Dream #70

Pythonpeople

recorded October 2, 2004

Last night, I dreamed that I was someone other than myself. I had been dating a guy who did a circus act with a green python. I think the python’s name was Cleo or something like that. My relationship with Cleo’s owner was about to end, because I had realized that I wasn’t really attracted to him at all, neither by his personality nor his physical appearance. He just wasn’t a nice person at all—for instance, I knew that he often partially starved Cleo, just to keep the snake aggressive so he would be more interesting for the circus act.

I went to the guy’s apartment building with the intention of breaking up with him and telling him he was no longer welcome in my life. When I opened the apartment door, I knew something was wrong. Furniture was overturned, glass was broken, the whole apartment was just in disarray. I stepped through the debris and headed for the livingroom, already sure of what I would find there. When I went in, what I saw confirmed my suspicions: There was my former boyfriend, sitting in his recliner, dead. Obviously squeezed to death.

I looked for Cleo and finally found him in his cage. Just a glance told me that he had grown considerably larger since I’d last seen him, and he was shedding his skin. Somehow, just squeezing his owner to death had given him nourishment enough to grow. I was afraid of how large he would become once he consumed his owner, which I knew he would do soon.

Before I could even think about being shocked or horrified or revolted, something even weirder began to happen: Cleo began to transform into something else. At first, I couldn’t tell what was happening—it seemed like the space around the snake became blurry, and I couldn’t look at it. Then, when details sharpened again, the snake was gone, and a man stood there in his place.

I couldn’t really determine what he looked like, but even so, he was very attractive and somehow seductive. He beckoned to me, and I found that I moved forward almost against my will. He was drawing me forward, toward him, and I couldn’t resist. And didn’t want to.

I suppose I would’ve walked right into his arms and let him squeeze me to death, but I tripped over something on the floor and broke eye contact with the strange pythonman. No eye contact, no spell, and I started backing away from him in a panic. I ran out of the apartment, and he came after me. He couldn’t move very fast, though: Because he changed from snake to man before completely shedding his skin, his skin was somehow still attached to his dead owner like a rope that bound the pythonman’s feet. While he was still struggling with the rope of skin and the dead weight of his former owner, I fled to the stairs.

Once outside the apartment, I realized my problem was more dire than I had thought: I not only had Cleo to contend with, but also Cleo’s mate. Apparently, circus man had purchased a female python without telling me, and she had undergone the same mysterious transformation that Cleo had. She came after me in the form of a woman, while Cleo changed back into a snake in order to complete his molting.

Somehow, it ended up with Cleo slithering up the stairs in human form, and his mate doing the same from the top of the stairs, with me in the middle. I vaulted the stair railing and made it out of the building, but the two of them were close behind me: first the female, then Cleo bringing up the rear of the chase. I ran through the streets, dodging people and traffic, but I wasn’t able to leave the two of them behind. I was starting to slow down, and I couldn’t breathe. I knew they were about to catch me.

I rounded a corner and saw a policeman halfway down the block. In a final burst of speed, I reached him and gasped out, “He’s after her, and he won’t leave her alone!” Then I kept running. When I looked back, the policeman had stopped Cleo and the female, since he thought the two of them were involved in some kind of domestic dispute. I knew this had bought me only a little time, so I kept going. Eventually, I reached a different part of town and slowed to a walk, safe for the moment but aware that I needed to find a good hiding place. Then the dream ended.