04/11/03
I Want A Full Tooth Job!

This dream was absolutely awful while I was having it, though it did have an upturn. It's kind of muddled even not that long after having it; not sure why.

I'm not sure where I was when it started; perhaps I was lying on the couch like I was during my nap (where I was when I had the dream)? In any event, I noticed that my left incisor on the top (I don't know if the bottom ones are called incisors also?) was wobbly, when it should not be! I wobbled it a bit with my tongue and grew anxious. I got up (if I had been lying down) and went to a mirror to investigate. Yes--my tooth had gone bad and was wobbling and loose! My first instinct was to just pull it out...but then I feared what I would do after that. I can't eat without my incisors! Here followed some confusion regarding the state of my teeth. Was this in fact a baby tooth? One I could safely pull out and just grow another one? Looking more closely, there DID seem to be another tooth coming in behind this one. But no, I reminded myself, these were my adult teeth; there would BE no other tooth to follow this one. What looked to be another tooth starting was just my gum; my teeth in real life are very crooked. What's more, the other incisor, or else a tooth right next to the bad one, looked as if it were going bad, too--soon I would have no incisors at all! How would I be able to eat things like apples and such?? How would I bite into my food?

I tried to stop wobbling the tooth, but I had already wobbled it a lot and was afraid of it just falling out. I started to cry. I had no idea what to do. I have no medical insurance or dental insurance or anything, so I was at a loss. I didn't want to lose my teeth!

Ma arrived, somehow...not sure from where. She saw I was crying and I don't know if she asked what was wrong, but I went to her, sobbing and rubbing my eyes, and told her about my bad tooth and how worried I was.

Now what follows is COMPLETELY against Ma's character, both in real life AND in my dreams. What happened was she showed CONCERN for me!

I'm not saying she doesn't show concern for me in real life, but she doesn't to this extent. And in my dreams, she is almost always neutral and nearly lifeless; I have frequent dreams of her simply ignoring me. But as I stood there crying about my tooth--I felt very much like a child--she tried to console me; she might even have hugged me, something I hate in real life. I don't remember her saying anything, but it helped just to know she cared, when I had expected scorn from her. I don't know if it was she or myself who initiated the next part, but one of us did; I'll assume it was me.

"I want to get my teeth looked at," I sniffled. "All of them. I want the bad ones pulled and replaced (maybe with denture-type things, I don't know) and the cavities filled in! And the tartar cleaned off! Everything!"

In real life, this would warrant a snort and a rolling of the eyes, as we cannot afford such measures. In the dream, Ma smiled and nodded.

"We'll get ALL of it taken care of," she said. I was surprised, even in the dream!

"It'll cost so much," I complained. I don't know if she replied to that, but later on in the dream she gave me an estimate on paper and it was around $300-something. ONLY! To get an entire tooth job! I couldn't believe it--surely it would cost more than that? $300 was not very much even for us in my dream; in real life we probably couldn't handle even that. I was so relieved! Even though I was skeptical of it being true. I think I asked her a few times if she were sure about this, but it seemed she was.

Our location in the dream seemed to keep changing so I'm not sure where we were, but it didn't seem to be our house; if it was, it looked entirely different. Bigger, very nice and carpeted, like an office building, maybe lots of windows...this is odd but now I'm thinking of my real-life dentist's new office waiting room, which I was in all of once in my life, when he checked to see if I had TMD (temporomandibular disorder--a joint condition which produces popping and cracking noises and sometimes pain in the jaw--and yes, I do have it; *sigh*). All in gray tones, with dim lighting, I think. If in fact this location resembled my dentist's waiting room, I guess I don't find the symbolism surprising, but I can't be certain if that's what it really looked like. All I know is it did not look like my home.

Anyway, we seemed to be moving around, and I said to my mom, "No braces! I don't need braces! No orthodontist. Just to get the cavities filled and the tartar taken care of." This seemed to amuse her, but truthfully, I really WOULD rather have crooked teeth than get braces! The process sounds so inconvenient and painful. All I wanted was for my bad teeth to be yanked and replaced with fake teeth--somehow they could do this, or else I'd get partial dentures or...something...and for my cavities to be filled and all my teeth to be cleaned. I vowed I would take much better care of my teeth after this time!

The dream never really went anywhere, even though we seemed to end up at the dentist's office. I was growing anxious--I hated the thought of my entire mouth being numbed and swollen, and some of my teeth being pulled and replaced--but it was better than having NO teeth. The ending parts of the dream just seemed to be a lot of talking and moving around in anticipation. Ma didn't talk much, but I was comforted by her presence and by her support. I felt very relieved that she had agreed to go through with this.

In real life, I have not taken good care of my teeth at all and so this dream was very anxiety producing, and of course left me with that feeling when I awoke. The only thing is, it's not my incisor that's bothering me most, it's a tooth protruding from my upper jaw, way out of place; it's rotting and I have constant fears of abscesses. People have DIED from those things! Yet this tooth seemes moored firmly in my jaw, and doesn't even wiggle even if I DID want to yank it out (and pulling it would probably leave a big hole in my gum, and I would have no idea how to care for that). So despite my obvious fear of needles and pain, I really HAVE been wishing for a free trip to the dentist for a long time. We had to pay $50, even, just for him to palpate my jaw and tell me I had TMD, when I already pretty much knew that! :(



2003 Dreams
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