Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
I'm Connor with Polyglossa.com, and you're listening to Episode 7 of the Listening Time Podcast.
If this is your first time with us, welcome.
I'm happy to have you here.
This podcast is for English learners who want to practice their listening skills, but who still can't understand native English when it's spoken very fast or when natives are talking to each other.
So, if that's where you're at in your English journey, then this podcast should be perfect for you.
Really, this podcast is designed for people who are trying to increase their level of listening so that they can eventually listen to normal podcasts that are made for English speakers.
So hopefully, this will be a good tool to help you reach that level.
So in each episode of this podcast, I talk about different topics.
So the topics are often random, or they might be something relevant to my daily life, something I've done recently, a trip I've taken, et cetera.
And in each episode, I speak naturally.
I don't read any script.
So everything I'm saying is completely natural.
The only thing that's different is that I speak a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than native speakers usually do.
So I'm saying all the natural words and phrases that I normally say, but I'm saying them a little more clearly and a little more slowly so that you can understand better.
Also, the transcript is available for each episode.
So if you need help understanding what I'm saying, you can access the transcript and read along as I'm talking, or you can listen the first time without the transcript and then listen another time with the transcript to help you understand all those words or phrases that you missed the first time.
So in today's episode I'm going to talk about dreams and I'm going to talk about the beach to interesting topics.
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Okay, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so we're going to talk about dreams first.
When I say dreams, I'm actually referring to the things that we see, the images and stories that we see and experience when we're sleeping.
So, of course, the word dream can refer to a goal that we have, that we want to achieve in the future.
But in this podcast I'm actually talking about dreams, the dreams that you have when you're sleeping.
So this is an interesting topic for me and, I think, for many people, because most people have no idea why we dream right.
What is the purpose of having dreams?
Well, in the very little research that I've done, I found that many experts or researchers say that one of the reasons that we dream is to store or organize memories.
When we store something, that means that we put it in a safe place so that it stays there for a long time.
So if you have some sort of food, you might see on the package that it says store in the refrigerator, store in freezer or something like that.
So when I say store memories, I mean that your brain kind of puts those memories in a safe place so that it can recall them in the future.
So that seems to be one of the reasons why we dream.
And then we also dream to organize our memories.
So maybe our memories and our thoughts throughout the day are a little bit disorganized, a little bit scattered.
When I say the word scattered, I mean that the dreams are not organized in a neat order.
They're all over the place.
So if I say the boys' toys were scattered all over the floor, I'm saying the toys were unorganized and they were all in different places on the floor.
So when we dream, it seems that our brain can organize our memories so that later we might remember them better.
Kind of interesting, right?
We don't normally think of that when we think of dreams, right?
We just think of... interesting adventures or weird stories that our brain comes up with.
But really your brain might just be organizing and storing the information that you have in your brain.
So I thought that was pretty cool.
Another thing that dreams might do is they might help your brain get rid of unimportant memories.
When I say get rid of, I'm saying that your brain throws them away, deletes them, erases them.
So we say the phrase get rid of.
So your brain might get rid of certain memories when you're dreaming, because they're unimportant, right?
Your brain doesn't want to store all this unimportant information, right?
It wants to keep the most essential things, the things that are most important to remember.
So dreams might also help.
They might also help our brain do that.
And then one other thing I found is that dreams might also help us deal with complicated feelings.
So maybe we have some complicated issues in our lives and we feel many different emotions about those issues.
And so during our dreams, our brain might be able to handle or deal with complicated feelings.
When we say that we deal with something, it means that we confront some problem.
We confront some issue and maybe try to solve it or figure it out.
So our brain might be able to deal with some complicated emotions or feelings that we have when we dream.
So that's also pretty cool.
And so when I think about my own dreams, when I think about how I dream, many times I can remember my dream right when I wake up, but then throughout the day.
At some point I kind of start to forget what I dreamed the night before.
I'm sure many of you have experienced this same phenomenon, right?
We tend to forget our dreams pretty easily after we wake up.
So what some people do, I've heard this before, some people keep a dream journal.
A dream journal is a journal or a little book that you keep beside your bed and when you wake up in the morning, when the dream is still fresh in your mind, you can write it down in your dream journal so that you don't forget it.
And later on in the day or many days later, you can go back to your dream journal and see what you dreamed a couple weeks ago, or remember what you dreamed a year ago, etc.
So I've always wanted to do that, but I just haven't made the effort to actually prepare one.
I like the idea of keeping a dream journal, but until now, I haven't done that.
But maybe I'll start, because I'm really interested in my dreams. scary things sometimes.
And I like to remember these things that I dreamed.
I don't like forgetting them, but that's what normally happens.
So maybe I'll start keeping a dream journal.
In terms of my dreams, what I frequently dream about when I sleep, there's, I think, a wide variety.
I dream about many different things.
And I'm the type of person who dreams a lot.
So it's almost impossible for me to not remember my dream, at least in the morning, right after I wake up.
After that I forget, of course, but in the morning, right when I wake up, I remember my dreams.
I always have very vivid, lively dreams.
I'm that type of person.
I know some people don't have a lot of memorable dreams, but I'm not one of those people.
My dreams are always pretty interesting, to say the least.
So some of the recurring themes in my dreams... Well, let me explain the word recurring first.
If we say something is recurring, that means that it happens again and again and it returns many times.
So when I say I have recurring themes in my dreams...
That means I have certain themes that happen and come back many times.
So some of my recurring dreams or the recurring themes in my dreams are, for example, I often have the really bad dream of being in school and forgetting that I'm enrolled in a class.
So you know how in high school you have like six or seven classes.
I frequently dream that I'm in high school or college and I'm in many classes, but I've forgotten one of my classes.
Like, I have never... been to that class.
I've never attended it from the very start of the semester.
So I show up at this class almost at the end of the semester.
And I haven't done any work, any homework, any tests.
And I know I'm going to fail.
It's a funny dream.
Whenever I wake up after this dream, I always laugh about it.
But it's super stressful in the moment.
When I dream this dream, I'm always super anxious during that time because I'm a good student or I was a good student.
So for me, it's a nightmare to think that I've forgotten about one of my classes.
So that's a dream I have quite often.
And another recurring theme in my dreams is that the characters in my dreams change a lot.
What I mean by that is, the person at the start of the dream becomes a different person before the end of the dream.
So maybe at the start of the dream I'm hanging out with a good friend of mine and then at the end of the dream it's some completely random person from my childhood or something.
I don't know if this happens to any of you guys, but...
I've heard from other people that this is also common in their dreams.
But for me it always seems very strange when I compare the different characters that appear and when one character becomes a different character, and I always think to myself why am I dreaming about this random person, right?
It started out as my friend and then he became someone completely unimportant in my life, someone from the past that I don't really remember well.
So that's another recurring theme in my dreams.
And one other thing that I tend to dream about is is I usually have one small part of my dream that's related to something that happened to me the day before.
So I think this is my brain's way of storing that memory from the day.
So most of my dream, the majority of the dream itself, is completely bizarre and unrelated to my life.
But then there's usually one little part of the dream that's related to my, my daily life, or related to something that happened to me that day, so it's actually relevant.
So i find that this happens quite a bit when i dream.
So yeah, i think this topic is pretty interesting and i know my thoughts are a little scattered here.
I'm trying to remember my dreams and remember different themes throughout my dreams, but it's kind of hard because my dreams are always very bizarre and strange.
So let's move on to our second topic, which is the beach.
So this is a topic that many of you like because, in my experience, most people I've talked to like the beach right.
When people take vacations, when they have some time off of work, the first thing they think of is let's go to the beach right, let's go to the the coast.
So first let's just talk a little bit about some of the famous beaches in the US.
You might have heard of a few of them, for example, Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
This is a really famous beach because on the boardwalk by the beach or on the street by the beach, by the sand, there are many interesting people there.
If you've ever been to Venice Beach before, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
There are a lot of Pretty strange people doing strange things and selling strange items.
And there are all types of people there.
It's a little bit weird.
It's not my favorite beach.
But it's definitely a really popular beach in the U.S.
Another one that is pretty close to Venice Beach is Santa Monica Beach.
I like Santa Monica, the area.
I haven't spent much time on the beach itself, but there is a shopping mall right on the coast in Santa Monica called the Third Street Promenade.
And I used to go there a lot when I lived in Los Angeles.
And they have some cool stores and they have nice clothes and things like that there.
So it's a nice place to take a walk.
And there's also a pier at Santa Monica.
A pier is that wooden bridge type thing that extends into the ocean, right?
That you walk on and you can walk to the end and look down at the water.
And at Santa Monica Beach they have a pier with certain rides right like at an amusement park, like a Ferris wheel or roller coaster or things like that.
And so there are a lot of activities you can do at Santa Monica and Santa Monica Beach.
So one other one, one other beach that's pretty famous is Miami Beach.
I've never been there.
I've never been to Miami before, but I know many people love Miami and love Miami Beach and it's a very hip and popular place, I think.
So, talking about the beach and more specifically, about the water, The water and the water temperature is very different when it comes to different beaches.
So, for example, in the north of the US, in the northwest and in the northeast the water is very cold at the beaches.
Most people don't go in the water.
However, in the south, like in California, the water is okay.
Most people would still consider it cold, but it's bearable.
When something is bearable, that means that you can survive it.
You can handle it.
It's not the worst thing.
So the water temperature in California, in Southern California specifically, is bearable.
It's not warm, but it's okay.
In Florida, it is warm.
So if you go to the beach in Florida, you have very nice water temperature.
In Mexico, there are many beaches that have really warm water.
So I've been to several beaches in Mexico where you go in the water and it feels like you're taking a bath.
It feels awesome.
I love these types of beaches.
I love the warm water.
And so when people from Mexico, for example, when they go to the US and they go to the beach in California or some other place, they usually complain a lot about how cold the water is, because they're accustomed to really warm water at Mexican beaches.
So now that I've been to several beaches in Mexico, it's hard for me to go to the beach in the US and enjoy it the same way, because the water seems very cold to me.
So we have a couple places in the U.S. where the water is really nice.
I mentioned one of them, which is Florida, and the other place I can think of is Hawaii.
I've been to Hawaii many times, and the beaches there are awesome.
The water is warm, it's super clean and clear and you can see all different kinds of fish.
So Hawaii is the exception.
Hawaii is the place in the U.S. where the water is really warm.
It's very nice.
It's always a good time.
So that's one place I definitely recommend if you like going to the beach.
So a few activities that people like to do at the beach include sports like beach volleyball or soccer.
Sometimes in the U.S. people throw the football around at the beach, American football.
And there are many other types of sports that you can do on the beach as well, and there are also water activities, water sports.
California is famous for its surfers.
A lot of people surf in california, and also in other places like hawaii there are a lot of surfers as well.
I've tried surfing once, but it was really hard and i couldn't stand up on the board, So I never went again.
I didn't take any lessons, so I didn't learn exactly how to do it the right way.
And so I didn't have the chance to succeed, really.
But maybe in the future I'll try again.
There are other water sports that are a little easier, like boogie boarding.
I used to do this when I was younger.
Boogie boarding is where you lay down on the board and you let the wave push you to the shore.
The shore refers to the sand, the part right by the water.
So when you boogie board, you ride a wave and it pushes you to the shore, to the sand.
It's much easier than surfing.
So I did that a lot when I was younger.
And one other activity I can think of is building sandcastles.
Kids especially like this activity because it allows them to use their imagination.
I remember that I loved building sand castles when I was a kid.
For me, I'm not a huge beach person.
I like warm water, as I mentioned, so I like the beaches in Mexico.
I like swimming in the water.
But nowadays, as an adult, The beach isn't my preferred place.
I prefer the mountains, the forest, the desert, etc.
But one thing that I like about the beach still is watching the sunset at the beach.
It's always a really beautiful scene to watch the sun go down over the water.
So when I go to the beach nowadays, it's usually in the late afternoon, after 5 p.m. or something.
Because I don't like being under the sun in the sand all day.
I just prefer going to watch the sunset.
Or if the water is really warm, then I'll stay in the water the whole time.
I don't really like laying on the sand.
All right.
Well, we're about done for today.
So hopefully these topics were interesting for you.
And hopefully this was a good podcast episode to help you practice your listening skills.
Remember that you can access the transcript for this episode in the details part.
If you click on that, you should see the link.
And, of course, remember to sign up for our listening practice seminars.
They're only one dollar, so go to polyglossacom and sign up there and remember to share this podcast with your friends or family members and, if you can, Give it a rating and a review if you're on Apple Podcasts.
And I hope you'll come back for the next episode.
So thanks again for tuning in to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on Episode 8 of the Listening Time Podcast.
