Fun With Snakes
9/22/82
I am playing with two small snakes that are banded with various colors. They are perhaps ten inches long. I am letting them encircle my index finger until they make two intertwined rings the length of my finger. Then I slide my finger out and watch them untangle themselves. At one point, I get in the way of one and it bites my finger, but it is hardly a pin-prick and not poisonous. I end up putting them back inside their box.
Preference Predictions
Most Accepting: Dream Self
Least Accepting: Index Finger
Most preferred character: Box
Most rejected character: Dream Self
Most preferred action: put back in box
Most rejected action: bit
Most preferred feeling: unconcerned
Most rejected feeling: none
Sociomatrix Commentary
Dream Self: These snakes are fun to play with
Snakes: I wish he’d leave us alone. He’s harassing us. We’re quality stuff and don’t hurt anyone. We wrap around that finger for security. Then he pulls our security out from under us. No wonder we get angry!
Bands: We’re glad he appreciates us. We make our owners more attractive and noticeable. They like that, but it has worked against us in this case. We look pretty wrapped around his finger. But when he slides out his finger we are a mess. We would prefer a natural environment to this box.
Finger: I’m very useful. He puts me to good use. He needs and respects me. I don’t like these snakes around me. They don’t belong here. Although I have nothing against them. He let me get bit, which I don’t like. He should be concerned.
Box: I think he’s crazy to be keeping and playing with snakes. They don’t belong in me, no matter how pretty. They belong in nature.
Dream Commentary
If you could change this dream in any way that you wanted, as long as it respected the rights of all fellow dream group members, how would you change it?
Snakes: Leave us alone! Let us loose in nature where we belong!
Bands: Right!
Finger: Sounds better to me.
Box: Let them loose in nature. Watch what they do, what they become.
Dream Self: OK.
Dreamage
I am playing with two small snakes that are banded with various colors. They are perhaps ten inches long. I am letting them encircle my index finger until they make two intertwined rings the length of my finger. I carry them over to a spot beneath a ponderosa pine by some old logs and let them go. I watch them slither away, glad that they are back in nature where they belong.
Waking Commentary
If you were this dreamer and were dealing with his waking issues – money, relationships, fears, career choices, physical health, spiritual development – would you do anything differently? If so, what?
Snakes: Stop playing with your primal urges. Take them more seriously. Take sex with Gayle more seriously.
Finger: Stop trying to control life energies. Respect them and take them seriously.
Box: As these forces assume their natural place in your life, your life will become less complicated and stressful.
Action Plan
use dreamage pre-sleep
Actual Preferences
Most Accepting: Dream Self
Least Accepting: Box
Most preferred character: Index Finger
Most rejected character: none
Most preferred action: not poisonous
Most rejected action: bit
Most preferred feeling: unconcerned
Most rejected feeling:
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Sociogram Commentary
An antithetical sociogram pattern with opposition on the acceptance and process axes.
Acceptance Axis: It is interesting that the index finger is as accepting as it is, considering the fact that it got bit. Why is the box most rejecting? Because it has to put up with the snakes living in it? The conflict here is between Dream Self and Box. We begin to suspect an inverted nightmare pattern. Index Finger is not close enough to Dream Self for us to strongly suspect that it is a surrogate, but it doesn’t take a Rhodes scholar to see Index Finger as a metaphor for self. We point with it and we use it more than any other finger to assert our identity. Without any desire or inclination to be Freudian, an index finger is male in that it is a tool of action and expression. A box is female in that it is a receptacle – in this case, for primal life energy. Could it be that Box is naturally nurturing but is put in a critical position by Dream Self playing with fire? Box seems to have the best sense of what is appropriate, stating that the snakes belong in nature, not inside it or manipulated by Dream Self.
Form Axis: Box is most rejecting and the most rejected character. It is viewed by the group as similar to Dream Self. This seems to indicate that it is a Dream Self Surrogate of some sort. Desire to control in an unnatural way?? Yet box sees itself as diametrically opposed to Dream Self. The conflict in attitude is not too different from that on the acceptance axis: Box vs. Index Finger.
Process Axis: The lack of self-acceptance is associated with conflict regarding action. Getting bit (victimization/foolishness) and “not poisonous” (self assurance) oppose each other. An implication is that there is too much of a casual, self-assured attitude here that creates victimization and covers a more fundamental lack of self-esteem.
Affect Axis: Feeling “unconcerned” is both rejected and accepted. Most likely it is a blasé ignoring of appropriate choices in the situation.
