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Memory of escaping a hippo in Botswana

This is a memory of my travel to Africa. We travelled in a group across all the continent. Finally we arrived to a place called Maun near the Okavango delta, which is a superb wildlife area. Around half our group signed up for an excursion by plane into the delta, but I said I would just hire a canoe for the day, and go paddling around.
The problem with paddling around African rivers are hippos. Most
Americans have a pretty benevolent image of a hippo, shaped by Saturday
morning cartoons, but hippos kill more people in Africa than any other
large animal (malaria-carrying mosquitos are the deadliest animal of all,
of course). Hippos are not carnivorous, but they are easily scared, and
an attacking hippo can easily take apart a small boat. In fact, just
last week another tourist at the same campsite had gotten too close to a
hippo, which then attacked and seriously injured him.
But, I was assured, this tourist had been foolish. He had seen the
hippo from a distance, and had tried to paddle in very close to get a
good photo. The manager assured me that if I just avoided any hippo I saw,
the chances were that the hippo would leave me alone. Of course, if I
happened to get too close to a hippo that was submerged and thus could not
be seen … well … crossing the road is dangerous too, isn’t it?

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Dreaming about snake

I want to share an old dream I had. The dream goes like this:

It was snow, and I was at the Zoo. The animals there were very agitated and the zookeepers couldn’t keep things under control. The problem was of escaped snakes. I was near the zookeepers and they needed help to capture the snakes, which were actualy dark green cobras, I offered to help them capturing the snake. While I was near the snakes, they weren’t aggresive at all, they were very calm and friendly. So I wanted to touch them. When I touched the snakes they agreed that I can capture them. The zookeepers didn’t know how I did that, but they were impressed and thankfull, as I collected them all.
The dream continues when I’m in the city and it’s still snowing, and strange looking people looking like some tribal people, heavily armed and looking like mercenaries were sitting by bonfire. They saw me, and decided to capture me to use me as a weapon. I remember wondering in the dream: why me? what do I have? what weapon? who are these people? … Looking at my body better, I observed a long red cobra snake coiling around my back, at my spine. It’s head was near my right ear. It looked also like it knew me for a very long time and always protected me. In the dream when I met the snake, I had the felling like ” At last we meet again ” or ” Long time no see! “, which was very peacefully and joyfull. It was like I met an old friend or ally again. Then I realised those people wanted the red cobra and not me. The snake gave me a very charmful stare at me and said in my mind ” Don’t worry, they can’t get me “. The ground started to crumble, hurting the mercenaries.  The snake and I escaped.
The third and the last part of the dream comes in. We are in the elevator. Suddently a huge dog jumped out of nowhere and attacked us. The dog looked like a massive pincher, without skin and with red eyes, like a hellhound. I was very scared, but the snake bit the dog. The dog shrunk in size, growling of pain and dissapeared.
The ending was also strange. I was looking with the snake, and I noticed a big scar this snake had on it’s right part of the head.  The snake told me: “Don’t worry, we’ll meet again”, and was gone. My dream ended.

What is interesting about this dream is the scar that the snake had. It was exactly like I have on my chest. I had a rough accident when I was a kid  deforming my chest bones. The snake had the same scar as me, but on it’s head. I still have the scar today, only less observable, and my spine bones hurt sometimes.
I asked many people about this strange dream. Some people said that the snake in the dream called Kundalini snake, some said it was my guardian spirit. Kundalini snake, or guardian spirit, or just a fruit of my imagination… I just wanted to share my dream, though any interpretations are welcome. I have never seen this snake since then, but wonder what is it if we will meet as it promised in my dream.
Cheers to all.

Seung-Hyun Park

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A hole in the head: the most wonderful entertainment in the whole Wide Wonderful World

I recently published a post here, called “My life as a tiger”. Since then I have received few e-mails from different people and a phone call from my friend, surprisingly all of them referring to skull trepanation. As it started to look rather like a heated debate, I decided to explain myself a little bit more on this topic. So here I scrambled together whatever I feel like or want to say about it. It’s relevant to me anyway, so why not put it here?

So, I want to make a hole in my skull. I had this dream for a long time, maybe for 5 years or so. It started probably from my early interest in anthropology. There were many references across different cultures to skull trepanation: mainly in Mesoamerica, but also in Pre-Christian Europe, India, Egypt. It is the oldest surgical procedure known to man, as some of the trepanned skulls dated back to 2500 BC. Which is weird, indeed. Why would people just about everywhere, where civilizations flourished, would want to make a hole in their heads?

Trepanation: how does it work?

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Phobia, go away!

OK, many people write here about their memories and dreams.
I would like to tap in subject of fears or phobias. Most of the phobias can’t be really traced. Some are probably imprinted in us. Let’s say, we don’t like snakes. I saw a snake first time when I was about 20, for instance, but remember, what when I was a kid, I always tried to sit in an armchair with legs up on the seat, as I was afraid what a snake would bite me from under. Even then I thought it can’t be possible what a snake would be on the 7th floor of our block of flats in a harsh winter, 20 Celsius below zero. But I couldn’t bring myself to put my feet down. I could spend a whole evening imagining scenarios of how a snake could sneak under my armchair.

Anyway, I suppose most of phobias are triggered by something in remote past, early childhood and long time forgotten memories. I can trace one my phobia though, as I can recall what happened to me.

I travelled to one remote city hitchhiking. I was very young, completely broke and wanted to see a girl I was in love with. To cut it short, she did not fancy me much and her boyfriend did even less. They lived in a massive hostel inhabited with hundreds students at that time. She had a kind heart, so instead of kicking me out I was fed and passed to a friend of hers who happened to live alone in a spacious room in that hostel. This friend of her was a girl of enormous size. She spoke in a deep low voice which could shake a glass and was torturing me all the way down along endless staircases and corridors with tales about her romantic adventures.
To be honest, my mind was occupied in that moment so I couldn’t remember what they were about even the next day, do not mention years later.

Eventually I found myself in her room. It was filled with hundreds of little objects. Everything was of dwarfs’ size. The girl obviously tried her best to fit in that space as many tiny objects as possible. Everything there was organized by a principle “the smaller is the better”. She had dolls’ furniture and cutlery, small carpets, miniature stereo and lots of stupid useless toy objects which she apparently was collecting.
It was too much… Simply beyond my capability to digest it. I left her place at once with a splitting headache.
That’s how I recognized that I have a psychological trauma about everything little.
Small things are just freaking me out; I don’t like dwarf pets, dogs and ponies either.

I wonder what I can do with it. Well, some people could say that phobias and fixations are the integral part of our individuality. Phobium ergo est. I’m scared, therefore I exist. Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns for instance. They are freaking him out, he said in his recent interview. I’ve met a girl while ago who confessed she is afraid of balloons. What’s wrong with clowns? What’s wrong with fucking balloons? Why do I have to feel uneasy surrounded by small objects? I tried to google my phobia, but couldn’t find even a specific name for it, so there was no way to find out how I can deal with it.
It’s not a serious problem though, just a little annoyance.
I have learnt anyway what one of the best ways to deal with phobias is to talk about them. That’s what this post is about actually, so you know.

abraxus

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