about two or three of ‘em. While in the middle of some random conversation, a deliveryman swings in – I find out that this deliveryman goes around, providing radio stations with a giant stack of music-related magazines… stuff like Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin in addition to all the different trade pubs. As he’s leaving, I get the thought in my brain, “Hmm… maybe he has some extras on his truck. I’d love to get some to read at home.”
So I leave this building… on a bike. A pedal bike. Out through the parking lot, and it’s here where I kind of realize where I am. I don’t immediately recognize my surroundings, but I get the distinct feeling that I’m in my hometown of Fulda, MN. I speed over to where the truck is headed (for some reason, it’s at a building that only a couple of buildings down from where I was at) and talk to the guy. He’s a little bit of a smartass, but he tells me that he actually does have a stack of magazines that he wasn’t able to drop off, and that I could have ‘em.
Elated, I hop on the bike, balance the stack of magazines on the handlebars, and start to head home. (Oddly enough, in the dream I was heading to my old home on Baltimore Ave. – not the house I spent more time in, the house on Front Street.) So I get about a block away (I’m riding on the sidewalk for some reason, like I used to do when I was a kid) and coming up to a street crosswalk – I see a King Cobra, hood flared out, looking like it’s coiled to attack. I didn’t panic. Hell, I wasn’t even afraid at all – my first thought was actually, “What the hell? Those aren’t indigenous to this part of the country…” As I ride past it, it tries to strike, and misses. I laugh it off, and continue on.
That’s when I start noticing that in the block ahead, there are actually quite a few cobras on the sidewalk – so I switch over to riding on the street, almost losing half of my magazines in the process. (For some reason, these magazines were a high priority, ’cause I clung to them whenever anything happened.) So now I’m riding in the street, and I swerve right away to miss yet another cobra. Just as I start to think, “Jesus, this is getting crazy… where are all of these snakes coming from?” I look around, and kind of gasp in horror. The street is filled, FILLED with full-grown King Cobras and little mini baby Kings.
So I speed up. In the process of trying to swerve out of the way of all these attacking snakes, I end up losing the bike and just running – still carrying this burden that is the stack of magazines. And that’s when something starts happening that is a reoccurring event in many of my dreams. The float-running. My feet touch ground for about 3 steps, then I push off like for a long jump and just float. Only in this situation, I was going more vertical with each jump than forward. I panic… these super-high floats are allowing this horde of snakes to catch up. This goes on for a block.
That’s when I woke up to the sound of my phone… Jackie was calling. I was breathing all erratically and shaking like a madman. It was pretty fucking intense. I wouldn’t consider the dream a nightmare, but at the same time I’ve not had any dream that’s affected me like that in a long while.
It’s after a dream like that where I definitely start wondering what it all means. After a little one-on-one time with Google, I found a decent enough site (the Dream Moods Dictionary) and looked around a bit. So, first things first, I guess you could technically qualify this as a “chase dream”. Here’s what they had to say about that:
“As with most of the common dreams, they often stem from feelings of anxiety in your waking life. Running is an instinctive response to physical threats in your environment. Your actions in the dream parallel how you respond to pressure and cope with fears, stress or various situations in your waking life. Instead of confronting the situation, you are running away and avoiding it. Ask yourself who is the one chasing you so that you can gain understanding and insight on the source of your fears and anxieties.
The pursuer or attacker who is chasing you in your dream may also represent an aspect of yourself. Your own feelings of anger, jealousy, fear, and possibly love, can assume the appearance of threatening figure. The shadowy figure can also symbolize rejected characteristics of your self.”
I’ve read this before about chase dreams – the whole “you’re not facing an issue in your waking life”. And to be honest – that’s true in a couple of different ways. So far this evaluation is 1/1. So… the pursuer may represent an aspect of myself? That interests me. So I looked up snakes:
“To see a snake or be bitten by one in your dream, signifies hidden fears and worries that are threatening you. Your dream may be alerting you to something in your waking life that you are not aware of or that has not yet surfaced. Alternatively, the snake may be seen as phallic and thus symbolize temptation, dangerous and forbidden sexuality. If you are afraid of the snake, then it signifies your fears of sex, intimacy or commitment. The snake may also refer to a person around you who is callous, ruthless, and can’t be trusted. As a positive symbol, snakes represent healing, transformation, knowledge and wisdom. It is indicative of self-renewal and positive changes.”
Now, follow me with this, but this all seems kind of dead on. All of it. Now, the first time I witness the snake, I’m not afraid at all – even after it strikes at me. I’d like to interpret that as the positive symbol – self-renewal and positive changes? I’ve been longing for that in a big way in the past couple weeks. However, then my mood changes when I see a bunch of them. Afraid of commitment? ‘Fraid so. I love Jackie more than anything, but the idea of getting married scares the fuck out of me. And then there’s that whole “hidden worries and fears” thing. That just sounds right. I mean… *something* had to keep me awake last night. Well, dream meanings site, you’re 2/2.
Just for shits and giggles, I looked to see if magazines had some kind of meaning, being as how I was so attached to them in the dream. Turns out they do have a meaning:
“To read a magazine in your dream, indicates that you are opened to various new ideas. Consider also the theme and name of the magazine and its symbolism. “
Well, I don’t remember reading any of the magazines, but that’s pretty cool.
So, long story short, I guess even my dreams are telling me that I’m not doing a good job in my life of confronting my problems and taking care of them head-on. I really need to take this to heart (I know that dream reading isn’t exactly an established science or anything, but I do think that people are right on when they say dreams reveal stuff to us about our waking life) and just take the steps I need to make some changes.
Anyone else have any interesting dreams lately?
