Dream: The Green Branch Scrambler Snake

Dream 20020813, 1:40 AM:

The Green Branch Scrambler Snake

I am driving in a car with Mom and Dad. We are in a subdivision, but it seems to be out in the country somewhat. We turn, and see that on the street corner where we turned, there are four or five turtles. We stop at a house it seems to be old and made of wood, and there is a lake behind the house, and we walk down to the shore of the little lake. Greg and Uncle Walt are here. Greg has a box of snakes; they seem like they are dead, all stretched out straight in the box. Their cheeks seem oddly puffed out, like the shape of an adder’s head, but more severely so. He is going to get the encyclopedia to identify them all; there are many kinds that none of us recognize. I see a little skinny snake poking its bright green head out of a hole in the bank of the lake, and I ask if anyone knows what kind it is. The name “Green Branch Scrambler” pops into my head. I reach down as if to pick it up, and it bites the index finger on my left hand. I keep chasing it, trying to catch it. It seems like it’s inside now, under a cabinet. I reach for it, and it bites me again. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it if I catch it, whether I’m going to kill it or not.

We go and get into the car, and go to a circus-like tent. There is a little black girl on stage, doing some sort of act, although it seems like the crowd is only partly paying attention to her, as if the show hasn’t really started yet. I flick my fingers toward her, and there are horse turds on stage, and they roll toward her as if I’m pushing them magically. She starts playing with them, and I laugh. I don’t know why I’m deliberately ruining the show. I magically set fire to hay that is on the floor; it looks like raffia grass. Hal is here, trying to put out the fire so it doesn’t get the tables – there are blue cloth table cloths on some of the tables, although Hal calls it linoleum. Parts of it are old, and parts of it are reproduction.