Coughing up ants

This should be easy enough to interpret but I can't quite get it.

I only recall a small fragment of it, and even that only because I told myself while dreaming, I gotta remember this and figure out what it means.

I was coughing and suddenly I was coughing up ants. I was just above a sandy floor and they just kept going forward in a straight line after I "puked" them out. It felt like they were coming out of my throat, nothing about my gut or anything like it. Just originating from the throat and I coughed them out, and they were still alive and just continued on walking in a straight line on the quadrant of sand right in front of me. The ants were brownish-reddish in color, normal slightly transparent ants, not exactly as tiny as they normally are but not too large either.

Unfortunately I can't remember anything else. I know I'd been talking to someone prior to the coughing, and it might've been triggered by that, but that's all.

Any help interpreting this is more than appreciated.

Blech, I remember having a dream like that except they were bees.
Maybe it's about you trying to get rid of something that's harming your well-being? Maybe there's something bothering you that you really want to get off your chest?

In the dream, how did you feel about the ants? Disgusted? Intrigued? Indifferent? How you felt about the ants I think will hold clues as to the meaning of the dream.

Just.. like you cough something out, something that's scratching in your throat, getting rid of it. Clearing your throat. I have a fairly tumultuous situation in life, most of it related to work that's spread over various different projects. It is filled with a lot of uncertainty, and I've had a lot of bad times in the near past.

How I felt about the ants.. It's hard to recall, I usually try and focus on exactly that in dreams because it does hold the best clues, but this time I'm not sure if I felt anything but mild surprise at the fact that they were ants. The weird thing was that they kept walking in a straight line once I coughed them out. That might be a clue. Oh, and there was sand, I dreamed of sand last night as well, might be significant. Sand is.. beach, which is near the sea. Hot. But also maybe hourglass sand.

I looked over a lot of interpretations and meanings for ants but nothing seems to fit. The throat is probably of importance, whatever it signifies might be going through a period of cleansing. So I'm guessing you're not too far off, Puffin.

Ants are supposed to symbolize hard working, and orderliness but also imposed order. But I can't really connect any of it meaningfully with what's going on in my life.

Anyway, thank you both for trying to help.