Friday, September 28, 2012

Nightmare: Snakes and Death

September 27th
This dream was a bit more mystical than the one during the night before; it's a lot harder to put it into context.

For some reason I was walking in an area with a lot of trees, with many poisonous snakes on the ground. Of course, I couldn't actually tell whether they were poisonous or not, but they had black bodies plus some weird yellow patterns on their skin, so I assumed they were. Also, these snakes were all very large. They were perhaps as thick as a person's leg.

Eventually, I reached a body of water (a lake or a river) and apparently there was an event held there. Families were racing in the water in a very odd way (which I can't remember). At that time I was kind of an omniscient observer; I was kind of looking at the whole event from above.

Then, I started heading back into the forest, but this time with my mother and a little girl who was probably supposed to be a younger sister. The poisonous-looking snakes were still there, but now there were also some pure black snakes, which were all as large as the poisonous snakes.

The next moment, I seemed to be walking on a sidewalk, which also had a lot of these snakes. Scared of getting bitten, I started running, which was irrational because I somehow knew I wouldn't get harmed by these snakes anyway. In fact, it think it actually increased my chance of getting bitten because in my mind I was comparing running away from the snakes to running away from a bear. Also, my mother told me to slow down, but I ignored her.

After some running, both my mother and "my little sister" were out of sight, and I arrived at a subway station and went in. It was a relatively dull place with grey tattered walls, and there was no one except the ticket collector and I. I took out my TTC ticket so that I could enter the gate, but the ticket collector told me that they only accepted Japanese yens (100 yens, to be exact). I remember feeling very embarrassed, because the ticket collector was a Japanese female wearing a blue uniform— how could I have not known to pay in yens?

Anyway, I didn't have any Japanese money, so I couldn't get in. Instead, I walked a bit closer to the entrance and waited for my mother and "little sister" to arrive. Oh, I think the subway station had two stories, and I was basically facing the staircase so that I could see my family entering and coming up. (It's interesting that these buildings actually get distorted).

They eventually arrived and had begun to walk up the stairs. However, just as I was about to talk to them, I "felt" two bullets coming into my lower back. I probably knelt down a bit, and managed to turn around to see who was the assailant. Of course, it was that Japanese lady, as she was the only one who was present at the time. She looked coldly at me and shot a few more rounds. Apparently, I was considered as a security threat because I didn't have enough money to ride a subway...

Then all I felt was regret. I knew I was going to die with so many bullet wounds, and I just couldn't believe that I didn't foresee this event happening. Apparently, I have always known that I had to be on constant guard to avoid being killed by some kind of enemy.

Then I woke up.

My Thoughts
I really have no idea what the first part of the dream was supposed to be about. Those snakes were definitely very ominous, but there is no apparent connection between them and anything in my life. Is there anything poisonous/dangerous in my life? Probably. But then I have so many ideas/actions that are poisonous/dangerous that I can't just single out one thing.

The latter half of the nightmare was probably influenced by my reading of the Japanese novel Battle Royale, in which a group of students are dropped of at an island and instructed to kill each other. In any case, this is the very first time that I dream of myself dying! In all other nightmares, I would always manage to avoid being harmed or killed. What could this possibly signify? I don't even want to think about it.