Sometimes dreams do come true....

Remember that time I wrote about that one recurring dream that I have? The one about my teeth crumbling and falling out of my mouth? I went to ye olde Wal-Mart the other day because we were in desperate need of cat litter (hello, we have five cats). While standing in the self-checkout, chewing gum as I am often wont to do, I suddenly noticed there was something VERY hard in my mouth.

Let me tell you. My. Heart. Stopped. I was completely still for a moment, and then discreetly spat out the foreign object. My terror confirmed, I realize it was part of one of my molars. A HUGE part of one of my molars. I ran my tongue around my teeth, tears welling in my eyes, and found the now jagged molar on the bottom right side of my jaw. I retained composure until I got home, but as soon as I got to my room I started bawling. All I could think about was my dream and how it always started JUST like that.

Judging from the look of the piece that broke off, I had a cavity on the back of that molar, up against my wisdom tooth. It frustrates me because I am a maniac about dental hygiene, but I am the one with teeth falling out of my stupid face. It probably doesn't help that our water is not fluoridated and that I didn't floss most of the time I was at camp (but that was because I broke my tooth-flosser thing...but I STILL BRUSHED MY DAMN TEETH!!!!).

And you know, I still don't have a job, I certainly don't have insurance, and who the hell can afford to go to the dentist? Now, I have this ticking time bomb in my head and it just eats at me. CAN I CATCH A BREAK, PLEASE?!

The Main Reason I am Obsessed with Dental Hygeine

I have this recurring dream about my teeth. The situation varies (last night, everything happened while I prepared for my friend Meghann's wedding that took place in May of 2009), but the content is always the same. I am trying to do something seemingly normal when all of a sudden my teeth begin to crumble and fall out of my mouth. I always know in my dream, I always know when it is going to be THAT dream. I will be talking, or rollerskating, or giving a speech, or (in the case of last night's dream) printing directions to Tennessee (as if I didn't know how to get there by heart) when I notice that my teeth are loose in their sockets. It is the most horrifying feeling because at this point I KNOW I AM DREAMING AND I KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!!!! There is nothing I can do to stop it, and as conscious as I am that I am dreaming, there is nothing I can do to help the dream stray off course. I've tried that. My teeth still crumble and fall out.

So, in my dream, once I notice that my teeth are loose in the sockets, it is but a few minutes before I start spitting out chunks of bicuspid and molar and blood. All of the force of spitting that out causes what's let of my teeth to begin crumbling. Once my teeth are crumbled into a fine powder in my mouth, they mix with my blood and saliva forming this thick, chunky paste.

In the dream I had last night, I was sitting at a computer in an office we DON'T have in a house we DON'T live in and I was leaning over a trash can spitting out chunks of blood and teeth and powdered paste made of blood and spit and crumbled teeth. It is unreal the amount of chunky paste in my mouth. My mouth was so full of it, and it's as if it was expanding (because in nightmares, physics don't apply) and trying to go down my throat to choke me. It's oddly familiar, like when the dentist is making a mold of your teeth with that weird minty putty. I was leaning over the trash can gagging because I couldn't spit and scrape the mess out of my mouth fast enough when my mother walked by the office we don't have in the house we don't live in and asked what the hell I am doing. I was crying and choking and trying to get it out of my mouth and to talk to her and to explain it to her because CAN'T SHE SEE? I DON'T HAVE ANY TEETH! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!

And then I wake up.