SelfhelpMagazine

by Richard Wilkerson, Dream Educator

Many of us have been the victim of tooth-lose, tooth-loss or general teeth dreams and have carried related concerns into our waking lives. Teeth dreams are very common indeed!

Here's a relevant quote: "Tooth dreams are open to many interpretations and have been handled successfully by very few of the modern dream interpreters." This quote was taken from a text written in the 2nd Century by the ancient dream interpreter, Artemidorus. Even the Vedas and texts 2000 years BC talk about tooth dreams!

So you can see there is a long history of interest and discussion about teeth dreams. Then in the early 1900's, Freud and Jung explored the possibilities of tooth loss and hysteria. That theory has since dissipated, and modern dream interpreters take a different approach to these dreams, one that is more direct in dealing with symbolism.

What, they ask us, do teeth do? They hold, cut, grasp and generally are the first tools we have to deal directly and interact with the outside world.

After we have mastered control of our teeth and mouths, hands, arms, torso, legs, feet, we reach an age where our teeth are too small for us. We have outgrown them.

We need a bigger set! They automatically fall out, just at the age when we have mastered our bowels and our speech and many other aspects of self-control. This is the age where we can exert our individual power as little beings and have access to a much larger world.

Then what happens? Shortly thereafter, a new, larger world and set of teeth appear!

And so, if I have a tooth-loss dream, I can ask myself:

• What parts of my world and life are slipping away?
• What new larger world will this lead me too?

Lose your teeth, gain a world!

About the Author:

Richard Wilkerson is general editor for The Internet Dream E-zine, Electric Dreams, and director of DreamGate, the Internet Communications and Dream Education Center. He writes the Cyberphile column for the Association for the Study of Dreams Newsletter.