Monday, October 16, 2006

Dream Theme #1: Losing Teeth

I have dreamed about losing teeth since I can remember having dreams. In these dreams it may be as simple as losing one tooth--it falls out and I think "oh, no, I've lost a tooth" and keep going with what I was doing--or as horrifying as losing all my teeth one by one, crumbling in my mouth and almost choking me to death. These occur very infrequently but I always wake in a panic that is equivalent to waking to a burning house--full-on body sweats, heart pounding, etc.

These dreams are always terribly realistic. I can feel my tooth in my hands or mouth. I can see everything, smell, talk to people, etc. It usually happens when I'm doing my normal everyday activities, adding to the realism.

About 6 or 7 years ago, though, I started recognizing the dreams for what they were WHILE I was dreaming, and would say things like "geez, I used to dream about these things all the time, and now it's real." Recently when I've had the dream, though, I'll respond by saying "thank goodness this is only a dream because this would really suck." When I can respond that way, the fear and horror of my teeth falling out goes away and I'm able to sleep normally again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to have a recurring dream that I was a mathematical variable (like X) and I was floating around in outer space being solved for, then substituted into another equation....then solved for again, and substituted again, and so on until I woke up. I think it was caused by an overload of calculus in college. I stopped having the dream probably 5 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Doreen, that's a crazy dream! Les, I've never had a dream like this one. Do you have dreams when you are sick like us Thornton sisters do - either a ball going reeeeeaaaal slllloooow, then fast as can be, or going up a hill reeeeaaaa slllloow, then fast as can me. There are different variatons of this dream we have.

Anonymous said...

Betty, this dream when you are sick is kind of like the one I would have where the large spool of thread is chasing me down the street all the way to a cliff where I know that I will have to hang on hoping that it will not crush me. Thank goodness I would wake up before it killed me. This dream was always when I was sick. Linda