Dreams of Loss of Teeth Symbolizing Aging and Disintegration

There are surprisingly few publications commenting on dreams of loss of teeth symbolizing fear of or concern about aging. This writer is encountering such occurrences and now supplies case data illustrating this interpretation and associated meanings. Crumbling of teeth concurrent with total loss in dreams is also discussed as well as the nature of problems and conflicts underlying the sense of disintegration for some patients.

Ernest Jones (1955) described three separate courses of lectures delivered by Freud in two winter sessions of 1915-1917. They were published in book form in several editions and translations. Jones wrote the preface to Joan Riviere's English translation, and A General Introduction To Psychoanalysis, “a faithful and exact rendering” of the original writing of Freud, included the following statement: “A particularly remarkable dream-symbol is the falling out or extraction of teeth; the primary significance of this is certainly castration as a punishment for onanism” (Freud, 1943). The castration interpretation was in vogue for decades, but additional and at times more significant meanings come to the fore in the study of patients presenting dreams of loss of teeth.

Ward, Beck, and Rasco studied the literature on typical dreams (1961). Something happening to teeth was one of seventeen categories, and many meanings of these dreams were offered. Only one report was listed for fear of growing old (Schneck, 1956). The paucity of contributions pertaining to dreams of loss of teeth symbolizing fear of aging is surprising. The present writer encounters