The night my teeth fell off in Manila

I have this recurring nightmare that haunts me in my sleep every five years or so, and when it does, it never fails to fill my heart with Total Fear. Not a fear of death but a fear of Dental Disfigurement — and let me tell you: It is the worst kind of fear you can imagine.

For me, it is a phobia that ranks second only to my embarrassing fear of commercial airline flying — a crippling insecurity that has made long-distance traveling a dreadful human activity for me. As far as dreams go, losing all my teeth in a span of minutes is far worse than accidentally stepping over the side of a cliff, or running in place while a grizzly bear pounces on you from behind, or even the awful public humiliation of attending your first day at a new school during the peak of your own puberty and realizing everyone is laughing hysterically at you because you are stark dangling naked.

It is scary because on its face it appears simple enough to actually happen, yet shocking enough to jolt you out of bed in a sweating panic and send you to the bathroom mirror to see if all your teeth are intact. Panting heavily, you vigorously press on your pearlies to see if they are all still there, swearing on the lives of your loved ones that, over the course of your slumber, most of them, if not all of them, had unexplainably gotten so loose from your gums that they began to fall and roll around your mouth until you spat them out into the sink or the palm of your hand.

The upside of this dream, as in all dreams, is that the trauma wears off in a matter of seconds as soon as you wake up... and then it becomes a novelty, the giddy feeling you get after a rollercoaster ride. You are happy that it was all just a dream, and then you take a few minutes to appreciate just how entertaining dreams can be, how they can sometimes be the best movies you’ll ever see.

Although losing your teeth in a dream is common, some of you have never experienced it, and will not have the foggiest idea of what I am talking about — but those of you who have ... well, heh-heh, I can sense you are smiling and nodding your heads in agreement. You are not alone, my friend. We of the toothless dreams are legion. 

Holy Crap, there was a point here somewhere. Give me a second… Ah, yes, I meant to say exactly that: that these bent dreams actually have a point, they have meaning, and aren’t just random masturbations of the mind. Look it up in any standard dream book and you will find that these particular tooth-loss dreams signify a huge seismic-shift sea change in your life, a giant step and a brand new phase of being. These dreams can actually tell the future.

And, in retrospect, I find this to be true. These dreams always occurred right before a Major Change in my life. The first time I had this dream was the night before I left the Philippines and moved to San Francisco for college. The second time was shortly before my mother passed away after a long bout with cancer. The third time was two months before I moved back to the Philippines after living in the States for 10 years. The fourth time was a few days after I proposed marriage to my wife. The fifth time was a week or two before Rita found out she was pregnant. And the sixth time was last night.

So you can imagine how the tension is torturing me right now as I write this, wondering what will happen to me at any moment. The possibilities are endless. Last night confirmed that the worm is about to turn and something is going to happen. It could be good or it could be bad, but one thing is certain: It will be dramatic. Tomorrow, I will not leave the house except to buy a lottery ticket, and the rest of my paycheck will be gambled on Manny Pacquiao’s stunning defeat in the hands of that thug Marco Antonio Barrera — How’s that for change?

For all you know, things have already happened and I just haven’t felt the repercussions yet. God knows the things that go on in the Rogue loft are the stuff of twisted fiction and each hour I spend in that office is a tightrope walk without a safety net. Running a magazine is no joke, and on some days it can be a bad one — but I’d rather run through a minefield than walk through a garden of dead weeds any day. Because the scars will accumulate and lifelong friendships will be tested to the point of near-terminal hysteria, but at the end of the day you feel alive.

Well... I see I’ve not only allowed myself to drift off into awkward tangents, but have also completely ignored this week’s theme. But the fact is that last night’s nightmare has kept me so nervously teetering on the edge that I simply could not compel myself to write about anything else. Something big’s about to give in my life, and the suspense is almost too much to bear. I’m not sure why but I’ve already started jogging at the crack of dawn since the first of October. It’s time to eat right and get healthy, I suppose. Early to bed and early to rise and all that. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Guess we’ll have to call it a night and find out. So if you’ll excuse me I’m going to watch The Girls Next Door now. It’s Fight Night at the Playboy Mansion.