Shortly before our house fire in 2004, I experienced a startling dream from which I Immediately awoke. About 6 months prior to having this dream, I had purchased a lizard for my son as a kindergarten graduation present. My son, Matt, kept this lizard in a glass cage in his room on his dresser. On top of this cage was a wire mesh lid which kept the lizard intact with Matt’s unique landscaping theme. The lizard liked to come out and play and Matt used to carry it around. The little reptile even got along with our dogs and we used to feed it crickets and worms.
The dream started with my walking into my son’s room and seeing a tortoise shell designed snake which had cunningly slithered its way into the cage by pushing the unsecured mesh top aside. As I looked across the room and focused a little closer, I could see that the snake was in the cage with the lizard and the lizard was in its mouth.
In shock but acting without delay, I grabbed the snakes head and forced its mouth open with my fingers and pried the lizard out of its mouth. Upon my freeing the lizard from its doom, the snake seemed to give up as I tossed it aside to attend to the poor little hurt lizard. The lizard lay lifelessly on the cage floor but was still alive, although severely disfigured. Half of its face and one foot was missing but I knew it would survive if I just let it rest. I checked the lid to make sure it was secured back on the cage and left the room.
Some time passed and then I returned to the lizard to check on it. As I entered the room, to my disbelief, the snake had never left and was only waiting for me to leave. Instead of being in the cage this time, the snake was simply waiting at the top of the cage near a small hole that was in the wire mesh. I stood in shock for a moment at something I couldn’t believe. The lizard, though now completely recuperated from the previous bout with the snake, was actually climbing up the wall of its cage on a direct path to the hole with the intent of getting back into the snakes mouth.
As I watched the take go down, I wondered why the lizard would be willing to make its way to the snake again knowingly toward its own death. Where was its gratitude for having its life saved in the first place? My conclusion was that the snake must have convinced the lizard that dying in its mouth was better than having to live in a glass cage despite the contrived landscape’s catchy motif.
Comments? Interpretations?
