Look here. This is going to sound an extremely silly post but I’ll just tell you what happened. This is so weird. I was shaken awake completely and I wanted to tell this to someone. So, here…

I had a dream and it wasnt a pleasant one. It was so disturbing that it woke me up and I felt my heart beating fast.

The Place

I was quite familiar with it. It was the bedroom of the house where I grew up but the outside environment seemed different. Outside, it seemed more like an appartment. I did not have an outside view since I was inside the room throughout but from inside the room, I could clearly notice people moving left-right/right-left on a verandah. If not an appartment, maybe it was a hostel building or something.

What happened?

I dont know how but I seemed to be aware that every morning, a band of snakes, cobras I guess, about 7-8 of them, would stand in front of the door (outside the room facing me) and sway from side to side – some sort of a ritual? Even those who passed by my room, who I felt I was aware of, seemed to know that the snakes do this every morning – it was completely normal. In fact, they werent afraid even a bit and moreover, they felt that it was a good thing or something, so they used to ridicule me lightly because I showed an aversion to the snakes. This was the first morning.

Coming to the second morning. I just woke up, looked out the door-lens and noticed that the snakes hadnt turned up yet. I knew they would soon and begin their nonsense, so I locked the door. There were two doors – the one with the wiremesh (the mosquito net sort of door we use) – and of course, the standard wooden door behind this first door. I closed them both. I was just moving around the room, very relaxed I was – it seemed a nice morning.

A while later, I just went to the door to have a peek to see if the snakes had turned up. Yes, they did and they were doing what they usually do. I thought they were silly and just moved away and went back to my “moving around the room” thing.

Moments later, I dont know what happened. The scene changed completely. I went to the door, noticed that the snakes werent there. So, I opened the wooden door – which means the wiremesh door was still closed – and I was concerned with what I saw. I knelt down and I saw a girl, about 8 -9 years old, who was also kneeling down, facing me but concentrating on what she was doing instead. She looked innocent, poor, her hair looked soily, seemed to have some sort of a cold determination to do what she was doing because while I was looking at her, she didnt move, even for a second, her eyes from what she was doing. At the same time, there was an air of casualness about her. It was as if she was doing something very routine. What was she doing, by the way? She was just trying to – I dont know what, dismantle the door (the wiremesh door)? Because she was pulling out thin-but-slightly-long pieces of wood from the bottom of the door – with bare hands. Weird but nothing harmful. Well, that’s what I thought initially and then, something else came into the scene – a tiger.

It was there beside the girl. It was lying down sideways (parallel to the door), its fore legs were stretched out in front of it, and was very intently focussed on what the girl was doing. The girl seemed to be dismantling the door piece by piece and the tiger seemed to be waiting. WAITING!

Then, something even more weird – the main wooden door was missing! I was desperately trying to put back the pieces which the girl removed but the girl was removing them again – we were competing against each other. I tried but I knew I wouldnt succeed. She was too adept and fast at what she was doing and it would be a matter of minutes, maybe just seconds before a huge opening will be made in the door, huge enough for the tiger to pass through!

I had to do something. I knew there’s no use competing with the girl. That was the only door. I couldnt get out of that room. My only choice – to get in the bathroom, lock myself in and call my dad. So, I moved quickly, grabbed by cellphone on the way to the bathroom and went inside and desperately locked it and started dialling my dad’s number.

At that time, I woke up and I noticed, my heart was beating really fast and I was kind of very anxious if not scared. Of course, it was relieving to know it was “just a dream.” Previous “just a dream” events were more relaxing but not this one. This was hardly that relaxing. Sleepwise, I had great sleep – if I dreamt so deeply, I definitely had what they call REM sleep – enough sleep for the night. I got out of bed, grabbed my phone and saw the time – 5 AM or something – too early :p I went to the loo, came back to bed and wanted to sleep but couldnt. I was disturbed.

I frequently have a dream in which I begin to fall from a highrise building or some highly elevated edge and I wake up with a sudden twitch, especially strong in my legs. Other dreams that I have are less worrying though I remember a few really upsetting ones.

This particular dream counts among those upsetting ones. First thing, the snakes seemed to be cobras but I seemed to be aware that harming me would be the last thing they’d do and maybe that is also why I wasnt too bothered about them. For the record, I am generally afraid of snakes.

Second, the girl and the tiger. The tiger wanted to kill me, obviously. It seemed a hungry tiger. A hungry tiger will look for flesh and that’s completely natural. Though they dont eat human flesh, tigers are known to turn into maneaters. So, I am not bothered about the tiger – its intentions were clear.

But who was the girl? Why was she trying to help the tiger kill me? She seemed really intent on getting me killed.

What do I interpret from this dream? What was my mind trying to tell me?

Dreams are highly symbolic, in that the objects that you see in the dreams might just be symbols for other objects. Words are symbols of thought. When you’re awake, you can speak, so you can express your thoughts. When we sleep, the brain doesnt. It keeps thinking. Maybe it adandons reason but boy, it does think – wildly at times – but the problem is when we’re sleeping, we cant speak. There’s no outlet to our brain’s thoughts. So, maybe it invents symbols by itself to represent the objects involved in that thinking event we call a dream. So, the tiger may not be a tiger actually but a symbol for something hungry, something that wanted to kill. The snakes might’ve actually been something that were out there to protect me but werent there when I needed them (imagine 7-8 cobras biting the tiger!)

The girl, on the other hand, might’ve represented someone who wanted to get me kiled and was desperately trying to help those who were ready to do so.

Well well! My mind is trying to tell me someone is out to kill me? Just an intuitive interpretation. All farce, all farce, of course. It was just a dream but something just doesnt feel right. For the record, I am in relatively great mental health these days.

Good morning by the way! The sun is out, wake up!

PS: When I switched on my computer to write this post, opened Firefox and typed “http://yah” instead of the complete “http://yahoomail.com” and pressed enter, accidentally, this particular page opened: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~imaging/negev/Names.html. You try it. Type “http://yah” and press enter and see for yourself. The Names of God! Phew! Boy, what a weird morning this!