Dissection of a dream

I have this recurring dream where I'm standing in a shallow stream. Pristine water flows past me, cooling my toes. The stream bed is the smoothest, sparkliest pink granite you've ever seen. My pants are rolled up and I'm leaning over, hands underwater, feeling the flow. I pick up a beautiful pink stone. I look at it and the mica shines in the sunlight. When I look again, it's still a pink stone, but it's in the shape of a tooth and I realize that I have lost one.

This stream actually exists, though there's no pink granite, but instead fine, sparkly sand. It runs through Helen, Georgia, unless I'm completely misremembering.

When I was a kid, my grandparents would take me on weekend trips to the Smoky Mountains. We'd go to Helen, or to Bryson City, North Carolina, or wherever. We'd drive up to see the leaves in the fall, or to some small town festival in the spring. Most often, we'd go wherever there was an open-air Gospel singing going on. My grandparents were big fans of a Sunday morning show called Gospel Singing Jubilee. My grandmother loved The Inspirations, The Florida Boys, The Happy Goodmans, and anyone else who sang old time Southern Gospel. She kept a picture frame with a photo of The Inspirations on her dresser, along with a picture of her brother dressed in his military uniform. Sometimes we'd play her Gospel records in the living room, singing together and clapping in time to the music.

One day when I was around 6 years old, we were in Helen, strolling through the shops. My grandmother was buying some souvenir or other and I noticed one of those little boxes that holds those birthstone rings by the cash register. I had to have one. I loved my little topaz ring - for about five minutes. Soon after, I waded into the middle of that shallow stream to cool off, leaned over to touch the fine sand, and watched my new topaz ring float right off my finger. I looked and looked for it, but it was a gold band with a yellowy-brown stone - pretty much the same color as the sparkling sand. It was gone. I asked for another - it seemed so unfair to lose it like that and I knew it was cheap - but they refused. My grandparents didn't reward carelessness.

I've long wondered about the origins of my dream. I recognized the stream and the idea of a loss occurring there, but I couldn't understand - why a tooth? Looking up losing one's teeth at an online dream dictionary, it mentioned health problems on the horizon and having your words coming back to bite you in the butt. I don't put much stock in dream dictionaries.

Last night I realized that the key is the color pink and that the dream doesn't signify one loss, but two.

On another trip to the mountains, my grandparents bought me some cotton candy from a street vendor, and at the first bite something felt strange. When I looked at the pink spun sugar, I realized there was a tooth in it. It was one of my front teeth - I hadn't even realized it was loose. That was the easiest tooth I ever lost, no pain and no blood. We laughed about it and I wrapped it in one of Grandmama's silver Juicy Fruit wrappers to take home and put under my pillow.

Seems so simple now: pink cotton candy = pink granite. Mystery solved. I wonder now if I'll ever bother to have the dream again. Doubt it.

***

Come back tomorrow for my first giveway - my favorite book from when I was a kid...

Comments

[Julia @ Hooked on Houses]

I'm always fascinated by dreams, especially recurring ones. For years I kept dream notebooks to jot down things that seemed significant, or that puzzled me from dreams I'd had, so I found this really interesting!

My daughter has a loose tooth right now and is terrified of losing it. Maybe I'll buy her some cotton candy...

[maya]

well i'm sure she'd like the cotton candy, but i can't vouch for it as a reliable method of pulling loose teeth. it doesn't hurt to try, though. :)

i have pretty vivid dreams. sometimes that's really cool, but sometimes not. so. much.

[Amy]

You've got me thinking about all the recurring dreams I've had in my life. It's true that once I figure it out - I never dream it again. Sometimes it's a loss. Sometimes it's a blessing.

[shelli]

This is a beautiful post, and Maya, I remember driving with you up to Helen once and passing that stream, and maybe I'm just imagining this, but I think you told me about losing your ring! We took some pictures of the autumn leaves too. Once I came across a photo I took of you, but gosh I don't know where it is now...

[maya]

i remember that day, shelli! i wonder where my photos are... we should've done more stuff like that, don't you think?

[Uncle]

Dreams are usually more symbolic than simply remembering. The symbols can be exceptionally personal, or culturally near universal.

Sand and a stream seem like obvious symbols of time passing. You are still within the moving water, you are constant, experiencing things as they go by. You are an observer who suddenly finds herself with... a pink stone.

Pink can symbolize a girl (especially a baby girl, ahem), or femininity, or a loving relationship, or whatever you associate with it. A stone could easily mean permanence.

Losing a tooth, or teeth, is a common theme in a lot of people's dreams. It usually symbolizes the sorts of feelings you had when you were losing your teeth as a child (especially early on). For some it means excitement, optimism about the future, out with the old; for others it means frustration, difficulty communicating, confusion. For most, I imagine, it's an odd mix of both.

Recurring dreams are usually born from anxiety. After all, the deepest regions of your mind don't often go out of their way to remind you that "everything's great" even when it is.

To take a wild guess, I'd say this dream is more about your view of your daughter's childhood than your own: Time brings new experiences your way (the stream), and now you find yourself with a daughter (a beautiful pink stone). Your focus shifts from the passing of time to your daughter and now you find that in your grasp is all the excitement and optimism that comes with having a daughter, as well as the frustration and difficulties (the pink tooth).

[Christina]

oh my the teeth losing dreams are the scariest worse than real nightmares. ha ha I eventually had to read up on them too they were so frequent. And then finally I lost my crown biting into an Oscar Meyer in front of my soon to be inlaws... oh reality. I haven't had a dream sense. Probably tonight. I love your dream though. Much more significant. *)