Dream: someone gives me a staff --- not a cane, really, it's too tall and too thin, tapered to its foot and thicker at the top. Black wood, yew. The top bends over into a kind of handle, in the shape of a snake's head.
I don't need a cane yet so I shove it under the bed.
I lie there looking up at the curtains, tilting my head back to the moon. The white curtains, the wrought iron rod. Rustle. Stir. I see the snake's head ease and reach into the air above me.
In waking life I'm reading Exodus, Moses and the unconsuming flame.
Oh, my, another scary dream. Or is it? Depends, maybe, on whether you see the snake as danger or as knowledge. Since it came in the form of a staff, probably the latter--but it won't be easy or comfortable knowledge.
So you've stowed it away for later and it's insisting on being recognized (used?) now. What is it you know but aren't ready to look at yet?
This dream didn't frighten me, really, though I do have frightening dreams sometimes.
Are snakes meant to be knowledge? I thought it was something about transformation.
Sometimes I think I should get a book on dream symbols. Other times, they see too facile.
I think of the snake as a symbol of usually rather arcane, insider's knowledge (the wisdom of the serpent)--but it may be that this is not the accepted meaning.