Sleep, perchance to dream...

Last night I had the most bizarre dream. In my dream, my back teeth were loose. I could feel them move under my tongue. Then later in the dream, my back teeth came out, just like when you are a kid, and there is no root left, just tooth. Shortly after that, the teeth in front of those also became loose and fell out! Of course there was other content to the dream, but I can't really remember much of that, but the whole tooth thing seemed so real that when I woke up I could still remember it and actually was happy that my teeth were still there!

Have you ever had a tooth dream? Apparently, they are quite common. I remember sitting in a highschool science class and a classmate talked about having a dream where he crunched and ate his own teeth. "They tasted like those candy cigarettes!", he said.

When I was in university, my housemate took a course in which she had to keep a dream journal. As part of the course, they were given common dream interpretations. For fun, I kept a journal as well. We would then analyze our dreams. Much of this interpretation wasn't rocket science. Usually dreams reflected what you had been experiencing as of late, or what had been on your mind.

A common meaning of "tooth dreams" was having to deal with a stressful situation. I doubt there is anyone who isn't dealing with some kind of stress. Another dream that I have had involves going through a big house with many rooms and hallways, not necessarily one I could identify. The interpretation for that one was trying to work out a problem, or make a big decision. Kind of a theme, here.

I used to dream much more vividly than I do now. I also used to remember my dreams much better than I do now (mind you, I used to remember a whole lot of things better than I do now). I think you can train yourself to remember your dreams better. When my housemate and I were keeping a dream journal, we were able to recall details better as we continued to do it.

Our son used to talk and walk in his sleep A LOT. It caused me a lot of concern. I worried that he would grow up and move out of the house and go to university and continue to sleep walk and get into all sorts of danger. I talked to our family doctor about it and he found the whole thing fascinating rather than concerning. He said it would likely stop around age twelve or thirteen. Well, darned if he wasn't right! Our son did in fact stop his sleep walking when he was around twelve.

If you've never witnessed a sleep walker / talker, it is a bit disconcerting. Our son would have his eyes open and he would walk into the room and talk in a normal tone to us. Usually this would happen within an hour or two of us putting him to bed. We would be downstairs watching tv and we'd hear him come downstairs from his bedroom (yup, walked down 16 stairs without a problem). Often the one way that we could tell if he was still asleep was to ask him a skill testing question. Usually it was, "What room are you in?" If he told us a different room than where we actually were, we knew he wasn't really awake. He never left the house, but that was always a fear.

Our daughter did not sleep walk, but I do remember night terrors when she was quite young. She would scream like a banshee after being asleep for a while and there was no consoling her until she just ran out of steam. For first time parents, that was also a bit disconcerting!

Apart from my teeth falling out, another dream experience that I had only once was an incident in which my body really was paralysed. I had learned that our body has the ability become paralysed while we sleep and have particularly violent dreams so that we don't hurt ourselves. In this incidence, I woke up from a bad dream and honestly was unable to move. It was scary, but I actually reasoned with myself what was happening and fell back asleep for a bit, and then when I woke up it was all fine.

So, there you have it. Respond with your sleep walking, recurrent dream, teeth falling out stories!

Sweet Dreams!