Losing teeth is one of the commonest themes in dreams--or so the literature says. I was startled to read this over and over, since I rarely have dental dreams. Researching my own toothy dreams, when building this site, I had to conclude: either my dreams or my teeth are noncomformist. I think I know why, and the reason has implications for other dreamers.

I grew up eating a sugary American diet, but my mom was pretty aggressive about dental care. I had few cavities and lost no teeth. As an adult I had major food allergies and both refined sugar and processed foods seemed to worsen it, so I naturally gravitated toward health food. I just haven't had major tooth problems, and my dreams lack this theme. Yet dreams of losing teeth have traditionally been interpreted as anxiety dreams about the loss of powers, weapons, defenses... and I'm plenty anxious, a high-strung nervous type in fact. If they're anxiety dreams, I should have tooth-loss dreams like my friends. Yet I don't. Plenty of other anxiety dreams, but not those.

This suggests tooth-loss dreams are more literal than symbolic, and dreamers should quit trying to interpret them as worries about losing this or that. Take them at face value as warnings about diet and tooth care! If so, it becomes useful to note in detail which teeth go bad, and why. Such dreams may be diagnostic!

I'm not claiming all toothy dreams are literal. The dreams below are examples of tooth symbolism--just not the usual sorts.

RELATED TOPICS: weird dream foods - Meat is Murder - You Are Lunch - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.

	THE BEST HOTEL: by Rick Veitch; 1994 or before; an escalating surrealist dream Rajiv keeps trying to convince me it's the best hotel in India: the orgy of biters, the bowls of twitching fingers. But it's only the oracular spirits that really impress me... CAUTION: CREEPY FINGERS
	BLOODLINES: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2005/7/30, 9/1 and 9/3; a compound dream-painting A man obsessed with blood and death disturbs me, but I have to admit I share his interests... Next the blood comes home; a surgeon wants to flay my tongue... Next, witch-children rebel against a bloody flossing ritual and fly away on broomsticks...
	CAKE HORSE: by Colleen D. McManus, art by Jesse Reklaw; pre-2000; a surreal warning dream? The cake horse resented my taking one slice out of him; but he let me. No second slice, though! He just laughed at me--through his bad teeth...
	COLOR OF A BRUISE: by Virginia Brady Young, 1976 or before, a dental nightmare-poem I stab and stab my pillow. The room rains yellow feathers. The teeth in my head are blue, growing out of my scalp. A dentist appears, holding a yellow drill. I scream, "No! It's time to shop for lemons." In the Supermarket my teeth grow wild as tusk...
	CROCODILE DREAM: by Patagia; 2015/10/5, a nightmare-poem on recklessness Closer I edge to admire their scales, the glint of their teeth, and shape of their tails. They cast a strong spell...
	THE DAYS WHEN WOMEN WERE BEING HURT: by Anonymous #40, 1996?, a surreal dream I was big as the world, so whole cars fit in my vagina. But men were selling women to supermarkets, to be cooked & resold. So I crossed the Atlantic sea-floor on foot... CAUTION: CAR SEX. NO, NOT SEX IN CARS...
	DECLARING INDEPENDENCE: by Patricia Garfield c.1946, Fiona '51, Lenore '58 & Helen '62 Four teens dream their moms are monsters: Patricia sees hers as a demonic doll, Fiona finds her mom's a wolf, Lenore's is a grinning vampire, and Helen's is a bossy, punitive octopus...
	DENTATA: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/10/9, a dream of a toothy vagina--yet not a nightmare Swedenborg's in bed with a woman, but finds she has teeth in her vagina. He interprets it not as revealing some fear of women but as advice about pacing his scientific work. And the surrounding dreams hint he may be right... CAUTION: ALMOST-SEX
	DOG BITES CAT: by Wayan; 2015/2/17; a grating dream-poem I get bullied into dogwalking. A biter--leaves a cat bloody. You'd think a talking dog'd listen. But Cheney...
	THE DRAGON'S TEETH: by Wayan; 1994/6/23; a dance dream that maps out my life I'm dancing on stage, in behavioral space. But right in the middle of the stage, erupt these... teeth?
	THE EUCALYPTUS WARNING: by Wayan; 1993/8/6, a punning health-advice dream. Bad puns link an ecological dream of a forest being murdered by inches, and a dental exam...
	EYE OF TOOTH, or, THE SCORE: by Wayan; 2014/1/28, a cryptic dream prescription I'm a time-traveling revolutionary seeking a coded message from Pancho Villa. I find it in a music score... but what's an Ojo de Diente? When I wake...
	GROTESQUE: by William S. Burroughs, c.1986; a primal nightmare of emotional abuse Genteel gay guests first humiliate then torture their hosts--the rich but sick wife, then her weak, gay, parasitic husband... CAUTION: LANGUAGE, MISOGYNY, CRUELTY, SHIT
	HORSE-DOG: by Wayan, 1982/2/1, a rambling, scattered but predictive dream I cross the Mushroom Desert, meet a blue-tailed squirrel & a horse-size dog, then zombie-vampire suburbanites. NEXT DAY: an artist sends me a flyer with a new dream painting--a huge dog whose fur-patterns depict a horse... CAUTION: SYNCHRONICITY
	HOW TO BE A WOLF: by Wayan; 1987/3/15, a dream of a trickster-mentor We're hiking in the Sangre de Cristos when a girl offers to show us how to be a wolf. We're eager--until she turns wolf, bites us and leaps off a cliff! Furious, we stupidly follow her over... CAUTION: NUDE FLYING WOLVES
	I LET RATS: by Wayan; 1994/4/22, a nightmare on appeasement. A bold rat comes right up to me. I don't want to provoke it, so I stay quiet. And let the rats... CAUTION: UGH!
	KISSINGER+DENTISTRY=WHY: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a dream within a dream I dream I go to my NY dentist, but the novocaine sends me into a dream of having dentistry in Tel Aviv! I 'wake' and my NY dentist explains he can't do me today: sore hands from doing Henry Kissinger...
	MAFIA DENTIST: by Wayan, 2007/7/10; a predictive comic nightmare. My dentist (a Haitian Mafia leader) sends a message to my dad (also a Mafia don) by dental cruelty....
	MISTRESS TOOTHSMOOTH: by Yves Delage, 1915/1/20, an early anima dream I'm in the cellar, petting a tiger-cat. She speaks inside my head: "I'm tired of living on bread. I need meat." I make excuses--it's pricy--then see big hanging quarters of meat. I hide them! She says "Call me Mistress Touttmouss"--well, something like that--I know it's English, but can't make it out til I wake, when I see...
	MY GATE: by Wayan; 1996/5/29; a bizarre, joyful dream; 4-page comic (or ill. text version) The full moon rises: I become Weregirl, do the Moondance, and gnaw open the lock on my heart... CAUTION: MOONING
	NERO'S TOOTH: by Vespasian, c.65 CE, an oracular dream fulfilled alarmingly soon Vespasian dreamed he and his family would rise only when Emperor Nero lost his teeth. The next day, a surgeon happened to show Vespasian a tooth he'd just extracted from...
	ON HER FOURTH BODY: by Wayan; 1993/11/25, a predictive dream-comedy. A gengineered singer (born a cow, became a horse, then a shark, now a sexy Mare Chanteuse) solves a mystery that stumped even Mr. Spock. Next day, I see a film--a mystery solved by a...
	POLITICS BITES: by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1744/4/13, a dream of... read the title! Swedenborg's in bed with a woman, but she has teeth down there. Oh, now and she's not a woman, but his political buddy Johan! Well, maybe it means not to get involved with women, or men, or... politics? CAUTION: JUST WEIRD
	THE SEA-HAG RIOT: by Wayan; 1989/6/5, a wild dream hiding a warning. Aliens, hypnotherapy, dancing molars, riots, witches, flying pianos, lettuce... yet there is a point.
	SECRETS OF THE TEETERING STUPA: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting The past. Burma. I'm shown a stupa covered in gold leaf, and given a key to a tunnel where they say a tooth of Buddha is encased in glass...
	TYPEWRITER: by Kevin King, before 1983, an ink-noir nightmare I dreamed my mouth was full of typewriter keys and a typewriter ribbon issued from the back of my head. Joan was hanging out the window by the ribbon. I reached for her, but my hands kept hitting the space bar, and down...
	TIME PIRATES: by Wayan; 1979/6/6, a genderbent pirate dream about... healthcare? I'm a modern girl facing pirates from the 17th Century Caribbean. Outgunned, but I have something intimidating to bluff with: perfect teeth...
	THE TOOTH: by SAO (Shawn Allen O'Neal), 2003?, an epic, oracular, baffling dream Psychics give me an incomprehensible reading. A book from the tree-library gives only Victorian dating advice. At last a madman gives me a treasure-box holding a tooth that unfolds into slices carved in unreadable symbols...
	TREE, RIVER, BIRD, MOON: by Davi Kopenawa, 1959-62, a child's shamanic dreams I climbed a tree with a beautiful view, but climbing down I fell, and woke. I visited the people under the river. A beautiful ayocora bird danced for me. But so did the moon spirit, baring its fangs. Terrifying!
	TWIN GODDESSES, or, LOGA-SHANA: by Patricia Garfield, 1980/12/26, a self-flagging psychic dream DREAM: at a dreamgroup, I tell a predictive dream that my artist friend's front tooth will get infected. Then we all chant "Loga-Shana!" THREE WEEKS LATER: my artist friend's front tooth gets a serious abcess... CAUTION: WILL TROUBLE E.S.P. SKEPTICS
	UNIVERSITY OF THE SIERRA: by Wayan; 1975/10/30, a pun-studded dream poem Jealous of newlyweds, I grind my teeth. But the Ice Age ground the Sierra's granite teeth, and they're lovelier for it...
	WALRUSHMORE: by Wayan; 1982/1/8; a dream pun with political bite In my sister's house I saw a magazine cover showing that famous national monument in the Black Hills: Mt Walrushmore...
	WHODUNIT? AND WHAT DID THEY DO?: by Derek Gullino, late 70s? Five nightmares, five years old 1: Dad picks up Bigfoot; he bites off my ear. 2: Dad abandons me in a canyon full of wolves. 3: The man who killed my family hands me his ax. 4: Bees move into my pillow. 5: A marionette with razor-nails lures me close... CAUTION: OUCH
	THE WOLF DREAM: by Mr. Bai, as told by Pu Songling; before 1679, a predictive dream, or fiction? Mr Bai dreams his son the mandarin is a tiger leading a pack of wolves--all man-eaters, at least until two angels knock out his fangs and predict he'll get beheaded soon... CAUTION: CANNIBALS, REVENGE KILLINGS

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites