![\"snake-3\"](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/snake-3.jpg\")
I let it loose anyhow.<\/p>\nThe rattlesnake was coiled in a large Ziploc bag, the kind that you can pump the air out of. Someone had stuffed a gray sock into its mouth. It was barely alive.<\/p>\n
I didn’t want to kill the snake. It was fairly small, and\u00a0I felt it was best to take\u00a0it to a place\u00a0away from me and away from other humans it could harm.<\/p>\n
I wandered to and fro, up and down, through buildings empty and full. Finally I found a spot where I thought the snake could go about its business and not hurt anyone.<\/p>\n
Before I released it, I asked, “If I set\u00a0you free, you won’t bite me, right?”<\/p>\n
The snake would not agree.<\/p>\n
I let it loose anyhow.<\/p>\n
The snake turned into a pretty young man and sat down at a dining\u00a0table across from me waiting to be served, knife and fork in hand, white napkin tucked in at the neck. He\u00a0did not seem unfriendly.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0did not bite me. I was not afraid of him.<\/p>\n
I figure out what my dreams mean by describing them as clearly as I can. I listen for familiar phrases and ideas to understand the symbolism.<\/p>\n
The snake\u00a0in my dream\u00a0represents art. A wild and dangerous creature that I’m afraid to let loose, for fear that it will turn on me and bite me.<\/p>\n
Art offers no assurances as to its own safety. It sits down across the table from you, ready to dine with you, seeming civilized.<\/p>\n
What happens next?<\/p>\n
Today’s penny is a 1999, the 100th anniversary of the year that\u00a0Freud wrote “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Freud may have disagreed with me about this dream; after all, what could a snake be other than a penis?<\/p>\n
By the way, there’s no strong evidence that he actually said<\/a>, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rattlesnake was coiled in a large Ziploc bag, the kind that you can pump the air out of. Someone had stuffed a gray sock into its mouth. It was barely alive. I didn’t want to kill the snake. It was fairly small, and\u00a0I felt it was best to take\u00a0it to a place\u00a0away from me … read more Coiled and trapped<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[834,35,1255,534,953],"class_list":["post-9341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvisation","tag-834","tag-art","tag-dreams","tag-fear","tag-snake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9341"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9347,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9341\/revisions\/9347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}