jakorte's blog

A conversation with an acquaintance led to research on a recurrent dream. Since I’ve been about 8 years old, I’ve been having the same dream. Well, it can defined as more of a nightmare, actually. In my nightmare, I dream I am just waking up and notice that my left eye tooth is loose. I decide to test the give by using my tongue to wiggle it. It doesn’t wiggle, but falls out, which causes the chain reaction of all my top teeth falling out. As they hit the lower teeth, those also break and fall out. I am left with a mouthful of teeth, trying not to gag. If know if I throw up, I will have to retrieve the teeth from amongst the vomit in the toilet, wash them off and take them with me to a dentist to have put back in. (Not possible, I know, but this is a nightmare.) This is when I usually wake up, with goose pimples on my arms and sweat on my brow. And, yes, the first thing I do is check the solidity of my teeth.

So, it seems this is not an uncommon dream. Except for the vomiting part, it’s addressed on nearly every dream analysis web site I found. What does it mean? Much like everything else in life, that depends on who you ask. Unknowns are way open to interpretation, so some of the theories were surprising, some were interesting, some were… well, logical.

Not in any particular order, the basic theories are:
1. Anxiety: about appearance, age, respect, transitions in life, revealing yourself
2. Power: situations out of our control, fear of failure
3. Change: fear of involuntary change such as loss of a job or love
4. Abandonment: being left behind, or having to leave something or someone behind
5.Cultural:
a.Greek: indicates a family member or close friend is sick or near death
b. Chinese: indicates you have been telling lies
c. Tooth Fairy syndrome: symbolizes money
And finally my favorite of all dream theories
6. Biological: subconscious toothache, need to see a dentist.
Hmm. Go figure.