More Dreams

I don't know how to make these "losing my teeth" dreams stop. Last night I had one, and it was more real than any of the other ones had been. I'm going to go crazy, if I'm not already.

Repeating Dreams

It seems that the dreams have been getting better. In the most recent choking dream, I was aware that I have a fear of choking, and so I tried to avoid it. Sometimes, the choking comes from bubble gum, which fills my mouth and throat no matter how many times I spit it out. In this dream, I was somehow aware that happens in most dreams. Instead of choking on the gum, I made a game out of it; every time I felt the gum filling my mouth, I would pick it out of my teeth and throw it at something or someone (which was surprisingly fun, considering I was stuck in a post-apocalyptic situation).

Later in the dream, I once again became aware of a loose tooth. Usually this is a stressful trigger for me, but the tooth, instead of falling to shards, came out all in one piece. It looked odd, considering they never come out whole, but I only looked at it for a moment and put it to the side. None of my other teeth became loose or fell to pieces. I moved on without worrying.

To me, this dream seems like a good omen. Perhaps the dreams will get better. Maybe I can have hope of waking up normally instead of terrified.

Or maybe the choking will change to something else, like drowning.

But let's remain optimistic.

Irrational Fear

A loose tooth is nothing out of the ordinary--for a child. For a twenty-year-old woman, however, it is a completely different story.

Once aware of the loose tooth, I wiggled it lightly to access the damage. Almost immediately, it fell out into my hand. But it didn't come out as a whole tooth you would give to the tooth fairy; it came out as a shard. I dropped the first piece and went back in for the second, which also broke into pieces. Not long after, I became aware of a second tooth as loose as the first. I tried to remove it quickly before it fell to pieces in my mouth.

I was too late. The pieces cluttered my mouth. It was all I could do to not cry as I spit the shards out.

I tried to put in an old retainer that I had gotten after I wore braces. The retainer worked well enough to keep my remaining teeth in place, but it soon made my mouth sore since I was not accustomed to wearing it. To lighten the pain, I pulled it out.

That was a mistake. A horrendous misery stabbed my jaws, which could no longer move properly. My mouth was open only a few centimeters, and it hurt to even try to open or close it. Instead of making my teeth straight, the retainer had worsened the alignment and gave me a painful overbite.

Now without the retainer, my mouth again began losing teeth. More and more became loose and fell to pieces, with no replacement teeth underneath to fill the gaping black holes.

Shards of my former teeth cluttered my mouth, breaking apart faster than I could spit them out. My mouth was in constant pain, and I was beginning to panic.

I was choking! I could no longer breathe through my mouth, and panic overruled my rational thoughts. I tried scooping the shards out of my mouth, but newly broken teeth quickly took their place. There was no way to remove all the pieces from my mouth.

I was choked by my own teeth. I am choked with this same dream--over and over again. And it is worse every time.