Dreaming about tongue and mouth
The commonest mouth dream is one of the most unpleasant in the database: a mouth full of something that cannot be got rid of. It sits directly beside the teeth dreams and shares their likely physical causes.
Also searched as: my mouth, mouth full, cannot spit something out, tongue in a dream, something in my mouth
The characteristic report is obstruction. A mouth full of hair, of grit, of something the dreamer cannot identify, and the specific frustration of not being able to clear it.
Dreamers frequently report reaching in and finding more, which is the same multiplying structure the teeth reports contain.
A dry mouth is a second group and is worth checking against the sleeping environment: mouth breathing, a warm room and dehydration are all plausible contributors.
Being unable to speak belongs with its own entry, which has a stronger physiological explanation, and this entry defers to it.
Common associations
- Obstruction that will not clear, the characteristic image.
- Multiplication, shared with the teeth reports.
- Dryness, where a real state may be involved.
- Speech, which has its own entry.
Positive readings
Nothing directly. The useful content is the physical checklist, which is short and worth working through.
Difficult readings
The obstruction version is genuinely horrible and dreamers describe it as more distressing than most nightmares with actual threats in them.
It is also one of the harder dreams to shake on waking, and dreamers often describe checking their mouth.
Psychological perspectives
Sensations from the mouth during sleep are readily available for incorporation: dryness, a tooth, the position of the jaw, or the tongue itself.
That account covers the dry-mouth reports well and the obstruction reports plausibly.
The multiplying structure is the general dream tendency to produce quantity without limit, which the insect, rat and teeth entries all describe. There is no counting, so there is no end to it.
Cultural and historical
The mouth carries specific significance in a great many traditions, in speech, in oath and in what may be consumed, and dietary and fasting rules make it a site of observance for many dreamers.
There is a widely circulated set of readings attaching mouth dreams to gossip or to words spoken, which is idiomatic and unsupported.
What the sleep science says
Well established: oral and somatosensory states during sleep can be incorporated into dream content.
Reasonably supported: dreams generate quantity without limit, producing the multiplying structure.
Not established: any meaning connected to speech or gossip.
Your own context
- Was your mouth dry when you woke?
- Could you identify what was in it?
- Did more keep appearing?
- Were you breathing through your mouth?
If this recurs
Log with the teeth reports. The two occur together often enough that dreamers reviewing them as one group usually find a pattern neither shows alone.
Emotions often reported
- revulsion
- panic
- disgust
- frustration
- urgency
- unease
Specific tongue and mouth dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was my mouth dry?
- What was in it, and did more keep coming?
- Was I breathing through my mouth?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
3 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Gender Differences in Dream Recall: A Meta-AnalysisPeer-reviewed research
Michael Schredl and Iris Reinhard (2008) · Journal of Sleep Research
Cited for: Dream-recall frequency as a measurable, individually stable trait, and the factors that move it.
- 2.The Typical Dreams of Canadian University StudentsPeer-reviewed research
Tore Nielsen and colleagues (2003) · Dreaming
Cited for: The cross-population consistency of "typical dream" themes (being chased, falling, teeth, flying, being unprepared for an exam) and their relative reported frequencies.
- 3.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of tongue and mouth have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- SymbolHairHair dreams cluster around change and exposure, and hair loss is the most reported of them. The image sits very close to teeth dreams, which are among the best-documented dream themes there are.
- ActionBeing unable to speak or moveBeing unable to move or make a sound is extremely common, and it sits on the boundary between an ordinary dream and sleep paralysis. Working out which one you had is the single most useful thing this page can help with.
- ActionEatingEating is reported far less than people expect, and taste almost never. What dreamers describe is usually the situation around a meal rather than the meal, and the interruption of eating is more reported than eating itself.
- SymbolTeethTeeth falling out is one of the most reported dreams in every population studied, and one of the few where the research is genuinely interesting: it correlates with dental irritation during sleep more strongly than with any of the meanings usually offered for it.
- SymbolBack and shouldersTwo quite different things share this entry: carrying weight, which frequently tracks a real ache, and the sense of something behind you, which is the being-watched material approached from the body.
- SymbolBedThe bed is the one object a dreamer is actually touching while they dream about it, and that shows in the reports. A large share of frightening bed dreams are sleep paralysis rather than dreams about a bed.
Records that mention tongue and mouth
These pages link to tongue and mouth, either as something reported in the same dream or as a related subject. This page does not point back at all of them, so the list is assembled rather than chosen.