Snake Dreams

Though the dream snake hung limply from the tips of her fingers, its skin glowed with the vibrance of something alive. Even though we both knew it was dead.

Its back was smooth turquoise, a hue spotted only in the thinnest band of the rainbow if you squint for it. The belly was a stream of yellow gold. Bright, soft, and alluring.

My neighbor held the snake by its head, displaying the two-toned colors without fear.  She’d found the snake, about four feet long, tucked in the cushions of her couch while she and I were visiting. In my dream, that is. None of this was real.

Days later, I was visiting this same neighbor in real life. Remembering I had left something in my truck, I walked out her front door and down the path.  As I did, a quick whip crossed in front of my feet. It was a snake. Dark brown, fleeting, and only a stone’s throw from this friend’s house, and very much alive.

Startled, yes I was. The snake caught me off guard. But I also thought, “Well, that was weird.”  To dream of my friend holding a vibrant, dead turquoise and gold snake, and then days later, a real snake crosses my path at that same friend’s house? Weird.

Later, when I told this story of my dream to my friend and of the serpent that slipped outside her house soon after, she looked off into the distance and mused, “What year are we heading into?”.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the Year of the Snake.

I don’t often see snakes here in Nicaragua, maybe five or so that I can remember in the ten years I’ve called this stretch of jungle beach my home. Snakes in the wild tend to keep to themselves. Thankfully.

In November, my dreams were visited by another snake. This dream snake was alive, deadly, and posed to strike. His thick body was black, its head a rich, cardinal red.  In my dream, it coiled tightly, inches from my face.

As is often the case in our dreamscapes, the setting was unclear.  It was just me and this snake, and I knew that in seconds, he would spring and sink his fangs in.

Time isn’t real in our dreams, but the next moments were rapid.

I remember the sound of the dream snake’s skull crunching as I clamped both my hands around its head and crushed him. I could see the hard jaw splintering between the soft mounds of my thumbs.

Greater than the visual was the terrible sound of the bones cracking from the pressure between my bare hands.  The snake was dead instantly.

A week or so later, I was walking my 18-month-old goddaughter through an open-air restaurant. The day was arid, and the dry landscape beyond was not as welcoming as the shaded leafy greens that grew around the restaurant space.

Out of the corner of my eye, curled up on the white stones against the white-washed wall, was a small, two-foot snake. So calm it lay, that I thought it was sleeping.  Maybe dreaming. Keeping my goddaughter at a distance, I stepped nearer for a closer look.

If the thing wasn’t dead, it was dying. Its head was bloody, and whatever wounds it suffered colored the stones a shiny, wet red.

Perhaps a bird had pecked it, or some other predator without fear of snakes.  The restaurant staff quickly came, scooped it up, and released it to the dusty, shrubby bushes beyond.  Whether it lived or not, I don’t know, but I couldn’t help remembering my second recent snake dream, the threatening mood, and how, in my dreams, I’d killed it.

Speeding past the holidays and into January, I dreamt a third time about a snake. The snake in this dream was more menacing.

The scenery was a dark, open-air bedroom, and hanging above the bed was something like a chandelier.  But rather than brass or beaded chandelier arms, the center was a thick ball of yellowed, filthy spider webs. Instead of candlelight or bulbs adorning the chandelier, black flies and wasps buzzed and circled. Instead of connecting to the ceiling by a pole, the chandelier was connected by the body of a huge Cobra, its tail attached to the ceiling, its head amongst the dirty, cottony webs.

It was a horrifying bedroom piece to be sure, and not at all ambient.

In this dream, the Cobra, flaring its hood, dropped down from the ceiling, hovered above my head intimidatingly close, and prepared to strike. I could see the venom glisten from its fangs as it hissed at me, mouth agape and eyes furious.

As our dreams can be as accommodating as we need (sometimes), in my hands I suddenly held one of those water or air pumps – similar to a super soaker water gun. It was full of poison. 

In one strong thrust, I shot the poison from the super-soaker gun-thing I held straight into the Cobra’s wide open, hissing mouth and killed it.

End scene.

Days later, again in the waking world, I walked Roo along the green behind my house. We paused under the shade of a tall, leafy tree, where Roo was entertained by the broken sticks that littered the base of the trunk.  One such broken stick lifted its body, straightened, and shot like a dart through the grass under Roo’s three legs.

This snake was not a Cobra, not black, not bloody, and not dead. But he was fearful of me and slipped as quickly as he could away, a swift ripple of green. Gliding quickly, he slithered away from the cool shade of the tree and into safety elsewhere.

Three snake dreams, and three snake encounters.  But what does it mean?

I related this story of the three snakes to a friend of mine one recent afternoon over tacos.

“Well”, he said with a twinkle-eyed grin, wiping his hands on a napkin, “if your dreams are coming true, you had better dream about what you really want!”

Truth, I thought, finishing my tacos.

Since then, I’ve been trying to pay closer attention to my thoughts throughout the day, for surely they feed my dreams in the night.

After all, our thoughts become things.  Even (or especially) the thoughts in our dreams.

The fears we linger over, the challenges that seem insurmountable, the doubts we hold over our choices and direction.  These are not fun feelings.

When we catch ourselves spinning too much in fear-fueled circles, maybe we can try to think instead about the things that don’t scare us. Maybe we can make a conscious attempt to redirect our thoughts towards the things that are joyful. The things that are working out.

It was weird that I had three snake dreams, each followed by a real-life encounter.  Especially when I consider how rare it is to actually see a snake out here. Mostly, it’s iguanas, monkeys, and possums I bump into.

But I do believe we create the life we want when we set our mind to it.

The snake dreams were unique and terrifying. But every single dream snake played a role in which I’d overcome something threatening somehow. My dreams showed me beauty without fear and trials without failure.

I don’t wish to invite any more dreams of snakes into my night. Or living snakes into my day. But the reminder these dreams bring is not lost on me.

Our dreams are sent to remind us that our “real” isn’t at all what we feared. That we’ll be okay. That we have the ability to crush anything foul or threatening that strikes at us.

And, probably more importantly, our dreams are reminders to enjoy the turquoise beauty of things. Our dreams remind us that we can overcome any fear.

~ Christy

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