Dreams about teeth falling out

Dreams of loose or falling teeth are reported all over the world. Old dream books gave them dark meanings; science does not. Studies link them to psychological stress and, in some people, to dental irritation such as teeth grinding at night. If they bother you, a calmer evening and a rewrite of the dream help more than any interpretation.

Can a dream symbol mean something?

Dream dictionaries give fixed meanings, but research does not support them. What dreams do seem to carry is feeling: the continuity hypothesis suggests they borrow worries, memories and moods from waking life.

So the useful question is not “what does it mean?” but “how did it feel, and does that feeling remind me of anything right now?” And no dream predicts the future.

If this dream keeps coming back

1. Write it down in the morning, in a few lines, including how it felt.
2. Choose the moment where you would like it to turn. You don’t need to relive the whole dream.
3. Write a new ending and rehearse it for about ten minutes a day for a week. This is imagery rehearsal, the method sleep medicine recommends for recurring nightmares.