📕 Part 1: Dreams

This episode's vocabulary

Vivid detail (phrase) – clear, powerful, and detailed images in the mind. → I rarely remember my dreams in vivid detail.

Super rare (adjective phrase) – extremely uncommon. → It's super rare for me to remember what I dreamt about.

Nightmare (noun) – a frightening or unpleasant dream. → Sometimes I have bad nightmares.

Lucid dream (noun) – a dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. → I used to have lucid dreams where I realized I was dreaming and could do what I liked.

Subconsciously (adverb) – in a way that is influenced by the part of your mind that you are not fully aware of. → Dreams might show you things you are subconsciously stressed about.

Full-blown conversation (noun phrase) – a long, detailed, and serious conversation. → I don't remember enough interesting details to have a full-blown conversation about my dreams.

Recall (noun) – the ability to remember things. → My friends obviously have better recall than I do.

Urban legend (noun) – a story or piece of information circulated as though true, especially one that is humorous or horrific. → The idea that cheese gives you vivid dreams could just be an urban legend.

Keep something to oneself (idiom) – to not tell anyone about something. → I often see strange dreams, and I keep them to myself.

Recall (verb) – to bring a fact, event, or situation back into one's mind; to remember. → I can recall the most interesting dreams and discuss them with my friends.

Dreadful (adjective) – causing or involving great suffering, fear, or unhappiness; extremely bad or serious. → I remember three horrible, dreadful nightmares from my life.

White noise (noun) – meaningless or distracting background noise or information. → The dream could just be random white noise from your brain relaxing.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Do you often have dreams?

Rory: I suppose I must do, but I rarely remember them in vivid detail, to be honest. I think it's, well, that's normal, but it could also be just because my memory isn't that great.

Maria: Can you remember the dreams you had?

Rory: Like I said, that is super rare. It's only if they're very weird ones, like the ones you have when you eat too much cheese or even bad nightmares. In the past, I used to have lucid dreams where I realized I was dreaming and I could do what I liked. They always started with bouncing on a trampoline and then I could work out that I could just bounce higher and higher until I could fly. And those were always really fun.

Maria: Do dreams have special meanings?

Rory: I think I've read once that dreams were your brain processing information. So maybe they could be showing you things that you missed or are subconsciously stressed about in an effort to try and deal with the issue. I don't know much about human psychology, though, so that could just be random white noise and images from your brain relaxing, for all I know.

Maria: Do you share your dreams with others?

Rory: Not often, really. But then I don't usually remember anything that's interesting enough to have a full-blown conversation about. It's funny, though, because my friends do it all the time. They even have a group chat for that kind of thing where they talk about the things they've seen and done. They obviously have better recall or more interesting brains than I do.

Discussion

Maria: So, dear listener, dreams. So, Rory, how do we use this word, dreams? I see dreams, I dream about, I have dreams.

Rory: All of it. If you have dreams, then you have the experience, but if you see your dreams, then obviously you talk about what you can see or you remember seeing when you have dreams.

Maria: Can I say, I usually dream about something?

Rory: It could be. Yeah. Although, do people usually dream about the same things?

Maria: I sometimes have dreams. I see different people in my dreams. I dream about something strange, yeah?

Rory: The topic that you, or the subject that you dream about.

Maria: Yeah, but sometimes, people have, for example, one thing that they often see in their dreams. As for me, I often dream that I fly. Seriously, I don't have wings, but I have my arms instead of wings and with my arms I kind of, I fly around. Landscapes change. I can fly inside a building, in my flat, for example, or outside, with beautiful nature, or between countries as well.

Rory: Oh, what a cheap way to travel.

Maria: I fly in my dreams. What about you, dear listener? Have you ever flown in your dreams? So, you can say, I rarely have dreams. Rarely, hardly ever, almost never. Or I often have dreams. I often dream about something. But I don't remember my dreams in vivid detail.

Rory: But that just means in a lot of detail, like you would see a picture almost, you could describe it that clearly.

Maria: If we have a vivid description, it's clear, powerful with very detailed images. For example, I have a very vivid imagination. I can imagine all little details. And you can say, my memory isn't that great. My memory is bad. My memory isn't that great, so I don't remember my dreams.

Rory: I think most people don't remember their dreams though. If anyone wants to disagree with me, then they can, but I think they don't really, do they?

Maria: No, actually, I often remember my dreams. The minutes you get up, you usually kind of remember the main idea, but then it just disappears. Or maybe, dear listener, you never see dreams. I don't know. I might see dreams, but I just don't remember.

Rory: Maybe you don't want to remember. It's too spooky.

Maria: What do we call a bad dream?

Rory: A nightmare.

Maria: Yeah. Sometimes I have bad nightmares. Or I never have nightmares.

Rory: Have you ever had a nightmare?

Maria: Oh, yeah, a couple of times. And they were dreadful. I never have nightmares, but I've had, I remember three horrible nightmares, but if I have one, if I have a nightmare, it's really bad. I scream, I just wake up screaming like this. Like in a movie. Oh yeah, it's just, wow. Right. So, dear listener, if you never remember your dreams, you can say it's super rare. Very rare. Rare, almost never. Can you remember your dreams? It's super rare. Or I rarely remember my dreams. I hardly ever remember my dreams. I almost never remember my dreams. Rory, here you started talking about cheese. Cheese, like yum, yum, yum, cheese, why?

Rory: Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's just an urban legend, but some people have said to me that they remember having weird dreams after they eat too much cheese or after they eat cheese.

Maria: Interesting.

Rory: If you Google it, cheese dreams.

Maria: Okay, so if you go to McDonald's and you eat a lot of McDonald's before going to bed, you'll have beautiful dreams, right?

Rory: I don't know if, I don't know. But hold on, if I type in cheese dreams on the internet, on internet.com, a cheese dream. Yeah, so there's an article on the BBC, does cheese give you vivid dreams?

Maria: Wow.

Rory: But it could be an urban legend.

Maria: An urban legend is a myth. They say, if you eat meat before going to bed, you will also have bad dreams.

Rory: Is it?

Maria: Yeah, because it takes time to digest meat and your body is working while you're sleeping and you might have some bad dreams and your sleep will be disturbed.

Maria: Rory mentioned a specific term, lucid dream. From psychology. So, a lucid dream is a dream in which the person who is dreaming is asleep, but they know that they are dreaming. So you can say, I sometimes have lucid dreams. Or I've had lucid dreams before. That was fun. And Rory told us, I realized I was dreaming. So I was sleeping, I realized I was dreaming and I could do what I liked.

Rory: Well, I could do what I liked and I chose to fly.

Maria: Ah, good choice, yeah. Yeah, I like my flying dreams.

Rory: It's pretty cool when you realize this. It seldom happens these days, but...

Maria: Not after cheese. So, dear listener, you can kind of run an experiment. Eat cheese, go to sleep and then go to Rory's Instagram and tell Rory if you had some interesting dreams.

Rory: Tell Maria, too.

Maria: Cheesy dreams. Some people think that dreams have special meanings. Oh, I saw a frog in my dream. What does it mean, doctor? Ooh, a frog is a lucky thing to see. Or maybe a snake. Actually, I saw snakes in my dreams a couple of times. Once a green snake, a yellow snake. And a couple of times I saw teeth.

Rory: Oh, wow. Do you ever have the dream where your teeth are falling out?

Maria: Yeah, yeah, with blood. Pretty disgusting, yeah.

Rory: That's crazy, isn't it?

Maria: Yeah, yeah. And sometimes actually it's a good sign. Depending if you had pain, and if you had blood. Yeah, if it wasn't painful, if, okay, teeth fell out, but it was okay. I was happy. So yeah, it could be something good.

Rory: But I was thrilled that my teeth fell out.

Maria: Yeah, dear listener, so we can say, yeah, I think that dreams have meanings. And our dreams can show us things that we are missing. Right, so we don't understand something and my dreams show me these things. So my subconsciousness, okay? Rory, what is subconsciousness?

Rory: Oh God. Okay. So grossly overgeneralizing, if you are an expert in human psychology, please do not kill me. So, consciousness is the thing that you are aware of when you are thinking and in control of your thoughts. Subconscious is something that is under this. It's things that we don't actively think about, but they influence our decisions and our thoughts. So you might subconsciously be stressed out, and in your dreams that shows up with a nightmare, for example.

Maria: Yeah, sorry, I said the wrong word, subconscious, dear listener, yeah, we call it subconscious. My subconscious. The part of my mind that notices and remembers information that you may not realize. So it's deep within my subconscious. And we can say, on the subconscious level. On the level that we may not realize ourselves, but it's just there. So you are generally happy, everything's fine, but deep inside...

Rory: Deep inside, you are miserable.

Maria: Yeah, well, that's true. And then you bury it deep down. Right? So my subconscious. And we can say that our people's subconscious shows us different dreams. Then, dear listener, you can say, I don't know much about human psychology, right? I don't know. I have no idea. I'm not a psychologist. You should ask Dr. Freud.

Rory: I was practicing these questions with one of my students, and actually this came up in her test, but when she was talking to me, she talked about cognitive functions.

Maria: Ooh.

Rory: But that's things that we use when we are thinking.

Maria: According to Google, dreams often have personal significance, because our brain process emotions, our brain works with emotions, memories. I often share my dreams with my friends or I never share dreams with others because some dreams could be weird. So you can say, I often see strange dreams and I keep them to myself. So I just never talk about them.

Rory: But some people have a group chat for this.

Maria: Really?

Rory: I mean, I don't think that's a very common occurrence, but it was something weird I found out recently, so I thought I would share.

Maria: So you can say that I don't remember my dreams, so I can't have a full-blown conversation about it. A full-blown conversation. So pretty much I can't say much about my dreams. That's why I can't have a conversation about this topic. But when I see my parents in my dreams, when I see my friends in my dreams, I can tell them that, oh, I, and how do I say it? I dreamt about you, or I saw you in my dream?

Rory: Well, it could be both, really. And that describes the same idea.

Maria: Rory, I saw you in my dream. You were flying. Hm. Okay. Oh, Rory, you bought me shoes in my dream. Hm, interesting.

Rory: Yes, that's how you know it was a dream because I would never do this because I am not made of money.

Maria: And if you remember your dreams, you can say, I can recall my dreams. So I can recall all my dreams, recall, remember, and I discuss the most interesting ones with my friends.

Rory: With my friends.

Maria: Great, dear listener, so we're wondering, do you remember your dreams? What's the weirdest dream that you've ever had?

Rory: And we'll get back to you in the next episode or see you in your dreams, perhaps. What a nightmare.

Maria: In a beautiful dream. No, no, no. Hopefully you'll see only nice, beautiful dreams with you speaking English, having band nines, okay? So, have a band nine dream, dear listener.

Rory: A band nine dream and a band nine day. Bye.

Maria: Bye.