Dreams, Symbols & Spiders

[Arman]

I want to share a startling experience I've had recently.

This isn't a particularly serious thread. I hope it is not inappropriate in nature because I'm not really asking anything or putting forth anything very solid, but it's just been something on my mind recently and I want to share for fun. So if that's ok with you, I hope you enjoy reading ahead. 

My world view is always changing, and it has gotten really wobbly, fluid and dreamy, as opposed to the once stable and firm appearance it had. I think that this reality is basically of the same nature of dreams, especially in that it is a reflection of yourself, and that everything is you, talking to you, reflecting you. I think that dream psychology and symbolism applies to waking life. Perhaps you find that silly, but humour me. 

The last three days, including today, I have had startling experiences with spiders. The first day I am sitting at my computer in my bedroom, and a huge daddy long-leg spider descended from the ceiling and directly in front of my face, maybe like 10-15cm away. It suddenly came into focus as it was moving around its legs, floating and trying to find compass and it started the heck out of me. It could not have picked a more/less convenient place to drop. I don't remember that ever happening like that. Occasionally I see spiders floating down but never in my face. I watched him climb back to the ceiling and crawl across towards a corner. 

The next day (yesterday), once again, I am in the kitchen and suddenly from the ceiling it happened again, only this time it was a different kind of spider. Not a daddy long legs, but a more conventional looking one, with a small round body and little thick legs. Again, it descended literally right in front of my face, suddenly entering my vision and making me throw my head back. He reclined back towards the ceiling. I thought it was so strange for it to happen the second day in a row. I was kind of keeping the idea of it in my head, trying to feel for some significance as I stood over the oven on the other side of the room cooking some food, I swear the bastard did it AGAIN! He had crawled across the ceiling to drop right in front of my face. I was astonished, and it made my heart race a little bit.

And so just 15-20 minutes ago I am looking at myself in the mirror in my bedroom, admiring my mothers honesty, in that yes, indeed, I am a handsome young man, when suddenly I notice that a small spider is not only hovering right next to my head, but the bastard is somehow attached to it! (and the ceiling simultaneously I imagine because he was floating) As I moved, he moved with me. That's the third spider, three days in a row that decided my head and face are the perfect place to play. 

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From the first instance on the first day, I felt that there was some kind of deep symbolism to be evoked. I was reminded of an experience I hadn't thought of in a long time, which was my first encounter with DMT. It was in an orally active form; a capsule with an MAOI to allow for it to become orally active. As I sat there waiting for it to kick in, a rather large and ominous looking eight-legged friend decided to crawl across the carpet. It was one of the largest and oddest looking spiders I had seen. This startled me, and in my vulnerability (after all a very foreign psychedelic experience was imminent) I called my friend in, much like a house-wife in the 50s would call her husband, and he'd come in with his newspaper to lower his glasses and ask 'Damn it, Martha, what's all this ruckus?' 

Regrettably, I asked him to kill it.

The DMT experience, from what I remember, lasted about 40 minutes or so. The experience was not a pleasant one, and perhaps rightfully so out of karmic rebuke from killing him/her. It was not the most insightful experience, but what I do remember was at one point these visuals emerging from the darkness. It was like an infinity of double helixes stacked upon each other, and I instinctively recognized it to be the nature of infinity. Not necessarily literally, but symbolically perhaps. I felt that every single minute point of each helix had its own infinity stack of more helixes that went turtles turtles turtles all the way down.

On paper this is may sound interesting, even titillating, but experiencing this first hand was not pleasant. I simply could not handle the scale. The scale, my god man, the scale. It was so harrowing to me, the intricate webbing of infinity. I hence-force refer to that sense as the 'teeth-shattering scale.' It reminds me of in the Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna asks about Krishna's true form, and Krishna goes 'You wanna see some shit?' and promptly explodes into a billion infinities, to which Arjuna responds, 'Good GREIF, OK OK, I GET IT, JESUS CHRIST, PUT THE GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE!!!!' - or something like that, I may be paraphrasing slightly. Once that vision resided a little bit, the rest of the experience was mostly me crawled up on the floor wishing my mummy or some other benevolent force would soothe me. My friends cat may have sensed my call because he came to lay beside me. That night, he was my hero. 

I felt really strongly that the spider meant something, but I didn't understand it at that time. In retrospect it feels very fitting, given the experience I had. Jung says that one interpretation of the spider is that of the Shadow. The shadow being the unintegrated portion of ones psyche. The spiders web, however, being the symbol of wholeness, the mandala. 

Especially very recently, I am going through large shifts in integrating longstanding emotional charges and portions of myself that I have refused to look at for a very long time. A bit scary, at times; not knowing what is ahead. Also recently is this constantly returning theme of the infinite. I feel like I can't ignore it anymore. The more I let go of my emotional burdens, the more life is reminding me that it's all one intricate webbing which spans beyond comprehension, and that it is critical to remember and embody this. I feel as though the reason that initial appetizer with the infinite was so harrowing was because the experience had to be filtered through all my emotional charges and shadow. It was natural for it to evoke a deep sense of alienation, loneliness, and grief, because that was much of what I carried. Now, some of that weight has been lightened. I can open my eyes just a little bit wider and don't feel the need to run away from the idea. Perhaps that's what the spiders are telling me: to look. At least that is what comes to my mind, but who knows, perhaps the universe is simply telling me to get an exterminator. 

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Arman

[Loreena]

This was hilarious. But sometimes strange coincidences happen as an indication of something. Truth is always stranger than fiction. I don't believe in superstitions but weird things make us question our core beliefs of existence. Maybe the spider webs represent the spirals of this world and society in which we get trapped. But If I were in your place, I would be scared to death.

[Dodo]

Ah, spiders, you say! Thats right up my alley. It all began when i was a young boy playing outside. I would hunt down little bugs and give them to the spiders. (Yeah i was pretty heartless kid lolol,  but the spideys also need to eat) 

My favourite superhero?  Spiderman!

Real Life Occupation: Web Developer 

I've saved countless spiders from my bathroom and am fascinated by their webs. I swear I once saw a web that looked like the spider was doing geometry!! There was a right angle triangle with marks on each of the angles!

Recently when meditating in the park I opened my eyes and the sun was shining on a bajillion spider webs weaving infront of me near the ground,  it was like nothing i had seen before, so beautiful! 

I've had many encounters with them in my dreams, but usually I dream about the big ones, which I am afraid of ?

Oh i forgot to mention the time i was high and saw my hands as ifd they were two spiders, running on top of the keyboard, weaving their invisible webs. It was awesome

 

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Dodoster