Yes, it was just a dream. But knowing this doesn’t stop you from tapping your teeth to make sure they are all there, and throughout the day whenever you glance in the mirror you can’t help but feel reassured to see your teeth intact. The dream felt so real. What did it mean? Should you visit your dentist? No, your teeth are in great shape because you visited your dentist a month ago after having the same dream. So, why are you having this dream yet again?

Teeth falling out is one of the most common dreams people have, so there has to be some kind of meaning to it. The great majority of dreams are as unique as the person who dreams them but certain dreams come up time and time again. Here are nine of the most common dreams we have and the psychological reasoning behind them.

9 Common Dreams and Their Meanings

1. Naked

In this extremely common dream, you are with a group of people and suddenly you realise you are the only person who is not wearing anything. You are completely naked. This dream suggests that you are feeling exposed and vulnerable in your waking life; you need to protect yourself. A flip side interpretation is that your subconscious is urging you towards greater self-expression or the freedom to be more honest in your relationships.

2. Losing Teeth

Teeth are a symbol of dominance and power in the animal kingdom, so this dream could suggest low self-esteem or confidence. You have lost your mojo and your dreaming mind wants you to enjoy being you again. Alternatively, as loss of baby teeth is a sign of growing up, this dream could also suggest fear of ageing or the need to let go of the past in some way to move forward.

3. Taking an Examination

Chances are you have had a dream where you are about to take a test or examination or are actually taking it. The simplest explanation is that you are stressed out with your work or studies, but it could also indicate that you need to keep on top of things and stay alert. You could be missing things out and not paying enough attention to important details.

4. Flying

This exhilarating dream occurs when you are quite literally feeling high—with joy. Your dreaming mind wants you to savour the moment while it lasts. If, however, your waking life is anything but joyful then flying dreams are urging you to detach from your problems, spread metaphorical wings and let go of self-imposed limitations so you can see the bigger picture.

5. Falling

Dreaming of falling from a great height suggests you are frightened of failing or are feeling insecure and unsupported in some way. Your dreaming mind is urging you to deal with the issues that are overwhelming you. Closely associated with falling is the dream of drowning. Drowning also suggests a sense of crisis or feeling overwhelmed; an indication that you are metaphorically drowned by the circumstances in your waking life.

6. Running away or being  chased

Either you are feeling threatened in some way in your waking life, or your dreaming mind is trying to get you to face an issue or problem that has been holding you back. Dreams of being lost have a fairly similar meaning in that they also suggest you are feeling confused and aren’t sure which way to turn in your waking life. Your subconscious wants you to find a direction, a solution.

7. Death

More a nightmare, many people worry that dreams of themselves or their loved ones dying may come true in real life. Rest assured this is not the case as dreams are symbolic and do not predict the future. If someone you know in a dream dies, or is dead, this means that the part of yourself or the situation that person represents is dead, or needs to die. If you are the dying person, your dreaming mind is urging you to make changes, let go of old ways or one stage in your life and take a new path. So this is very much an “out with the old, in with the new” dream interpretation.

8. Arriving late and car out of control!

Your dreaming mind is telling you that you are unprepared or have taken on way too much. Another closely related dream is when you dream about transport difficulties or are in a vehicle that suddenly loses control. You may be the driver or the passenger but either way it is a sign that you are feeling powerless and a crash is likely if urgent changes in your waking life aren’t made soon or a bad habit isn’t corrected or brought under control. Dreams about phones or electrical appliances being faulty have a similar meaning. You need to reassess your life, take on less and focus on what really matters.

9. Sex

Typically we have sex in our dreams with people who are not our partners, or dream of our partners having sex with other people but this does not mean you are going to have an affair or that your partner is cheating. If you are having sex in your dreams—especially with someone you aren’t attracted to in real life—your subconscious is urging you to develop aspects of yourself that are hidden. What aspect of yourself does the person you have sex with in your dream represent? For example, if you dream of a celebrity, perhaps this suggests the desire for more recognition or confidence. And if you dream of your partner cheating, don’t judge or jump to conclusions. It could simply mean that your partner is devoting too much attention to something other than you: work, study, sports, a hobby, a pet and so on. It could also indicate that you are drifting apart and need to reconnect.

Amazing you

Your dreams do not predict the future or read your mind but what they can do is shine a symbolic spotlight on an area of your personality or your life that you need to resolve, develop or pay more attention to. If you listen to what your inner therapist is trying to say, you will find that every dream you have has a great deal to say about you and your life—because in your dreams absolutely everything is about YOU.

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It allows you cognisant access into the deepest niches of your mind, and the chance to guide your dreams.  In a lucid dream, you’ve not woken up—in fact, you’re still sound asleep—but a part of your brain has been reactivated [the right dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, in case you’re wondering]. The ‘waking up’ of this region, so to speak, allows you to experience the dream state consciously and with self-reflective awareness. Once you know that you are dreaming as you’re dreaming, you gain access to the most powerful virtual reality generator in existence: your mind.

I found that one of the most radical aspects of lucid dreaming is that it makes sleep enjoyable! Considering that we spend a third of our lives asleep, it completely reconfigures our relationship with sleep. Today, a large number of people refuse to go to sleep or sleep for a limited amount of time, because they believe that they should be doing other things. But lucid dreaming makes us realise that sleep is not just ‘wasted time’, as some people see it, but rather a potential training ground for psycho-spiritual growth. It is a laboratory of internal exploration that makes us more cogently aware in our waking lives too.

In fact, the term ‘lucid dreaming’ is a bit of a misnomer—it should really be called ‘conscious dreaming’, because it’s the aspect of conscious awareness that defines the experience, rather than its clarity.

Understanding what lucid dreaming isn’t

Given that there’s so much misunderstanding around what lucid dreaming actually is, it’s worth taking a moment to look at what lucid dreaming is not…

• It’s not a half-awake/half-asleep state. In a lucid dream, you are still asleep. You’re in the REM [rapid eye movement] dreaming sleep and out for the count, but part of your brain has become reactivated while you’re dreaming, allowing you to experience the dream consciously.
• It’s not just a very vivid dream. Although lucid dreams are often incredibly vivid, high-definition experiences.
• It’s not an out-of-body experience [also called astral projection]. This point is still being debated by many lucid dreaming practitioners, but as I see it, a lucid dream is happening primarily within the confines of our minds, whereas in an out-of-body experience we’ve moved beyond these boundaries.
• Lucid dreaming is a dream in which you are aware that you’re dreaming while you are still dreaming.

So why would we want to dream lucidity?

So many psychological problems have their source in the fact that we don’t know ourselves; we’re unmindful and unaware. Through lucid dreaming we get to truly know ourselves, and can become more mindfully aware in all states of day and night.

Our unconscious minds hold a wealth of wisdom—about both ourselves and the world around us. This treasure trove is rarely accessed in the waking state but once we become lucid, we gain access to a library of insight that resides in our dreaming mind. Through lucid dreaming we become conscious within the unconscious. This opens up the possibility of directly communicating with our own divine potential, and witnessing just how limitless we actually are.

The benefits of lucid dreaming

There are so many benefits to lucid dreaming but in a nutshell, once you become conscious within your unconscious mind you can [much like through hypnotherapy] make lasting changes to your body and mind while you sleep.

A few of my favourite benefits of lucid dreaming are:

• Psychological healing [phobias, trauma, confidence]
• Physical healing
• Engaging spiritual practice while you sleep
• Exploration of the unconscious mind
• Treating PSTD and nightmare integration
• Increasing and tapping into creativity
• Preparation for death and dying
• Enhanced learning and access to past memory
• Lucid living and waking up to your full potential
• Having fun [it’s the most fun you can have in your pyjamas!]

Sounds great, but how do I actually do it?

Now comes the exciting part! You can actually train yourself to have lucid dreams.

• The first step is start remembering your dreams
• Step two is to write them down as a way to learn and familiarise yourself with their content
• And step three is to start spotting patterns. Once you notice that, “Oh look, I often dream of being back at school” you can set a trigger in your mind so that next time you are back at school you think “Hey! I must be dreaming!”

Self-doubt and lucid dreaming

People often block their potential to have lucid dreams because of their self-doubt. Their misgivings make them think that they can’t have lucid dreams, or that only certain people achieve the ability to dream lucidly.

Lucid dreaming is for everybody who dreams. If you sleep, you dream, and if you dream you can lucid dream. Irrespective of where you lay your head, lucid dreaming is available to you.

It is likely that most people have already had multiple lucid dreams, even if they don’t remember them. This is because children and adolescents can lucid dream naturally, [not every night and not every child] but a majority of children experience copious lucid dreams as part of their psychological development.

The fact that children and adolescents have spontaneous lucid dreams tells us two important things: firstly, that lucid dreaming is a natural, unprompted arising of the human mind [rather than a forced imposition], and secondly that you don’t need to learn how to lucid dream, you just need to remember how.

This was first published in the January 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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