Dream of teeth falling out
Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at 6:20 amApparently it’s quite common to dream of losing teeth, but this was my first time. I dreamed that one tooth fell out, then the others followed. The first one seemed to leave a gap, but when the others went it was only the enamel that fell off, laving a quite anatomically incorrect flap of tooth-shaped gum behind. Pretty soon my whole mouth was full of these flaps of gum, which seemed to be much more numerous than my teeth (had been), with just a couple of frail, soon-to-be-lost molars remaining. Talking was extremely difficult. It wasn’t until someone else in the dream said they had a sore mouth, and I felt I had to warn them, that I made a very determined effort to speak, and in doing so woke up. In the dream I had already considered that I was dreaming, but evidently decided I wasn’t.
There was a distinct sense of being stifled by the proliferating tags of floppy gum. I’m wondering if there’s a writing connection to the dream, since I’m up to the point in the new story where I have to start drying wet concrete: I’ve written several drafts, it’s 10,000 words long minus the ending, and still in a rather rough state with plenty of small things undecided. I have to decide them, decide what to explain or at least have characters talk about and what to leave wide open, and set the general tone of the story (how comedic or serious, how strange, how much full-throttle fantasy pastiche lingo to allow, etc.), which is proving difficult; I’ve been doing lots of scrabbling and spluttering — so my subconscious might be telling me to get decisive and “bite”.
Anyway, it was quite the most disgusting dream I’ve ever had. If nothing else, I think I’ll be cleaning my teeth very carefully for at least a few days. (For all I know, it was my subconscious telling me to floss, and nothing to do with writing at all!)
April 28th, 2010 at 4:56 am
I hate those kinds of dreams.
They always freak me out and i spend the start of my day making sure my teeth are still well planted in my skull
April 28th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I always have dreams where my teeth crack and crumble outof my mouth. I have a real-life nightmare right now b/c the dentist seriously screwed up and now I’ve got a swathe of jawbone exposed about the size of my little finger. I hope she gets cancer and that she somehow gets to watch her parents die at the same time.
April 28th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Colin — I feel lucky that I’ve only dreamed about this once…
Clint — Jesus fuck!! What are you going to do? Can an oral surgeon fix it, I wonder?
April 29th, 2010 at 1:40 am
Oooh, ick, the very description of the dream gives me the creepy-crawlies.
I’ve never had a dream where anything happened to my teeth, though I have had dreams where I was rendered unable to speak for whatever reason.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:27 am
The being unable to speak is a fairly frequent one for me; I never get to talk much in my own dreams. I quite often find myself being made to do things I don’t really want to do, and not being brave enough to get out of the situation. I’m spineless enough in waking life, but even more spineless when I’m asleep!
April 30th, 2010 at 6:49 am
I get dreams where I can’t see properly. It’s like my vision only works if I look right down, and trying to look around just doesn’t work. Very frustrating.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
That would be frustrating. Maybe your subconscious is economising, not filling in the surrounding scenery (and hopefully saving up its efforts for writing!)
May 8th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Sounds like an anxiety dream to me – I have had plenty of them over the years. In one of them I forget to wear my socks and only realize it when I have to walk somewhere without them … kind of my version of the “realizing your nude” dream – since I have a thing about not taking my socks off in public. (I don’t know, just always have)
Amusingly the actual “nude” dreams don’t bother me one bit – sometimes I’ll be in a dream and I’ll realize I’m naked and that’s it, nothing dramatic, I’m just sans clothing. (I imagine it’s a dream about freedom from constraints, something to that effect)
I have often had dreams about crumbling teeth, and teeth falling out – doesn’t help that I’ve had fillings break on me in the past, so I know very well what the sensation feels like. (and I used to snap my teeth in my sleep – few things worse than waking up from a deep sleep to realize you’ve split a tooth from snapping your jaws)
Clint – my advice: Sue! At least try to get enough to have the situation fixed at her cost rather than yours!
May 11th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
W – Naked dreams don’t bother me either. Maybe because we know we can always control our state of dress or undress, but teeth are damn uncontrollable things.