Recurring dream about snakes?

Question

Hi, the past 2 nights I've been having dreams about a specific group of snakes. They appear in the same manner, and always act the same.

I'm walking down a path, always outdoors, trying to go somewhere, but suddenly, in the middle of the path, there are a bunch of snakes! They, for the most part, look all the same, except there is always one yellow snake (some research into this made me believe I'm seeing the yellow eyelash viper), and one king cobra. They're all piled over each other in a big mess. I'd have to say there're about 5-8 snakes in the mess.

Well, I look at this pile and think that I need to get them off the path, they're blocking me. I figure, if I treat them gently, they shouldn't attack me, but then I notice a king cobra in the mess. I know I should move him first as he is the most dangerous, so I try to grab him by the area behind the head so he can't bite me, but I fail.

He latches onto my hand. I start freaking out, trying to get him off me. Someone tells me if I shake my hand hard, he'll let go, so I do, and he lets go, but immediately bites the other one and doesn't let go!

When I wake up from these dreams, I realize that during the dream, the snake never injects venom into me. He just kinda... bites me. That's it. No venom, so I was never in real danger in my dream.

So anyone have any idea what this could mean?

Answer 1

I've also been having recurring dreams of snakes.  They're all very different, but they're all similar to yours.  I always have some confrontation with a snake while trying to get somewhere.  Sometimes it's many snakes, but usually it's just one GIANT snake that I somehow have to battle or evade.  Sometimes I make it... sometimes I don't.

I don't buy the psychological cliches about "phallic symbols" or "lies, deceit and evil".  That all sounds pretty ignorant to me.  It just doesn't feel right.  I know serpents are highly mystical symbols that appear in shamanic paintings and mythology all over the world (even in parts of the world that don't have snakes).  So they're engrained into are psyche at a really primal level.  The image of snakes entwined is a symbol of medicine and healing, and also looks curiously like our DNA.

So I always get the feeling when I have these dreams that the universe is trying to telling me something, or hidden parts of my psyche are trying to come on, or the snake has some secret that it wants to share, something that I know deep down in my soul that is so obvious that I've forgotten what it is.  And if I just had the courage in my dream to ask the snake what it wanted to say, rather than trying to avoid it, it might tell me something fundamental about the the true nature of myself and my whole world.

Maybe next time you see the snakes, rather than trying to move them, ask them what they want.  Maybe they will tell you.