OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION
Hi Laurann,
You don’t mention how you felt, in your dream, about losing three teeth or whether they were going to be replaced by prosthetics. The feelings you experience in a dream are important in the interpretation and here we don’t have these.
As the teeth were molars it’s unlikely that you would have been concerned about replacing them for aesthetic reasons and you would probably be able to chew your food with the other molars well enough. Yet you titled your dream ‘Toothless’ implying a more severe level of loss without replacement.
We speak of people as being toothless when they lose their power or lose their bite. A person or animal is rendered harmless by being toothless, but it cannot defend itself or nourish itself properly. In the case of humans, we also find it difficult to talk if we are toothless. Is there an issue around feeling toothless or becoming toothless in a certain waking life situation? Do you feel torn between saying too much (perhaps using biting words) and holding back on what you want to say? Do you feel powerless in getting your message across, in being heard? Do you feel torn between defending or attacking to protect yourself and giving up your power resulting in inadequate protection and nourishment? Are you finding it difficult to find the middle way, the balance between these extremes?
The voice in your dream said the teeth needed to be removed or they would have caused you pain. Did you believe the voice? Are you giving up your power – becoming toothless – as a way of avoiding pain? Or is it really time to let go of a situation, belief or memory that is beginning to cause you too much pain?
At the start of your dream you were travelling to “at least two different locations” and then you have three teeth pulled (at least two?). Were you travelling to new places (perhaps your future) or were you revisiting your past (to reassess how past experiences and beliefs are affecting your life now)? These details are needed for a more specific interpretation. If you were visiting the past, for example, then that tooth pain may have connected to past pain that needs to be released.
Dreams sometimes use word play. Is there word play in molar, connecting it to pain? Perhaps molestation, for example?
Those three teeth in particular may have come through over a period of time in your childhood, pinpointing, perhaps, your life from age seven to eight years old. The pain – an experience or the origin of a belief that is not in your best interests today – may have begun then.
The three teeth may represent three painful situations or experiences that you have had difficulty breaking down and assimilating. (Molars break down food so you can assimilate it. They help us, symbolically, to chew things over.) Have you had three relationships that you are find painful to chew over?
It’s important to face pain, rather than deny it, because you can only learn from an experience by facing its pain. But it’s also important to release pain, not to carry it around and let it taint and dictate the rest of your life. The thing is, you can’t release a pain without facing it. You can try denying it, but denial just buries the pain deeper in your unconscious where it becomes even more powerful in influencing your life. (Unconscious beliefs are more powerful than conscious ones.) Either way, pain needs to be faced and identified before being released.
It may indeed be time to release your pain but be sure to do it in a way that doesn’t render you toothless.
If the three teeth represent three areas of your life which are about to cause you pain, then face those considerations in the same way. Where is the potential pain in your life? Is it time to move away from those situations or is the source of the pain in the way you are handling them? What can you do to release emotional pain or to release beliefs that are leading you into painful situations, while maintaining a right balance of power – without rendering yourself toothless?
You will find it helpful to read ‘Teeth falling out’ in Dream Alchemy, pages 38-43.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Writing Exercise
Now, set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing or typing as fast as you can – with no room for thought – a list with the title “I am toothless when …”. Just let the words flow – a kind of stream of consciousness. Stop when the timer sounds. Read over your story at leisure. You will be surprised how much you learn from this.
How does this work?
By working with dream elements and symbols in writing form you are communicating with your unconscious mind in its own language to create change, to explore your feelings and to resolve and heal past issues.
More details on various writing exercises as Dream Alchemy Practices in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 337-338.
Jane Teresa Anderson
You can consult with Jane Teresa or her Dream Team and receive your interpretation by email within five working days.
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