Incident at a Pet Store

I was looking at these salamanders at this pet store. (I'm sure I had a reason for looking at the salamanders but I can't remember it now.) I had little newts as pets when I was a kid and perhaps it was some sense of nostalgia that made me consider buying a salamander or two.

But money's extremely tight and I'm on a spending lockdown—and buying a new pet would seem to be one of the most frivolous things I could do right now. These salamanders were relatively inexpensive, though. And they looked pretty cool. And however I managed to fudge the logic in my head, I confess that I seriously started to consider buying some salamanders.

They had aquariums with salamanders... but they also had these special salamanders set aside. In boxes that made them look like action figures. Live salamanders in these boxes, with unique pop culture themes. The one I was looking at was a "Batman" salamander. All black with yellow highlights. Couldn't quite figure out how they could remain alive in these packages and it certainly didn't seem humane, but for what it's worth they looked completely content in there.

On the back of the box were some basic instructions. One of the notes was that salamanders would live longer if they had a mate. The Batman salamander was listed as "Male". I chose another box with a salamander listed as "Female": this one was more colorful, almost with a clown pattern. It was themed as Batman's nemesis, The Joker.

Batman and The Joker as salamanders. As life-mates in an aquarium. How could I *not* get this?

I needed to ask a salesperson some questions about the tank requirements, but there was also something strange about these specially themed salamanders in these action figure packages. I'd set aside Batman and The Joker... but the themes kept changing. Suddenly, The Joker salamander became a "Mrs. Doubtfire" salamander. I asked the sales associate why the packages kept changing. The old woman smiled and didn't respond. As if she were just waiting for me to realize that I was dreaming.

Things spontaneously changing into other things is usually a dead-giveaway that you're in a dream and not in reality. Once you realize this, you can have a lucid dream and really do some interesting things.

And yet, I still didn't realize I was dreaming.

My dream life and waking life have been so strange lately, it's hard to see the dividing line sometimes. There was an earthquake and a tropical storm (downgraded from a category-1 hurricane) recently, wasn't there? And I didn't blog about either? And now I'm blogging about a salamander dream...?

Well, what's it all mean, then?

Dreams are always up for interpretation. I don't believe they forecast the future. I believe they represent your deeper fears and desires; things that are weighing upon you, that you're trying to work through in some way. Sometimes they represent something you're struggling with that you might not feel like talking about. That said, I thought this interpretation made some sense to me:

To see a salamander in your dream, represents your ability to survive through shame, misfortune, and/or embarrassment.

I really hope my fortune changes for the better soon. This week would be good.