It’s not uncommon for toddlers to temporarily have two rows of teeth protruding from their gums. It comes about, evidently, by the adult teeth emerging whilst the baby teeth are still there. However, instead of the adult teeth growing in the same place as the baby teeth – effectively causing the baby teeth to fall out – they start to grow either slightly in front of or slightly behind them.
The phenomenon isn’t as common in adults, although a quick Google Images search for “two rows of teeth” is enough to provide evidence of rare cases and, as it turns out, cause my stomach to jolt and the back of my throats to gag. I’m not great when it comes to dental matters.
My reasoning for dwelling on such a topic in the first place comes courtesy of my own brain (once again) seemingly conspiring against me, only this time under the vulnerable cover of sleep. I very rarely dream and in the rare occasions I do, the dreams are incoherent, fleeting and interspersed with ‘SCENE MISSING’ title cards.
A few nights ago, I dreamt of seeing inside my own mouth (most likely in a mirror, although why unconscious-me was looking in a mirror in the first place is an unknown mystery that only a psychiatrist of the ego could shed light on), where I looked upon the bottom row of teeth to see a second identical row of teeth just behind it. Somewhat fascinated and grossed out by this, unconscious-me ran his tongue along the top edges of the bottom teeth – a move that real-physical-me must’ve mimicked while sleeping – and strangely only felt one row.
My brain, trying to make sense of the mis-match of information between hard physical feeling and a bizarre image it arbitrarily decided to conjure up, must’ve set to work redrawing that image to make better sense of it. My dreamy-time view then appeared to show some kind of plastic tags stuck to each tooth, mimicking the view of a double row. It gets harder to describe this because the dream-state becomes hazy and the test card with the girl playing noughts-and-crosses with the clown puppet starts to materialise.
What followed was an entire day of me continuously checking all my teeth with my tongue to make sure that (a) there really is only one row of them, and (b) there isn’t anything stuck to them or some inexplicable off-shoot of extra enamel protruding out of the sides of each tooth. On top of this, I’ve checked inside my gob every time I’ve been near a mirror and arbitrarily gnashed my teeth together on occasion just to make sure everything is as it should be.
Needless to say, I’m fully aware that my teeth are – as they have always been – single-rowed. But that hasn’t stopped the false image in my mind from playing tricks. Just when I think I’m safe, I feel a bizarre tingling in my gums and have the sudden urge to check again, you know, just in case.
The mind is a horrible thing, still able to play tricks on you even though you’re fully aware of the truth and unlikely to be fooled. Need I even draw the parallel to depression? But I’m currently wondering why it’s decided to focus on my teeth recently. They’re not even my best feature, all cream-coloured, crowded and occasionally pointing in different directions.
I never had braces. The idea of sticking bits of metal and several wires in there seemed nothing short of horrifying, as well as a bit unsightly. One night as a teenager I dreamt that, despite my wishes, my mother and a villainesque caricature of a sadistic dentist had decided to put fixed braces on my teeth in my sleep without my prior knowledge or consent. In a similar fashion to recent events, I resolved to check my teeth several times with my tongue and relied on visual inspections in a mirror before the nightmare trauma could be extinguished.
In recent years, it took me over a year and a half to visit a qualified dental practitioner to get a filling. That was over a year ago now and I haven’t been for a check-up since. I know it’s stupid to have an irrational fear of dentists and, to be honest, I don’t really consider myself to have such a fear at all. Although I do find the idea of somebody operating inside the mouth, specifically on teeth, to be fairly uncomfortable. Even the idea of teeth-related obscurities seem to make me uneasy, as if I needed to remind you of my almost-gagging response to the sight of a human shark-mouth.
I’m getting to a point where my rogue psyche is making me turn against my mind, as if I needed more parts of my body to hate. But I’m not sure whether I’ll ever despise my mind as much as freakish teeth-related phenomena. Besides, my brain wouldn’t let me hate my brain that much.
Back in the day, Paramore’s brand of black, white and (I suppose) orange teenaged angst and sense of rebelliousness felt cool. Now I’m staring 28 in the face and yet the band still seem to appeal to the teenage demographic, albeit a demographic that’s since moved away from long hair and moody darkened clothing towards Snapchat stories and ironic, coloured-rimmed, oversized sunglasses.
That said, waves of nostalgia have a tendency to crash over me with such a strong effect that I simply can’t not include this. Hearing the same voice again after such a long time has proven to be just another in a long line of throwbacks this generation seems to be hellbent on, like the revival of The Crystal Maze and the fact that modernised reworkings of the original Crash Bandicoot games are very nearly mine for the playing.
Paramore – Hard Times
Jamie Walsh 
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