Dreams of falling are sometimes “followed” by a terrified awakening. In reality it is the awakening due to some physical stimulus, noise, light, pain, etc., which is followed by a falling dream. The dream in that case is symbolical of the act of awaking.
The anxiety is the natural displeasure felt by the dreamer when suddenly compelled to pass from dreamland into reality. This symbolism is rather apt, for the awakening lowers us from the free and irresponsible estate of the dream creature to the slavery entailed by leading a real life. We fall from the heights of our dreams to the depths of reality.
At times, the dreamer has the impression of being mangled or killed as a result of that fall.
Death is again a powerful symbol indicative of the dreamer’s attitude. He feels he is dying when compelled to return to reality. Such a type is more dangerously attached to his fiction than the one who only resents awaking as a diminution of his ego and power.
Dreams of falling teeth may be symbolical of unconscious onanistic tendencies. The slang of many languages has established a connection which cannot be casual between the pulling of teeth and sexual self-gratification.
In dreams in which teeth grow again in the dreamer’s mouth we may see a return to childish attitudes and memories of the years when the first teeth fell out and were replaced by stronger ones. An optimistic attitude, if somewhat regressive.
When a certain tooth or group of teeth keeps on recurring in dream pictures, an X-ray examination of the entire denture should be made. I have observed several cases in which such dreams revealed the presence of root abscesses causing absolutely no conscious irritation and only felt unconsciously. Those dreams were both a warning and a wish-fulfilment (painless extraction).
Dreams of nakedness, like dreams of flying, seem to express one of mankind’s cravings, freedom from clothes. In the Earthly Paradise, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed; all the gods and goddesses of the ancient religions were unclothed; even in our days academic sculptors represent modern heroes naked. Painters and sculptors of all epochs have been inclined to glorify the nude in their works.
It is quite unnecessary to construct such dreams as a return to infantilism, as a regression, as the Freudians generally do.
The attitude of the onlookers in those dreams contains a very obvious form of wish-fulfilment: whether we sit at a banquet or walk across a drawing room or appear on a street naked or half unclothed, no one seems to notice us. We generally try to hide or to drape ourselves in as dignified a manner as possible in whatever scanty garments we retain, but the anxiety is all on our side.