Hope on the horizon?
All my life, those nightmares signaled whatever still haunted me, or what I was fighting off. But lately, they were turning a corner…
Journal 6/20/25
This morning:
After my shower, I went outside to fill the bird bath, then came back in and noticed a smell in the house. Nothing unpleasant, just something different than usual. But as I pondered the word “smell,” I suddenly remembered last night’s nightmare and the smell of dead snakes. In the dream, there were thousands of them all throughout the house, and we needed to get them out…
The nightmare:
I realized we had snakes coming out of various places in the house – wall cracks, vents, seams that weren’t sealed…they seemed to have the ability to get in and come out of everywhere. AND they were multiplying…fast. I sensed that the basement was filled with them and they were reproducing, even though I didn’t know how many. I only knew some would come out of this large block of honeycombs down in the basement. I just knew something had to be done, and I knew I just couldn’t handle it.
I managed to hire a pest control firm, but they barely wanted to do the job. They finally went down into the basement and killed off all the snakes in that block of honey. Then they came up and said there were over 295 snakes, and more would have kept coming because they were living off the honey and reproducing quickly, so their numbers would grow exponentially after a bit. So it was good we got them when we did.
They would not confirm that they checked any other places in the basement or house, though, but just blew it off that “they got them all.” I wanted them to clean out the basement –finish the job since they were exterminators, and that was their job- but even though I wanted to hire/pay them, they wouldn’t do it. They were in a big hurry and just seemed to want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. They seemed tense, agitated, and unwilling to go back down there, and they left before I could try to get them to do the job.
The thousands of dead snakes smelled, and it was all over the house, and no one would go. I knew somebody had to clean the mess… and that I would have to do it. I went down there and struggled to get all of the dead snakes and the very large block of honeycombs into doubled-up large black garbage bags. I felt scared and tense … maybe I feared more would appear even though they were all supposed to be dead. I was terrified even of their corpses.
I struggled and was almost getting the whole soggy, disgusting mess into the bags, but not quite. Someone, for just a short bit…like a minute, held the garbage bag open on one side, and that was all I needed to tip up everything into the bag and get it tied up tight and put it out for the garbage man. Whoever held the bag for a moment, I have no idea. They were already gone.
At that point, with that whole block of mess, and dead snakes out of the house, I finally felt some relief. And somebody at that point noted that the house smelled better now and no longer smelled of dead snakes.
Reflection:
In thinking about the dream, I realized it was like life back then…there was nobody, or rarely, for a moment, a “disembodied arm” to lend a hand for a split second, then gone. But whatever it was that had to be confronted, fought off, dealt with, nobody would step up to do it, and so it would land in my lap to have to take care of.
Postscript
As disgusting as the dream was, not to mention that even in the dream, I was cleaning up “the mess,” there was also a positive note…if you can call snake corpses positive. But I realized that this was the first snake dream where they were no longer a threat. They were dead. It was as if the dream pointed at “hope” for the future — a hint that things might yet get better, even if I was still up to my elbows in cleaning up the mess.
And then, a few months later, the real game-changer…
Those poor cows…
Journal 10/8/2025
The first half of the nightmare started with driving someplace with Dad in the back seat of the car. He was totally QUIET. Absolutely silent and deferring to me. At every stop we made, he would get back into the back seat and wouldn’t even try to sit in the front. I had to invite him to sit up front.
Later, I was alone walking through a parking lot when I walked past a car with a bumper sticker on it labeling the person as a sex offender.
I saw the label, tensed up, and walked faster while yanking my car keys out of my pocket. Why didn’t I have my keys out earlier?! But then I realized that I wasn’t really that afraid, and noted that the man wasn’t following me but staying in his car.
When he did come out, he was an old, thin, frail man needing a walker and the assistance of someone with him.
The old man was DAD…and the helper wasn’t clear, but it felt like Mom.
Then, the dream shifted into a dim parking garage.
As I walked through, it was totally silent… as if something had just ended… something monumental and decisive was finally over.
The atmosphere was one of total…quiet acceptance, weighted down with sadness.
As I walked on, I reflected on what I felt:
No guilt. More a sober sense of “there was no other way.”
No joy that I won.
Not happy at destruction.
Not happy it happened.
Just, sober quiet.
An acceptance that it had to be done.
No regret, because there’d been no choice.
Realistic awareness, pragmatic acceptance.
But still, immense sadness that the fight was needed in the first place.
I sloshed through four inches of water on the garage floor.
I noticed I was on the lower, underground level.
All around me were blown-apart cow parts floating in the water. And a dead cow.
Against the back wall was a shell-shocked cow with guts hanging out of its back end, and another cow, just asleep – completely exhausted.
I felt such pain for them all.
I walked slowly, just taking it all in – a battle-weariness throughout my body.
The silence spoke to the significance of the huge battle that was finally over,
even though I didn’t know what it was about.
There was no anger.
Just sober resignation and sadness.
An acceptance of what had to be, but sad.
It was a war I didn’t want to fight, but I had no choice.
So I did what I had to do to get it over with,
not with vengeance or reveling in revenge or anything,
but simply – to do what had to be done.
All I felt now was that I did it.
I am satisfied I made the right choice, but sad.
Now, to go forward.
Turning, I walked, almost in slow motion, toward a doorway. There, shrunken into the shadows, was Dad. He said nothing and dared not hurry me. He didn’t dare to engage with me at all. Just a shadow of himself, and he seemed afraid of me.
As an afterthought, I looked back over the entire sight of the garage and reflected that the right thing would be to reach out to the farmer whose cows these were. They were from the farm located on the outer upper level of this garage. They were “collateral damage.”
I should let him know a few of his cows were obliterated, and also that one was down here, shell-shocked and injured, maybe fatally, but maybe not, and that he should come rescue it.
Through my mind flashed the words – Don’t just leave the mess…Care for what’s left.
Reflections on the dreams
What do I make of the October 8, 2025 nightmare? Maybe it’s not as bizarre as it would appear.
The first part of the dream was almost “anti-climactic.” There was no surprise in seeing Dad’s car have the label, “sex-offender.” In fact, the only surprise was that someone finally just called it like it was and publicly said it through the bumper sticker. It was simply a statement of reality.
And while I initially reacted with fear, getting my keys out to use as a defensive weapon, I immediately realized I didn’t need to be afraid anymore. I was now in charge. That frail old man represented what he always was inside — a weak, empty, powerless coward who needed help.
As to Mom helping him – well, yes, in old age she had to look after him. But in the dream, maybe it was also a reflection that, for better or worse, she had done that her whole life. Protected him.
If anything, this part of the dream indicated a total shift in the power dynamics between him and me. Before, he represented a terrifying threat…an unpredictable, lurking danger. But now he was defeated, subdued as he sat in that back seat, almost afraid to have his presence recognized, and deferring to my power.
As to the parking garage?
To me, this second part of the nightmare represents the huge turning point. It is the place where the power and the roles have shifted. Even as future nightmares will still have me fighting him or snakes at times, they don’t have the energy or terror they did in the past. This part of the dream marks the place of no return.
For so many years and dreams, I was trapped, a victim, and in danger. Even when I wasn’t a victim, I was constantly in fearful battle mode, fighting him or those snakes…and even crushing them with a pool cue. The dreams reeked of raw emotion, from terror to rage.
But the parking garage? The difference was starkly obvious through its silence. The sorrow-laden peace.
This was a place where the silence was so loud it almost echoed…the scene of the final battle. Everywhere, there was carnage. Broken bodies. Traumatized cows. Debris. It was the aftermath of a huge cataclysm that HAD to be.
There was no emotion of joy or “victory.” More a regret that it had to be. It was the resignation of having to execute “an unavoidable duty.” And now there was just grief at the insanity of it all, and the destruction that had to be. It was a war I didn’t ever want to fight; I didn’t choose it, but I had no choice. And now it was the feeling and processing of all the leftover emotions and trauma.
In the end, I was satisfied that I did my duty. But so sad at the “waste” of it all. And sorrow for the injured cows.
If anything, now, there was the strong sense of responsibility — to clean up the mess…to “care for what’s left.”
Finally, I had come to the place of self-compassion and care…the place where I could shed the shame, forgive me, and finally love me.
I AM a contender!
After these dreams, I pulled out that sheet I made early on. It was that chart I made when I mourned how, in life, I could have been that contender, but that I’d lost too much to keep up with others. They moved up while I’d sunk down.
And yes. Compared to a person with what might be an average life, it looked like I came up short. But then I looked at it again. The truth is, while my “peak” was lower than the other person’s, I had actually covered more territory. I had climbed a greater distance.
I suddenly started to understand that no matter how far down life pushed me, by fighting to come back, I still won a huge victory. Because in the end, it’s not how high you go, but where you had to start from… and how long the distance you had to climb… to get there.
Essentially….I AM that contender….and always was….
Up Next
Reweaving the whole – Some closing Citrinitas thoughts before we enter the Rubedo section…
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and make a visit to my home state for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
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