Reptilian Dreams

There's usually nothing less interesting than hearing about another person's dreams, so prepare to be bored.

I suppose I dream like most people do, although how we would know that is difficult to imagine. I dream in color, and I don't have nightmares, per se, not the ones that have a person waking up screaming, the sheets wet with perspiration. I've been interested in my dreams for a long time, but I don't think they've been that remarkable until recently.

I've had the usual dreams--the one where I'm in school, and I realize I haven't been to math class all semester. I still have this dream, and I haven't been in school for 30 years. I've had dreams where I'm in my underwear in public, but for me this is not a nightmare, as I have no shame in this regard. I've had dreams where I've been in screaming matches with my mother, which is pretty easy to interpret. When I got fired from my last job, I had a slew of dreams that took place in an office setting, none of them familiar (my therapist says this is usual) where I'm screwing up or somehow disappointing or angering the boss; one time the boss was Barack Obama.

Which brings to mind that I dream about celebrities--a lot. Just last night I dreamed that Johnny Depp was on Survivor, and had gone rogue. I dream about famous, sexy woman, but I never get laid. I may kiss someone, or get naked with them, but I never consummate. My own subconscious is cockblocking me.

The new thing in my dreams is snakes. At leas three times in the last six months or so I've dreamed about snakes--not little snakes, like garter or rattlesnakes, but big fucking constrictors, like pythons or boas or anacondas. In at at least one of them they attacked me, with open jaws like the picture, even though that's not how they kill things. They wrap themselves around their victim and press until said victim suffocates. Then they swallow the prey whole.

Now, I have no abnormal fear of snakes. I don't particularly want to touch one--to my recollection I never have--and I've seen people on the subway in New York with a pet python draped over their shoulders like a cape, which I think is nuts. I've seen them in zoos and the like, and I think they're kind of fascinating. Having one as a pet seems stupid, since the cost of the food seems to far outweigh the emotional reward.

So what does dreaming about pythons mean? I've checked those stupid web sites that interpret dreams, and most say that the snakes represent lurking danger or that the dreamer is suffocating themselves. There also may be something sexual about them, but I think this would be smaller snakes; I can't say that a python, to me, suggests the male apparatus, unless it is Lexington Steele or someone like that.

Last night I had another dream, and this time it was alligators. Alligators threaded through several different scenarios. They were all over the floor of a store, and then I was riding in a log flume ride, and they were in the water. They weren't attacking, but my mind registered--"hey, there's fucking alligators!" I marveled that a water park would let alligators into the water, wondering about the insurance liability. Again, I have no particular problem with alligators. I once went on a trip to the Everglades and saw hundreds of them in the wild, but I wouldn't want to wrestle one. The dream interpreters suggest that alligators represent a problem.

So what do I come up with? The lurking problem in my life is financial. I'm working two jobs but barely making ends meet, and I have no savings whatsoever. Or could it be just a more general sense of doom? The last dream I had about a python I was in a woman's apartment, and a python was in the room. It didn't attack me, but it gave me a feeling of dread.

Whatever it means, I'm fascinated by the whole thing. Why big snakes, or alligators? One of the dreams I remember from my childhood was the neighborhood being attacked by dinosaurs, and this was way before Jurassic Park. Somewhere I must have a deep-seated problem with reptiles. It's a good thing I didn't become a herpetologist.