I’ve been having the weirdest dreams about teeth. The last time I remember having dreams like these was when I was in University studying dentistry.

In the first dream, I had some strange growth in my mouth. Was it a malignant growth, I wasn’t sure.

In the second dream, I was visiting my usual dentist – a friend who studied dentistry with me – and he found my gums puffy and bleeding. There was a line of calculus along the edge of the gum margin that I could not explain.
I kept thinking, “How could this be? I keep my teeth clean all the time. The last time I looked at my teeth, they were fine. How did all this happen without my knowledge?”

In the third dream, my teeth were falling out. It wasn’t the way an adult’s teeth fell out, though. It was the way a child’s tooth exfoliates when the adult dentition is ready to take its place.

I did a bit of background reading on the meaning of such dreams and found various interpretations from the following sites:

http://www.dreamsleep.net

That dreams of losing your teeth could mean:
1. Its literally meaning that you are frightened of losing your teeth
2. That it’s a beginning of a new phase of life
3. That you are worried about self image or there is unexpressed anxiety

http://www.lifetreks.com/lifetreks2/symbols.asp

Lifetreks offered dream variations and also covered the topic of gum disease in dreams.

Dr Holloway of Lifetreks divided it up into three issues:

1. Bleeding (as in the bleeding gums I dreamt about)

He believes that blood represents out “life force” and a dream about bleeding signifies that a person, situation or relationship is draining your energy.

2. Gums (as in the gum disease I dreamt about)

The symbolic meaning of gums relates to our power, in particular, verbal power. It could refer to a tendency of keeping silent about feelings and opinions.

The link of “bleeding gums” could therefore imply a loss of life energies through suppressing thoughts and feelings.

3. Tooth loss

Dr Holloway’s explanation of tooth loss in dreams is slightly different from the dreamsleep website. He believes that the tooth denotes self, values and personal priorities involved in personal decision making. Dreams about tooth loss often occur when compromises have been made (even if they are for good reasons) and they undermine self in an ongoing way.

Quite an interesting read as I draw the parallels to my own life’s situations…