Sometimes a Dream is Just a Dream
About two months ago, I had a very vivid dream of losing a molar. In the dream, the tooth fell out and broke into multiple pieces. Losing a tooth in a dream is often a symbol of changes and growing in your life, and I thought of the dream in that context. When you are young, losing your “baby teeth” is one of the first really big milestones on your way to adulthood. Of course, when you are young, time is always your ally. You tell yourself that you’ll be bigger, stronger, smarter, more capable. However, you eventually realize that all time leads to death. Camus put it best, in Myth of Sisyphus:
“Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy.”
Anyway, thinking of these things a few weeks ago, I went in to have a crown placed on my molar. It was then that the dentist notified me the tooth could not be saved, and would have to be extracted. I scheduled the extraction, and two days before the extraction, a piece of the tooth broke off. Sometimes a dream is just a dream.
The extraction yesterday was rather painful and bloody. The roots of the teeth were determined to stay embedded in my jawbone, and the tooth broke into more pieces while being extracted. Losing a molar is something that the majority of people twice my age have not experienced, so I feel advanced. I am nursing a hole in my mouth, living on a liquid diet. When the jawbone heals in a few months, I’ll be installing an implant. Already I crave solid food, and am planning a trip to Vancouver in a few weeks where I intend to binge at Green Village, another Roland Tanglao discovery. Turnip cakes, pork dumplings; what could be better?
June 28th, 2007 at 7:33 am
I don’t know why you wrote this story, but let me tell you, I really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed your entry and the short story about the tooth and dream, and you going to the dentist. It seems to be (to me) a story about spiritual growth.
It has me thinking now about my own situation in life of holding on to things that are clearly dying, and holding on to things and people that need to be removed so that I can grow.
Somehow, I got all of this from your story about teeth… yet and still, I can see death in a tooth getting pulled, not being so bad…
I can see this removal of a thing bringing life…
I was awakened from your story to being at a certain point in my life, yet (like the man in your story) still standing on that curve…
and it encourages me to travel further…
I am (symbolically) going to the dentist.
I have been afraid to grow up in some areas, and this story tells me to just let go and be an adult and see the dentist (if that is what’s needed).
And, the longer I take, the more painful it will be - huh?
Thanks,
Chana
June 28th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Hi Chana,
Did you have a dream about losing a tooth? Let me tell you another story. My daughter recently lost her first tooth. Others in her class had lost teeth a year earlier, and she did not even have a loose tooth at that time. Each day she would ask, “do I have any loose teeth”? When she finally got a loose tooth, she began to ask “when will it fall out”? She was anxious to have a tooth fall out, before it was time.
Of course, one cannot always assume that a story about a lost tooth is a message from your subsconscious about change. As this story shows, sometimes it’s just a prediction. Here is another story: before the big snowstorm last winter, I had a vivid dream about a tooth breaking, and then a storm causing water to leak into the house. Three days later, my tooth broke (only the second time I’ve had a broken tooth). Then, an hour after I had the temporary crown installed, the windstorm hit causing outages to millions and dropping trees on many people’s houses including my own. There was about a week between the time the tooth cracked and when I had the crown placed — my stupid mistake was that, when I realized the tooth part of dream was predictive, not realizing that the storm part was also predictive.
But you would not be the first one to read a story about someone else’s teeth and make big changes. In college, I had some dreams about losing teeth, and then I read an article in Granta where someone talked about losing teeth (I think he said his really fell out) and making changes. I took it as a sign to make changes, and made some really drastic changes.
And since dreams are just stories, I don’t know why it would be particularly better to make changes based on a story your subconscious gives you versus a story someone else tells you. I suppose it all depends on who you think is in control of your own subconscious, or where the person’s loyalty lies.
I wonder about this, though, since it wasn’t a question of who was the storyteller when Joseph said “*interpretation* of dreams belongs to God”.