Strange dream about snakes. Can anyone help?

Your dream appears to be the product of stresses you have built up over some things going on in your life, including likely things at work and relationships there.

The dream may be largely random - I would not attach too much meaning to the details but there are some intriguing points there. The furniture from a distinct era suggests something about relationships going back to that time and how you and others may have behaved or depended on each other.

The snakes may represent the changing circumstances around you and others now or possibly in the past. Being green almost suggests 'harmless' but few people regard any snake as such, so 'not completely' or at least 'suspicious of' come to mind. 'Handle with care' certainly is there - they are a potential hazard.

Of course your friend seems to handle them well - until his carelessness brings an increased hazard to you all. This seems to reflect an old feeling you have about a relationship and how things were handled. That feeling may be sympathetic to something that has occurred more recently and is now used by your subconscious mind to illustrate the concern. That is where the likelihood of present day stress may fit - what is happening today that parallels some feeling from the past? It may not even involve the same people - but something around you may be being handled in a way that does not seem as careful done as you may believe should be the case.

Snakes were any easy grab for your mind since you have a fear of them already - what better way for your mind to express hazard that such an image? Even though you know it was a dream the feelings from it would be starkly real.

What you describe about awakening fits what we know about sleep paralysis - quite a normal event. The reason you were aware of it was because of the graphic, frightening nature of the dream. This dream broke through to your conscious mind in the moments before awakening due to its intensity and the feelings it left you with.

Again, it is likely due to an accumulation of stresses about things going on in your life, perhaps no one thing in particular. You may identify some stressors though if you reflect on how the events and behaviors in the dream may parallel events in your life at present. This could also relate to someone from the past coming back into view of late, whether present or just thought of - that too could stir old feelings of concern.

All the best to you.

hi. i'll take a stab. without knowing your relationship with your coworkers, i'm going to assume a bit. if this doesn't "feel true" to you, then it isn't right. dreams are tied into how you perceive the world, not how someone else perceives it. if your gut tells you that an interpretation of a dream makes sense, and you think it's right, then it probably is (more or less).

you're afraid of snakes. so they represent danger.especially since they acquired rattles, which meant they were venemous rattlesnakes.

your coworker at first was brave and heroic - qualities which you admire. but your faith in him was shaken when he was reckless with the snakes... perhaps even a bit cruel. even though you were deathly afraid of the snakes (rigid when you awoke), you were still concerned about their welfare.

my first thought is that this is all sexual. snakes have long represented sexuality, and in the case of them being venemous, it could be your fear of a new burgeoning sexuality. this could mean thoughts of having sex with a coworker, sex with THAT coworker, or just having sex at work or on worktime. it's dangerous. dangerous because it's perhaps unknown, and people generally fear the unknown, or maybe it's exotic and exciting. or maybe you've been attracted to that particular coworker, but you fear he may not be good enough for you.

if it's not about sex, it may be about problems at work in more general terms. maybe you're conflicted with working with that guy. maybe there's something you admire about him, but you're not sure about him. or the opposite, maybe you already admire him, but there are signs he doesn't deserve your admiration. it could be that you think the store is ripping people off (the bad products are literally represented by being infested with snakes, which your coworker spreads around to really reinforce that all the products already are bad or are in danger of becoming bad). maybe it's the management who has you working in bad conditions, represented by snakes.

only you will know which above most fits, but personally, i think you are intrigued by your coworker, and feel some sort of like/lust for him, but think maybe he could be a shmuck.