Snakes have been a creature both worshiped and feared. What commonalities do dreams, the two-faced Roman god Janus, and the Chinese brown wood snake share in 2025, and has the mighty snake lived up to its worldly expectations?
January is named after the two-faced god Janus1, who presides over meanings, beginnings, endings, and doors. Dreams may be doorways into our healthy past, present, and future, including snakes.
Wednesday, January 29, closed the door to the Year of the 2024 Dragon and opened the door to the Year of the Brown Wood Snake. Snakes symbolize healing because they shed and regenerate skin, a type of deathless rebirth. According to Chinese New Year, 2025 is the year of the Brown Snake Dream. The link to my VIDEO Podcast titled, “2025 Year of the Snake Dream. What Can They Mean?” is posted below for your viewing pleasure.
Snakes are among the top three to five animals that appear in dreams with different meanings to people worldwide. What can a snake dream mean? Let’s take a quick trip around the world and see.
A Kundalini Snake Dream may be considered a mystical doorway to an awakening energy shift in India. The dream may raise your level of wisdom with one snakehead or many. My dream below is an example.
The night my husband and I put the home we had lived in for 20 years on the market I had a bizarre snake dream. In the dream I went into our basement to see what had to be packed up and saw my deceased mother’s sewing kit skitter across the floor. My first thought was that I would see my mother appear any moment, but it was my deceased father who appeared and began sorting through paintings piled against the wall. As I walked toward him the giant shadow of a nine-foot snake appeared on the wall in front of me. I looked behind me to see where it was and when I looked back at the shadow on the wall it had become the shadow of a five-headed cobra. Still unable to locate the actual snake, I became alarmed, backed out of my dream, and awoke thinking, our home will sell in two weeks. It did. When I researched it, the giant snake in my dream was Sheshnag, the five-headed cobra. I had never seen him before or since.
In Hindu, Lord Vishnu is always seen with Sheshnag2 the five-headed cobra in images. This mystical five-headed cobra snake often stands with its fangs open over the head of a sleeping Lord Vishnu. The coiled body of the snake forms the throne on which Lord Vishnu is reclining or sleeping. Hindus worship this snake as the seat or bed of Lord Vishnu.
From a spiritual and dream perspective, a five-headed snake could symbolize the power of transformation. It could signify the need to confront our fears and let go of outdated beliefs and patterns, like the idea that all snakes are bad. It could be a call to embrace change and to open up to the unknown. The number 5 is associated with adventure, freedom, and change. At the time I had my dream of Sheshnag, I was experiencing the fear of leaving my home to embrace the unknown which created personal transformation on multiple levels. But I was also feeling a sense of adventure, and the freedom that comes from change and letting go.
There are two different medical snake symbols used in modern times. The ancient Aesculapius Staff has one snake. The modern Ca/du/ceus Staff has two snake heads.
The origins of a single snake around a staff stretch over two millennia to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine who presided over the Ascelpian Dream Temples3 described in the book, Dreams That Can Save Your Life:Early Warning Signs of Cancer and Other Diseases, and Hippocrates, father of Western Medicine and direct descendant of Aesculapius. The Hippocratic Oath begins with “I swear by Apollo, the physician, and by Aesculapius….” To dream of a snake was to be healed by the dream. The ancient Staff of Aesculapius is the current American Medical Association logo.
The United States Army Medical Corps (USAMC) adopted the modern two-snake Caduceus Staff on July 17, 1902. Although the snake symbols have shifted, the medical message remains the same. Might snakes also mean financial health?
In America, a rattlesnake dream may contain intuitive financial health and wellness choices. It’s all about the snake symbol speaking to you. Sometimes, actions can speak louder than words.
A client shared her financial snake dream that took place around a large boardroom table. Coiled in the center was a large brown, two-headed rattlesnake. One face was always on her while the other face scanned the partners. Each time someone spoke, the snake would rattle its tail and drown out the speaker. Upon awakening, the client decided not to invest in the business, which was a good decision because the snake dream was the warning to a waking nightmare. The intuitive precognitive warning dream saved her financial life. This United States brown rattlesnake dream was a financial precognitive warning.
Dream themes of the 2025 Chinese New Year Wood Earth-Snake focus on introspection, intuition, and adaptability.
As Janus reevaluates past and present objectives during a Kundalini period of personal health and growth, it may be wise to embrace all dreams, even deadly two-headed rattlesnake nightmares, because the stronger the nightmare the stonger the message. So, as you continue your inner journey of adaptability through 2025, may the ancient intuitive forces of the snake be with you.
VIDEO Podcast “2025 Year of the Snake Dream. What Can They Mean?”
About the Author Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos: Kat-The Queen of Dreams is a three-time Breast Cancer Survivor whose dreams diagnosed her illness missed by the medical community. Kat’s dreams and doctors worked together to save her life. Kat is an award-winning author, Video Podcaster, and Dreamy Writers Conference Cruise facilitator. https://www.kathleenokeefekanavos.com/
Resources:
- January Archives – Creative Connections. https://creative-connections.us/tag/january/
- Mythical Creatures We Don’t Want To See – Page 6 of 9 – PumpDown. https://www.pumpdown.com/mythical-creatures-dont-want-see/6/
- Dreams That Can Save Your Life: Early Warning Signs of Cancer and Other Diseases; by Larry Burk M.D. C.E.H.P. (Author), Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos (Author), Bernie Siegel M.D. (Foreword) Findhorn Press; 2018th edition (April 17, 2018) pg 19. https://www.amazon.com/Dreams-That-Save-Your-Life/dp/1844097447/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
