Teething Problems

Wednesday 1st September 2010

I’ve been having some seriously mental dreams lately – all vivid and peculiar and, if it’s possible, they make sleep even more enjoyable than it was before. Last night the dreams took a turn for the disturbing when for the first time ever my teeth fell out. Apparently this is a common dream and I have often wondered why it is that I’ve never experienced it. I have to say I’d happily go the rest of my life without having another one – such was the horrificness of the ordeal.

At first only my canines came out, and although this meant my dreams of being a vampire were quashed, I figured I could hide the gaps by manoeuvring my lips so only my two front teeth were showing when smiling and talking. Yes, I looked like a weirdo but the openings in my opening were my little secret. Feeling smug about getting round the unfortunate tooth loss I looked in the mirror to see one of my front two teeth was hanging loose and bending backwards to expose my naked gum. Short of keeping my gob shut until the end of time there was no getting around that gaping hole in my mouth.

I have been somewhat paranoid in recent months about the welfare of my teeth; decay, due to the dangerous levels of sugar I consume has been a bit of a worry and also I have been waking up to find my jaw clenched, a tell tale sign that I have been grinding in my sleep. But I thought there had to be another reason for having this dream now given these particular worries have been going on for at least a year.

So I had a little noodle about on the Internet and found some interesting theories on the meaning of dreaming that your teeth fall out. The ones that rang most true (I decided to ignore the ones about sickness, death, enemies lurking and famine) were as follows…

“In the latest research, it has been shown that women in menopause have frequent dreams about teeth. This may be related to getting older and/or feeling unattractive and less feminine.”

I’ve been having horrific night sweats recently. Oh my god. Am I going through the menopause already?! And I have been worried about my rapid visual decline since turning 25 last year – the crêpey skin has well and truly made its way onto the scene and alerted me to the fact that I’m getting old and any future boyfriend is going to run off with an uncrêpey under-25-year-old. I’m starting to wish I’d got naked and spread my legs at every opportunity as I’m now over the hill and far on the way to my grave.

“It has also been said that if you dream of your teeth falling out, then it symbolizes money.”

This is good news as yesterday I decided I was going to win the lottery.*

“In a dream, are your teeth falling out? This symbolizes rejection. Or you might be feeling powerless, unconfident, inferior, unattractive and unable to hold on to someone important to you.” (Dr. Gail Saltz)

This would make a lot of sense. The guy I’ve been seeing since January has told me at least four times this year that he’s not after anything serious, can’t give me what I want, it’s not you it’s me blah blah blah etc., etc. On return from his recent holiday he got in touch saying he’d missed me and he’s been really lovely since then surprising me by telling me he thinks I’m amazing and has never met another girl like me. Then a couple of weeks later he gives me my own drawer but even though things seemed to have improved with us I am refraining from counting my chickens because I’ve come to expect rejection where he is concerned. The icing on the keenness cake has come with the invite to dinner at his parents’ house which will include grandma, sister and auntie. Forget teeth falling out, meeting the parents is my worst nightmare!!... which leads on to this next meaning…

“Falling teeth dream may be rooted in your fear of being embarrassed or making a fool of yourself in some specific situation. These dreams are an over-exaggeration of your worries and anxiety.”

Last night I was telling my mum how nervous I am about going to his parents’ house for dinner. I have a fear of conversing with adults which I think might be down to having a massive inferiority complex. Because I’m quite quiet when I don’t know people very well this can be misconstrued as boringness, aloofness and general rubbishness which doesn’t really help my selfconsciousness. I get tongue tied and nervous and do stupid things like the time my friend’s dad picked us up and he asked how I was and I just giggled. Both my friend and her dad looked at me funny and have been looking at me that way ever since.

“Teeth in the dream world are most often an archetypal image of the dreamer's sense of confidence and competence in the waking world.” (Eric Ackroyd)

Because the boy who’s invited me to dinner’s family are all big characters it just highlights how completely opposite I am and I worry they won’t think I’m good enough for him. I’ve met them all before when I was 16 but there seems to be an added pressure now – it’s 10 years later and what have I done with my life? I better get my thinking cap on – dinner is in 3 hours!**

*I did not win the lottery.

**Things went much better than expected and I didn’t have to pretend I’m an astronaut/entrepreneur/professional toilet blocker (it's a good job really as lying doesn’t come naturally to me). Because his auntie was over from Turkey and they’d not seen her for a while the focus wasn’t on me as much as I thought it might be. When we were leaving I hugged his grandma goodbye and she said “It’s nice to have you back in the fold.” (!!!) I was, quite frankly, chuffed to bits and most probably had a red face to prove it.

...And I’ve not lost my teeth again since. Hurrah!

My Offering to The London Paper

Thought I'd send The London Paper kids a rejigged note I once wrote on Facebook to see if they'd publish it as every day they have a reader columnist.

I have a feeling they won't as it isn't particularly relevant to anything going on at the moment so I'll just publish it myself. Had I sent it in around the time Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were doing their rounds on the red carpet then perhaps it would have made the pages of the free paper. Who knows? Well, here you go...

I’m broody, something you would have known had you been in Kew Gardens the other week and overheard me whispering to my friend’s girlfriend who I’ve only met briefly once before, ‘I’m worried I might steal a child.’ Had you only seen her face then you may have just assumed I’d escaped from a mental asylum.

Although I want nothing more than to pop a little munchkin out I'm not sure I'm prepared to bring kids into the world we live in. A world where people won't recycle because, 'There's nothing we can do to make a difference, it’s too late.' We can try though, no? No, because they're too lazy even though all they have to do is just put their paper bits in a different bin that I have placed in front of their workstation. A world where you have to hold a door open for a man who doesn't even say thank you. A world where kids are penetrating each other with jibes and knives. What was wrong with penetrating each other with kindness and condom-clad genitalia? It worries me that there will be no world left by the time my hypothetical child grows up and so it's looking likely that I'll have to forego having children because it wouldn't be fair to bring them into such a mean, corrupt and deteriorating place.

BUT there is a glimmer of hope: there must still be manners lurking about and kids that only use knives to cut up their dinner and do you know what makes me think this? Well I'll tell you… High School Musical, a film that for those of you who haven't seen it and all its follow-ups is enough to empty the contents of one's stomach with its high content of twee-ness and enthusiasm. This sickly film has broken box-office records and that tells me the world isn’t so bad if the youth of today can't get enough of a film that has me teetering on the brink of wanting to stab, if not someone else, then myself. You could argue that maybe it is the cause of all the stabbings but I can't help believing that it's a genuine love these kids have for the films that has the potential to get the world turning on a more positive and wholesome axis rather than it's current skew-whiff one.

Perhaps my womb is not redundant just yet...