The Horrors of My Tooth Dreams

My wife never dreamed regularly until after she married me and became pregnant with our first daughter.  I never had this luxury.  For me, dreams have been as real as real life.  I dream many dreams every night.  Some of them are normal where the events contained therein could happen outside of the dream.  But most are weird. 

The worst dreams for me are my tooth dreams. 

I hate teeth.  I hate brushing them, flossing them, chugging that alcohol stuff, and whatever else a body has to do to keep his choppers from rotting out of his head.  

When it became a fad to whiten teeth, I read up on the brittle aftereffects of bleaching.  I watched as actors on commercials flashed their pearly whites.  It got to the point that, with my high definition television, I had to wear some serious eye protection to prevent blindness from the sheer whiteness of them.

I went to Wal-mart a dozen times and threw the Crest Whitening Strips into my cart and then, just before going to the cash register, I'd roll the thing back to the health and beauty section and put the package carefully and gingerly back onto the shelf.  The twenty dollars just wasn't worth it.

I imagined that the use of those whitening strips would cause my enamel to crack and then sharp pains would pierce my upper and lower jaw as my upper front teeth split in half.

One day, I was taking a shower and I let the warm water wash into my mouth.  That imagined piercing pain, now reality, suddenly shot through my upper jaw, coming from my front right tooth.  I hollered out in pain so the whole house could hear and licked that tooth as hard as I could for the next few hours.  The shooting pains continued for that period, then went away, only to reoccur a few days later and then never again.

My dentist shrugged his shoulders and told me that I needed to floss more.  He said the plaque that was between my teeth was pulling the enamel in both directions and causing craning.  I haven't flossed since.

Then, I fall asleep and dream of teeth. 

A few nights ago, my alarm went off at 6:00 AM and I rolled over and shut it off.  I wanted a wink or two of sleep to catch up on my sleep debt from the last decade.  I fell back to sleep and began to dream that I was laying on my side, trying to catch a few more winks of sleep to make up that sleep debt.  Yeah...boring dream - until my front left tooth fell out of my head while I was licking the back of it.

I panicked.  My mind shot towards what everyone at work would think of my missing tooth.  I mentally searched the house for a tube of crazy glue and imagined the bill at the dentist's office.  I thought about taking up an interest in rap music so I could go with a stylish gold tooth or even a diamond shiner.  But mostly, I chose to fight the dream.

I half believed I was dreaming so I forced myself to wake up and prove to myself that I actually WAS dreaming.  I woke up and shot my tongue forward to discover that my tooth was still there.  I laid still for fifteen minutes, lovingly caressing that tooth with my tongue.  I failed to brush and floss that morning.

Then, the next day, I dreamed that half of both of my upper front teeth broke off.  I went over to the mirror and noticed that the break was pretty well flat and could hardly be noticed except for a few jagged edges.  I reasoned that since all Britons had horrible teeth and were still successful, I would be fine.  Waking up, I failed to brush my teeth and went to work.

Those are just two examples of what I am forced to endure on almost a tri-nightly basis.  I have had so many teeth fall out of my head.  I have swallowed teeth.  I have gone to the dentist and they ripped them all out and installed dentures.  I have been eating and my teeth just disappeared inside a very soft muffin, never to be found.  I have had shooting pains while licking them.  I have even sneezed, shooting a few teeth across the desk of a potential future employer during an interview.

Frankly, I would rather dream that old dream about going to work only to discover that I am wearing nothing but my old trusty whitey tighties.  At least I can fix that when my mom comes and drops off my clothes, just before she flies away on her pet monkey.

Dreams are weird.  I hope to keep them dreams and die happy with a full set of teeth.

On second thought, maybe I'll just go have them electively removed now so I stop dreaming about them.  That might backfire though.  I'll end up dreaming that I forgot my dentures during my presidential inauguration.  Or that my gums receded and I need dentures affixed to my jaw bone.

Hang on while I go get a Mountain Dew.