Lily Briscoe

Okay, I hope this doesn't freak anybody out, but last night I had a dream that someone in our class died. I don't want to say who, because that would just make that person uncomfortable. Anyway, I dreamed that I was on the blogs when I read a posting that this person died. I was completely shocked and saddened. Everyone was posting comments about how he or she would be missed and how awful the whole situation was. I don't recall exactly how this person died, but someone on the blog mentioned that he or she had a smoking habit. Another blogger said something about our honors exam: "We shouldn't postpone the honors exam. He/She would have wanted us to move forward." In waking life, I do wish that the honors exam would be moved to a later date. That's what I really think the dream is about. It is less about a classmate dying and more about how the honors exam is causing me anxiety.

What is it about teeth dreams? Why do so many people have them? What’s so damn special about teeth? Why don’t people commonly dream about their eyelids or fingernails?
I’ve had my share of teeth dreams. A lot of people report that their teeth fall off, but in my dreams, I pull mine out.

Here’s one I had a few days ago:
I feel a dull ache from one of my teeth. My gums are inflamed and sore. The tooth feels chipped and crumbly, so I decide to get it over with and yank it out myself. I tug at my tooth in slow, smooth movements, but it’s not working so well. Finally, after a long time of pulling, the tooth starts to come out. But it’s a lot longer than I thought. When I finally get the tooth out of my aching gums, I realize that it’s the size of a sabretooth!
I stare at it in horror, feeling like a freak and that I’ve disfigured myself. The pain has subsided, but I know that I’ve got to see a dentist and it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Before 9-11, I used to have strange dreams, but they never really involved anything on a catastrophic level.
But since then, I’ve had several dreams that were apocalyptic in nature: bombings, warfare, mass death. Is it just psychological, a reflection of latent paranoia, or is my brain reacting to what I’ve observed about current violent events by taking the content and images and replaying them during dreams?

Here’s just one example. I’m in bed, trying to get to sleep. Opposite to my bed is a window. The shades are up. In waking life, planes fly over all the time. I’ve lived here most of my life so I’m used to the noise. I can even see the planes through that window sometimes. In the dream, I’m looking out the window when I see a plane approaching. It looks like it’s on a direct course to my window, and as it comes closer and closer I scream because it’s going to crash into the house. But at the last second, the plane flies off. But before I draw a sigh of relief, I see lights in the distance moving steadily towards me. I freak out, because they’re going to crash into the house or drop a bomb on us.

I run downstairs, as if I won’t be hurt if I’m not in my bedroom. After a while downstairs, panicking with the rest of my family, there is a huge explosion. I run upstairs to my room to see what’s happened. My window and part of the wall is completely blown off. Other than that, the damage is minimal. But the explosion has set a fire, which starts to spread rapidly. I grab some of my things and run out.

The rest of my family has already gathered outside. We’re going to get in our car and drive somewhere safe. Our neighbors have already started packing their things and loading them into vehicles.