Loosing Teeth - Strange Recurring Dream

I have a question for anyone who's into dream interpretation. If I have this in the wrong thread, please feel free to move it, and sorry, I'm a newbie to posting in general, not just ATS...

Anyway, on to the dreams. Starting in adolecence, I started having strange recurring dreams that my teeth would literally crumble out or become loose and fall out of my mouth. It's actually a terrifyingly real sensation.

In the dreams I'm in the middle of doing something irrelevant (I can never remember) but then I go to run my tounge along the inside of my teeth and they all move forward, like when I was a little kid and had a loose tooth. I become frightened that they're so loose, and go to test them again so see how loose, and they start to just fall out one by one, with the sensation of the metallic taste of blood and the soft empty socket and everything. Only in one dream did the teeth crumble and break apart instead of falling out whole.

I've done a little reasearch, and many of the books about dream interpretation I have found suggest this teeth falling out scenerio is related in some way to death. Is this accurate? And if so, is it like the death card in the Tarot where "death" is abstract and can mean the "death" of a particular problem or relationship, and not necessarily a physical death?

I also have a recurring dream that started about 5 years ago where I'm in a car that looses control and ends up plummeting off of a cliff or bridge. The scenerio is never the same, just the sudden terror at the realization that I'm doomed and a sensation of falling. I of course seem to wake up right before impact. Sometimes I'm in a car with someone I know, and sometimes it's like I'm with strangers. The only reason I mention this one is that it usually occurs around the same time as the teeth dream.

I'm really not well versed at all with dream interpretation, so I wanted to see if anyone else had any thoughts about this specific dream scenerio. I've only ever met one other person who has had a similar dream, but that person only had it once.

I never have these dreams very frequently, it's always a long stretch of time inbetween. I've had people suggest it's due to stress, and granted I'm usually under a tremendous amount, but I tried to pay attention to the last one and it wasn't a time of excess stress or worry that I could detect...

(And by the way, my teeth are actually in good condition according to the dentist! I never even needed braces or anything like that...)

Just about everyone has dreams about loosing teeth. It is often associated with a loss of control in your life.

Yeah, I've I had dreams like this before myself. But its always the same tooth. (My right tooth between my canine and my big tooth) It feels very real as well, I think this always happens cause I have fears of losing that tooth cause its the smallest. I also think it just has something to do with adolescence, growing up.

It is a fear of death, not death itself.