Harmonie, it seems like your dream about the snakes in the cage reflects feelings of confinement and the moral dilemmas you may be facing. The image of being a child again could relate to a longing for innocence or simplicity in decision-making, as adult life often brings more complex choices and consequences. Your desire to save the snakes represents your compassion and the internal conflict that arises when you're faced with a situation where you can't help everyone or everything as you would like.
The small cage might symbolize limitations or restrictions that you're experiencing in your waking life. This could be connected to your sense of personal freedom, responsibilities, or even your relationship, where you might feel the need to make choices that don't fully align with your desires. Choosing one snake over the others might also represent the difficult decisions you have to make when you can't have it all. Your grandpa's role in the dream could be indicating an authority figure's influence on your choices or the weight of family expectations.
Connecting this to your previous dreams, where you've felt overwhelmed by responsibility (like babysitting pets and worrying about work equipment), or where you've been in situations that spiraled out of control (like the house fire and the AI VR world), it seems there is a recurring theme of anxiety about things going wrong despite your efforts to manage them. The dead snakes upon your return could be an echo of the fear of consequences you've experienced before, like the threat of eviction or the stress of needing to explain mishaps to others, which could be causing you underlying stress.
In contrast to your past nightmares, this dream had a lower intensity of negative feelings, which may suggest that while the subject matter was concerning, you're potentially becoming more adept at handling these subconscious worries. Your dream's resolution, where you are considering how to deal with the dead snakes and the possible discovery by your grandpa, may mirror a waking-life situation where you're figuring out how to navigate the consequences of your actions or decisions.
Your subconscious may be urging you to reflect on the choices you're currently making, the limitations you feel, and your desire to care for and protect what's important to you. It's encouraging to see that, even in your dreams, you're looking for solutions and ways to improve situations, which is a sign of your resilience and problem-solving abilities.