Bad Snakes

Briefly, here's what I remember:

I was at a lake where I fished during the summer - big lake with lots of cattails around half of it, and a big willow tree at another curve. My nephew was with me, and he wanted to go swimming. I was nervous, because the water didn't look right. Normally the lake was clear, but this time it was cloudy and brown, like it was filled with silt. I went into the water, and it sloped away from me quickly, so that I had to go underwater to touch the bottom. I swam back to a shallower spot. He went to play by the water, a ways from me, and I was wading in the shallows, but I didn't like it. I kept expecting something to brush up against me, since the lake was full of big fish.

Then I saw a reddish brown snake weeding through the rushes towards my nephew. I rushed and grabbed the snake around the neck, and it seemed to grow bigger in my hands, teeth snapping. I threw it into the water, where it started swimming around. Then I could see another reddish brown snake coming through the cattails, and I could suddenly see more of them, all over the place, in the grasses and underwater. They were mean, angry snakes. I picked up my nephew and left the water, frightened.

"Ah, so that's why the fish can grow so big," I remember thinking. The snakes kept predators away. No wonder fishing is so good here.


*****

This dream worried me. Normally, I'm not scared of snakes in my dreams. When I was younger, I dreamed of snakes a lot, but there was always a neutrality about them, almost a friendliness. I've only had maybe one dream where snakes made me uneasy. This dream is the first I can recollect where I've been frightened of the snakes. Then again, these snakes were different from the ones I normally dream about - don't remember dreaming about rust-colored venomous ever before. Hmmm....

Too bad about the water as well - also a regular image in my head, and almost always positive.

Now why would my subconscious take two images that normally carry neutral-positive weight, and turn them negative all at once, at the same time?