Losing Teeth & Other Weird Dreams
Have you ever had dreams about losing teeth, or perhaps showing up to a test you forgot to study for? Well, it turns out these dreams are actually quite common, so much so that their meanings are pretty well researched. With that in mind, here are 20 typical dreams and what they mean, so you can figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you.
1. The Regular Day
This dream has you as the main character going about your normal day: waking up, driving to work or school, going to work or school, etc. While this may not seem to be an exciting dream, it may expose you to the anxieties you feel about your everyday responsibilities and other stressors in your life. Dreaming about normal daily activities is a "reflection of the manner in which the brain copes with stressors using the context of its daily experiences," so take a look at the emotions and themes in this dream and try to see how they relate to your life.
2. The Test
You are back in school and taking a test or an examination. This is a dream about being tested or evaluated in your work or personal life. How you feel about taking the exam or test in your dream tells you how you will or will not measure up to coming pressure.
3. Famous Friends
Dreaming about being with a celebrity is one of the most common dreams. However unlikely or unexpected it may be, the celebrity in the dream has some significance related to your own life—a quality, a trait, a message that this person embodies, be it from his or her movies, music, or public image. This dream can point out aspects of yourself that you like or want to express to others.
4. The Cheater
Cheating dreams seem to be the most common in this category. This dream does not mean your partner will cheat on you, but that you feel neglected or that your time and attention are given to something other than your partner. It is a wake-up call, alerting you that something is out of place in your relationship or everyday routine, so focus on reconnecting.
5. The Cheater, Reversed
Dreams of you cheating on your partner are a common dream theme. It's natural to be shocked or unsettled by these dreams. The dream represents your mind working through feelings of betrayal, imbalance, or unresolved issues.
6. Running Late
A frequent dream people report concerns being late for an event or place of enormous significance, such as a meeting, exam, or function. This dream points to stress over deadlines or "deadlines you set for yourself, even if your job isn't full of deadlines." It might reflect your anxieties about meeting self-imposed expectations or personal goals and may reveal a great deal of pressure you are placing on yourself.
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7. Expecting
One of the most common dreams pertains to expecting a child, even if you are not trying to conceive. This dream is typically a good sign, reflecting growth and development within you. It can represent ideas, projects, or opportunities that are growing inside you and about to be born.
8. Falling
One of the most frequently occurring dreams is of standing on a cliff edge and falling over into empty space. Falling dreams often indicate "emotions of a loss of control, being overwhelmed or insecure in our waking life." It is also dependent on the specifics and associations of the dream and is different for each dreamer.
9. Loss of Voice
Frequently, people have dreams of not being able to call or shout for help because they have lost their voice. This could be associated with natural sleep paralysis, a temporary paralysis that naturally occurs during REM sleep to stop the body from moving. There may be some comfort in how common of a dream this is for people.
10. Feeling Exposed
A frequent dream is about being exposed in a public situation. Waking up in such a dream can lead to embarrassment or shame. Being naked may indicate vulnerability, exposure, or fear of criticism in real life. But if the dreamer is at ease or feels attractive, it can represent the need to be seen, noticed, or admired.
11. Falling Teeth
One familiar dream is when your teeth just fall out of your mouth. This can be jarring and disconcerting to experience in a dream. It can represent anxiety, concerns around competence, strength or personal power, and a sense of vulnerability.
12. Being Chased
One of the most frequent types of dreams is the dream of being chased. This type of dream tends to be urgent or scary. A monster might be a fear, addiction, or an unresolved issue in your life, but if it's someone you know, it could represent a trait or emotion that you connect with that person.
13. You’re In Charge
A frequent dream is of the dreamer as CEO of a large corporation, as president of a country, as queen, as a religious figure, or in another position of power and control. Such dreams are not so much "symptoms of grandiosity," as they may seem to the dreamer, but compensations for the dreamer's actual experience of powerlessness. So when you’re having one of these, you might as well enjoy it.
14. The Wave
The dream of a tidal wave rushing at you while you are on the beach is one frequently experienced. This dream may represent a feeling of being flooded with emotion or otherwise beset by pressures that seem too great for you to handle and that threaten to overwhelm your state of mind and your daily life. It may warn you that you are attempting to ignore strong feelings that must be faced.
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15. Missed Exam
A classic nightmare is one in which you find out that you have an exam that you have completely missed. The kicker is that this exam is the most important one of all, and you have graduated from school years ago. Exams and tests in your dreams are about being judged or having to perform in some way. When you miss these exams in your dreams, it is usually some type of anxiety about being evaluated or not feeling good enough.
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16. Forgot to Study
A very popular form of the dream is showing up for a test on time, yet knowing or finding out that you never studied or prepared for it. This dream represents the sentiment of being judged or tested in life while awake and forewarns an approaching test you feel unprepared for. Anxiety over the event is greater, and the consequent level of alertness may be a subconscious attempt at increasing vigilance.
17. Jail Time
This dream involves you waking up and finding yourself in jail. You are trapped and restricted, even though in your conscious life you were doing your best. It may be due to a feeling of not being free to do as you wish. In your everyday life, you might feel as though something or someone is holding you back or restricting you.
18. An Old Friend
A typical dream of this nature would involve an old friend. While the old friend may be comforting to see in a dream, it also highlights the past and can lead you to think about certain memories or a quality that you attribute to the friend. It could be trying to tell you to bring some of those positive characteristics or things you learned in the past into your current life.
19. Back Home
Another type of dream is about going back to the house you grew up in, even if you haven't been back there for years. This dream isn't about the house itself, but rather about your old self and what your life was like at that point in time. It could be asking you to reconnect with the qualities, experiences, or aspects of yourself from the past that can help enrich your life now.
20. Lost Phone
One of the most common dreams is when your phone is lost and you can't find it, even though you're usually not actually panicked that your phone is lost in real life. Phones are tied very closely to our identities, so if your phone is lost, it could mean you are losing your identity or you can't find one yet.
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