Dream readers have been at this for thousands of years and have never agreed. Some treat a dream image as a fixed symbol, some as a part of the dreamer, and some as a message that only means something to the person who had it. These entries give each school's reading and say which school it is.
Dream readers have linked losing teeth to anxiety, to loss and to a person's family. The oldest surviving dream book reads teeth as the members of a household. Freud tied it to the body and to sex, and Jung's school would start by asking what teeth mean to you.
A falling dream is read as a loss of control or footing in most traditions that read dreams at all. A reading is only as specific as what the falling felt like to the dreamer, and where it ended.
Being chased is among the most commonly reported dream themes in surveys. In a Jungian reading, the pursuer is sometimes treated as a part of yourself you would rather not face. Older traditions read pursuit as a consequence catching up with someone.
Water in a dream is most often read as the emotional or unconscious side of life. In scripture it is both the chaos of the flood and the water of cleansing. In Islamic dream books, how clear the water is often changes the reading.
Snakes carry some of the most opposed meanings of any dream image. They are a symbol of healing in Greek medicine, of temptation in the Christian story of Eden, of the instinctive side of the mind in Jungian reading, and of sexuality in Freud.
Dreams of facing a test unprepared are among the most common anxiety dreams. Freud read them as reassurance, pointing to exams you have already passed. Jungian analysts look at what is being tested in your life now.
Dream traditions disagree about flying dreams. Freud tied them to childhood pleasure in being lifted and, in his later reading, to sexual excitement. Jungian analysts read them as an image that depends on how the flight felt and what the dreamer was rising above.
