Venice and the White, Feathery-Legged Spider

So today I've been thinking some about dreams. This is a very interesting topic to me because of how much people typically refuse to take it seriously. I mean we 'all have dreams' and yet dream interpreters/ interpretations are so often seen as fo-pah [yea don't know how to spell that]. Even the people who should be the most concerned and intrigued by this subject seem to have some sort of fear of it, and as a result don't put any effort into its understanding - these people being scientists for the most part. Sure there are small speculations on the subject, but these usually just dismiss it because of how little we know about the brain. Even so, philosophers and scientists, as far as I have known to envision them have always tried to dream and speculate far beyond their current times/ the limitations of thought and technologies in the present, but it doesn't seem like many philosophers and scientists are really rallying up about far-reaching ideas today, at least not in the study of dreams. I can't say that I've read that much about them either, for my final essay in philosophy dreams were a consideration for the topic, but it's so easily put down in conjuction with Descartes-like thinking. And at least for me - espeically if you really know me - you probably know about all the crazy dreams I have and almost always remember. Which I guess leads me to want to start 'recording' them or writing them down in some ways... although I am scared that if I start writing the dreams will go away.

One really interesting dream I had recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago was pretty amazing. [hopefully I can remember it all - if not there are a few key points - from my perspective] So it starts out that I am back in Venice, I think with the archie group that I traveled there with... and personally I have always wished there was some way to scuba-dive through all of those pilasters that hold up the entire city. I've always thought it would be amazing to see the hundreds-of-years old, underthesurface workings that are holding up this city built over beaches and water. And somehow in my dream... I ended up swimming in one of the channels. I was swimming with someone or two other people and it didn't seem like we were really struggling, but I also don't think we were necessarily in the water because we wanted to be there... there was some sort of mission going on. The swimming started out really easy, and then as we seemed to be approaching a small 'bay' area the current got really strong. I feel like I was helping my friends get forward, but I also remember not going anywhere for a while and not being able to enter the bay, being caught-up in the strong current in the channel. [Also, don't know why, but I wasn't completely disgusted by being in the waters of Venice... anddd the water was reallly reallllyyy green in this dream, and reallly deeep]. So I don't remember how the swim was resolved, but at some point we were back on dry surfaces above the water. For some reason [ and this is not possible in real-life ] but to the side of the bay we were trying to swim to, there was a drop-off of land that led down to a house situated on more water [to the left the way i was standing, and the bay on my right] to get to the house there was a mud-slide of land and some trees on the hill... and I have no idea thinking back on this dream how there could have been the bay at my feet to the right and this house about twenty feet below me to my left [it must have been some natural dam or something... not in Venice at all]... but anyway. Also, interesting and not in accordance with real-life was the 'deck' structure I was walking on... and that led forward throughout the side of the channel that I was on. So typically in Venice the facades/ structures delve right into the water, the little waves lapping up against stucco and stone walls, but in my dream there was a very short 'deck' passageway/ wooden level that was right along the channel and the structures were above.

For some reason at this point in my dream, it occured to me that I was very sick and needed to go to see a doctor. So me and my two friends [who I can't remember who from Italy they were...] began walking through this short deck-layer... with the ceiling above us at probably only a little over five-feet in height... so we were ducking... andd there were alot of ups and downs along the deck passageway... which I have no idea how the 'downs' weren't flooded with water... they were dry at all levels. So as we are walking forward, we see a turn in the deck passageway, through a field of wooden posts and flooring a matching wooden desk ahead to the right. Sitting there is an almost psychic hand-reader-type woman who apparently is the 'doctor' here in 'my Venice'. There are some chairs in front of her desk with 'people?' sitting... they really had no personality or features... so maybe I only had the sensation of people being there... but anyways she tells me that my only cure is to find among the docks a some sort of white, feathery spider and that I have to catch it. [....?]

So I guess at this point I go off on my own looking for this cure, and not too far from the health desk, I see a really beautiful white spider with pretty much feathers for legs that somehow floats from above me [from the left] and lands down onto my right thigh... and embeds itself in my leg. [and for some reason now I am not freaking out and hysterical - that a beautiful spider just embedded itself in my leg... in some strange Venice-world]... and sooo kind of gross... but when I look down at my thigh I can see the body of the spider in my leg, but its eyes and facial features have turned into blood spots on my leg [like what you might get from scratching a bug-bite too much, small and harmless... but altogether in this case - very strange].

And I believe that's how this dream ended... but it was very interesting and very real. If I can think of some more I'll write them, too, but this is all I have for now... I kind of wish the rest of this dream could unfold again... it was really amazing to be back in Venice.

-c