Hello everybody and welcome back to Simplified Speech, the QLIPP series, which features clear, natural and easy to understand conversations between native speakers.
My name is Andrew and in just a second I'll be joined by my co-host Indiana, And today we're talking about dreaming.
And this is a very fascinating topic.
We're gonna talk about why we dream, some of our theories behind this.
We'll talk about some common dreams that probably many of our listeners, many of you guys out there, have experienced for yourself.
And we'll just talk Yeah, all about dreaming.
So I'm really excited to get started with this conversation.
And we'll get to it in just a moment.
But everyone before we do, Let me tell you about QLips membership.
If you're serious about improving your English fluency, then we're here to help you.
That is our number one goal is helping you improve your fluency.
So the best way to do that with QLips is by signing up and becoming a QLips member.
As a Q-Lips member, you will get access, unlimited access, to all of our best learning materials.
This includes helpful study guides and interactive transcripts for all of our lessons.
Plus you'll get our member-only series, The Fluency Files.
You'll get ad-free audio so you can just jump right into the lesson content.
You don't have to listen to any promos or small talk, anything like that, just the good stuff.
We'll see you next time.
You got all of your bases covered.
You get to listen to really interesting lessons with the podcast.
And then you get to talk about what you hear in the podcast in our speaking classes.
So you'll be able to improve your total communication skills with this Q-Lips system.
So if you'd like to sign up, then do it on our website, which is Q-Lips.com.
And of course, a huge thank you to all of our members out there for your support.
Guys, we couldn't do Q-Lips without you.
So thank you so, so much.
We really appreciate it.
Also, I wanna let you know about our Discord server.
Our Discord server is where the QLips community hangs out and we practice and improve our English together.
It's a fun and positive place where you can yeah, just spend some time using English in your daily life.
Of course, we know We'll see you next time. people who are signed up to use our Discord.
So it's a really big, awesome community and we'd love to have you join us as well.
The link to do so is in the description for this episode and we'll see you over there on the Discord.
And joining me now to talk all about dreams is my co-host, Indiana.
Hey there, Indiana.
How's it going?
I am doing well.
I should say that I slept very well last night, but I do not remember any dreams, unfortunately.
So nothing fresh off the dome to share with you, but I do definitely have dreams, so I'm excited to talk about this topic.
It's really kind of ironic, because I knew that we were talking about dreaming today for this episode.
And so last night I was aware of this fact.
And so I thought, OK, I'm going to remember my dream.
So I have something to talk about the next day with Indiana on Simplified Speech.
And me too.
I totally forgot what I dreamt about last night.
I know I had a dream.
I remember remembering a dream, but I have no idea what the content of that dream was.
And yeah, that's really interesting.
I read in prep for this episode that most people forget 90 to 95% of their dreams really quickly.
Quickly, like almost immediately after waking up, those dream memories are totally gone.
Unless you take some special effort to maybe keep a journal or write a note, you'll just totally forget about your dream right away.
And that rings true for me.
I think, unless it's something extremely memorable or something really really out of the blue, then I usually almost always forget my dreams.
Is that true for you as well?
Yeah, and I relate to that thing that you've mentioned just now, that you remember remembering the dream, but you don't remember the dream.
You have a feeling that something happened.
You had a dream, but it's gone.
It's completely lost.
Right.
Yeah.
So, of course, Indiana, we're not scientists and we're not going to pretend to be scientists at all.
But, well, actually, I guess we are going to pretend to be scientists because...
I'm going to ask you your theory.
Like there's a lot of research out there and I think scientists in general have a pretty good idea about why we dream.
But what is your opinion about it?
Why do you think humans dream?
What's the purpose or the function of it?
I definitely believe, and certainly this comes from my experience too.
I believe that people dream, in part because this helps with dealing with sorting out day-to-day emotions or problems.
I think the most memorable dreams that I've had usually involve, like stress, some of the things that I'm worried about.
There's a lot of symbolism or struggles that I'm facing in my dreams that are related to struggles that I have in my day-to-day life.
So I definitely, from that experience, feel like yeah, surely we dream to sort through some emotional turmoil and confusion in our minds and hopefully make some peace with it, maybe even subconsciously get to some sort of answer or calm down a little bit.
Yeah, I really believe it's for problem solving and for coping with difficult emotions.
Now, would you agree with me?
Or do you have your own theory?
What I wonder about is why does it have to be visual?
Like our brains are doing this processing in the background, right?
Like we're dealing with stress in our life.
We're dealing with worry or anxiety, and learning as well.
I think you know we have this expression indiana to sleep on it, and i've definitely felt this in my own life.
I felt it with korean.
Some days i'm trying to say something like when i was first starting to learn the language, trying to pronounce some of the sounds and i couldn't do it very well, and then i have a good night's sleep and then well, suddenly the next day i can make that sound that i couldn't do before.
Or when i was learning musical instruments, playing the drums, i often felt this i wouldn't have the coordination to do the drum roll that I wanted to do.
And then I'd have a good night's sleep.
And then the next day, boom, I could do it.
It's like magic.
So I think learning occurs when we sleep and probably when we dream.
I've also heard that dreaming can be related to cleaning the brain.
So we have maybe like plaque I believe it's what it's called like these little pieces of dirt almost in our brain that just build up from being awake.
And then when we sleep and dream, these get flushed out and it's like a cleaning, self-cleaning process for our brain.
So, yeah, I think all of those things are happening while we dream.
But yeah, I wonder why it has to be visual.
Why can't it just do it in the background?
Why do we have to have these intense experiences while we sleep?
Sometimes very scary, right?
Like nightmares can be very scary, sometimes very enjoyable as well.
We can do things in our dreams, like fly around maybe that we could never do in reality.
So yeah, I mean, that part to me is a mystery.
Yeah, I wonder if different people also have stronger experiences with other sensations or senses, right?
Like maybe something more like a feeling of warmth in your skin, something tactile, or maybe like sound is stronger in some people's dreams than other people's.
But yeah, like I definitely think the visual component is very strong for me.
I don't know why that is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I've never really thought about this before, but I don't remember ever tasting anything in my dream.
Like I don't remember ever eating a delicious meal and being like, whoa, that was so delicious.
Yeah.
I don't think I've ever had that.
I don't even know if I've had sound in my dream before.
It's like a very visual experience.
So yeah, it's interesting.
Maybe our other senses are not stimulated in the same way that the visuals are.
I've certainly had sound because I think I've had like full on conversations in my dreams.
There's a lot of like dialogue in mine, I think.
Sure, sure.
I've had that as well, but I don't remember hearing it.
It's almost like it's just happening in my brain, you know, like.
We have this unofficial test for how good you are in a second language.
For our listeners learning English, we say, have you ever dreamt in English?
If you've had this dream that's happening in English, then it means you've reached a certain degree of fluency where your brain can have a conversation in a foreign language.
And I've had those experiences in Korean.
I've had dreams in Korean, but never me speaking.
It was just like happening, but I don't remember hearing the language.
I just remember it existing in the second language, if that makes sense at all.
You know what I mean?
I don't know what you mean.
I feel like I do hear.
So that's so interesting.
I mean, just between us, like there's a very different sensory experience.
Yeah.
It's like it's happening in my dream brain, but I'm not actually hearing audio.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yeah.
So dreams, yeah, very mysterious things.
But I'm curious Indiana, maybe if you've ever had like a really strange dream or a vivid dream that you remember, maybe even a lucid dream,
A lucid dream is what we call it when you can control the dream.
So you're conscious in the dream.
You're aware that you're dreaming.
And, as a result of being aware of the dream, you can manipulate and control what happens in your dream.
This is called a lucid dream.
Have you ever had any of these very vivid or lucid dreams before?
I've never had a lucid dream.
I've certainly had dreams that were vivid enough or sort of emotionally impactful enough that, like it, affected my mood the next morning.
Like if I had a really bad nightmare or a stress stream where like, I was going through a really stressful situation a recurring dream that i have every now and then.
And, of course, recurring just means repeating, like you have a similar or the same dream more than a few times.
Right, it keeps happening.
Um, A recurring dream that I often get is I'm supposed to fly to Japan or somewhere incredibly far away and I have to go to the airport and it's like a maze and there's all these problems that are clearly going to lead me to being late for my flight.
And it's just the most stressful situation as anybody could imagine, like when you're going to the airport and you're trying not to be late for a flight.
It sucks, it's not fun and even though I really rarely fly maybe a couple times a year it's not like I'm going for work every month to the airport.
I probably at least twice a year or more frequently.
I have a stress dream about flying and being late for my flight and ruining all of my plans.
But Okay, that's so interesting.
And do you find that you have those dreams when you're really stressed about, like meeting a deadline or something that might potentially be late in your life?
Like why do you think you have those dreams?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
It's hard to pinpoint like exactly why those ones happen.
But when I was working in like food service and I would have a really long shift at a restaurant or at a cafe, it was, like you know, 10 or 12 hour shift and it was a really stressful day.
I would sometimes go to bed like, oh my God, thank God, the shift is over, and then finally get to sleep and then have a dream about, like you know, making coffees or serving people at a restaurant, like just the same day's work in my dream.
So I think that was definitely representing like I cannot get my mind off of this day and like dealing with all this stress.
So I think it's always worth trying to analyze and see if you can connect it to something you're going through, because it might help you figure it out.
But sometimes it's not always clear.
But what about you, Andrew?
You mentioned the lucid dream, which I think is not so common to be able to realize you're dreaming and move around and do what you will in your dream.
Have you ever had such a vivid dream like that?
No, I never have.
And, to be honest, there's a lot of doubt about around lucid dreaming like is it a real thing?
Can people actually do this?
But yeah, i've heard it talked about on podcasts before and it seems like it's a skill that people can develop, but you do have to practice and build up to it.
Apparently, what you have to do i did hear a podcast about this once, so What they said on this podcast was that you have to keep a dream diary.
And as soon as you wake up from the dream, you have to record it and write it down.
And this will help you to remember your dream states.
And by doing this a lot and doing some other kind of reflective, almost meditative practices in coordination with, at the same time as the dream diary, then eventually you'll be able to notice when you are dreaming, while you're dreaming.
And if you can notice that you're dreaming while you're dreaming, then apparently you're able to start controlling and manipulating your dream, and then you can take it in any direction that you want to.
So that's pretty crazy.
But no, I've never had a lucid dream.
I have had recurring dreams before.
And Indiana.
Maybe we could talk about some of the recurring dreams or like nightmare recurring nightmares, because I think yours almost sounds more like a nightmare and mine too almost is like a nightmare.
You know, there are some classic ones, right like anxiety dreams.
I've never had this dream myself, but i've heard and read a lot about people having this dream.
It's like a classic one of being naked in public, so without your clothing, and you're sort of like Bear to the world.
So that's a common one.
I've heard about falling dreams.
And I've actually experienced this myself, where I've like fallen off of a cliff or something and you're falling.
So that's like this kind of anxiety dream.
What else have I heard about people who get into a fight?
You're in your dream and you get into a fight and you need to like, protect your family from some bad guys or monsters or something, and you're punching and it's like you're not connecting.
Your punches are just too weak and You can't protect yourself.
And this is the anxiety dream that I've had before is my teeth fall out.
And I've heard this is also a classic like stress.
Dream is that, for whatever reason, I'll just be talking with someone and then blah blah blah blah, blah.
All my teeth will fall out.
And I'm like, what happened?
Where'd my teeth go?
That is so funny.
I have a friend as well who has talked about.
He has that kind of stress, dream and strange relationship with like yeah, thinking about his teeth falling out.
I've never had a dream like that.
That sounds horrible.
I'm glad that I have.
Yeah, it's kind of weird.
You wake up and you're like, oh, I got to go to the dentist.
Oh my God, my teeth fell out.
And then one second later, you realize it was a dream.
Maybe I could go to a psychologist and get some analysis and figure out why exactly, but...
I feel like it must have something to do with anxiety or stress, or maybe not being good enough in a situation.
I'm not sure what it has to do with.
But it's not something that happens very often.
I feel like I get this dream like once every couple of years.
And when it does happen, I'm like, haha, okay.
I haven't moved past that in my life.
Like it's still existing.
It can come back anytime.
So yeah.
Are there any other like really common dream themes or tropes that you've heard about that I missed?
Are there any other common ones?
I think it's common to have a dream where somebody like betrays you, right?
Or something like maybe you see your spouse with somebody else or they're like I'm leaving you, or something like that.
Even though, I mean, I'm not concerned about that, but I will still occasionally have such a dream where yeah, like my best friend or my husband has betrayed me.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
So I guess what we're getting at is that we think dreams are meaningful.
Like there is some kind of deeper meaning behind them.
But yeah, do you think all dreams are meaningful or are some of them just random?
Yeah, I definitely think some of them are just random or are not going to hold the key to some answer in your life.
But I mean, if you have a pretty memorable dream or it's clearly a stress dream, I do think it's worth taking a moment to think about it and like hmm, what does this mean?
What have I been thinking about?
Is this representing something?
Yeah.
But I've certainly had some ridiculous dreams that I don't think necessarily represent anything going on in my life.
It might just be like the creative part of my mind at play.
Do you think every dream has a meaning imbued within it?
Or can we just have some silly dreams that don't mean anything?
Think we can have a lot of silly dreams that don't mean anything and again, i'm not a scientist.
This is me just speculating and i have no data to back this up at all or anything like that.
But i'm wondering if the brain is doing a self-cleaning process when we sleep, Like maybe in the middle of that process, the brain is just getting stimulated in some way and that causes visuals to occur.
Almost like the way, like taking a psychedelic drug can make people have hallucinations and see visual things that are not like in reality, as their brain gets stimulated by these chemicals and these drugs.
Right,
Like maybe that's happening while we're sleeping as well.
Our brain is like thinking or cleaning itself or processing information.
And while it's doing that, some areas of the visual parts of our brain are getting pinged or stimulated.
And then boom, that results in a dream.
And it's nothing more than just those areas are... active when we sleep.
So yeah, I don't want to think personally, I don't think there's a deep meaning to every dream.
I do think maybe sometimes there is meaning behind it.
But yeah, I don't think all of the time for sure.
Yeah, I could buy that.
I buy the self-cleaning pinging theory you have there.
Yeah.
Makes sense to me.
Yeah.
So Indiana, there is one kind of dream that I wanted to share about here that is interesting.
I think, unique to Korean culture and I'd love to put it out there and see if people from other cultures around the world if you have this in your culture, because it's possible that it's you know exists in other places, but I've only heard about it here in Korea.
And since I live in Korea, I thought I'd share this with everyone.
And I don't want to say that I'm an expert about this.
So in advance, Korean people, if I make a mistake or say something incorrect, please let me know on our Discord community and I'll make a correction.
But I'm actually just going to reference the Wikipedia article about this because, like I said, I'm not an expert.
But
There is a kind of dream, a genre of dreams in Korea, which is called taemong.
And this, I guess we could translate to conception dream.
Conception is when a new life occurs, like a woman gets pregnant.
That is what we call conception.
It's like the start of the pregnancy.
And so let me just read from the Wikipedia article here.
It says In Korean culture, conception dreams are dreams that are said to foretell the conception or birth of a child, dreamt by the future mother or people close to her.
Many Korean women report having such dreams themselves.
Popular topics of the dreams include fruit such as apples, persimmons, cherries, chestnuts.
Animals like tigers, snakes, and goldfish.
Nature like rivers and rainbows, children and jewels.
The dreamer might eat or take fruit, embrace animals or interact with nature.
The topic is believed to influence the gender of the future baby, and the article goes on.
So i'll link that article in the show notes for this episode if anybody wants to read it.
But Indiana isn't that fascinating.
Like.
That's so wild to me, because in Western culture we don't have this idea of a conception dream at all, at least in like English speaking countries that I know about.
Have you ever heard about anything like that?
No, I mean, nothing so widespread or common.
Yeah.
I think like maybe somebody might have a dream and say, I think I'm pregnant.
Or somebody might have a dream while they're pregnant and then wake up and say I think I'm going to have a boy.
But it's like this very unusual scenario, like it's not widespread at all.
So it's so interesting that there's that how common it is for, according to this Wikipedia page.
But, like many Korean women experience this.
And I've asked my mother-in-law about that.
Like I asked her, did you have a conception dream when you got pregnant with my wife and with my brother-in-law?
And she said, yeah, I had the two dreams.
And I've talked to other Korean moms out there before and I've asked them about this, like my friends who have babies, and they say yeah, we had this dream.
So it seems like it's a real thing.
And yeah Yeah, it just seems really bizarre to me that a culture could have this special dream to themselves.
And I don't want to say that it's like not real or anything, because if people say they had the dream, then I believe them.
But it seems really, really weird that we can have this unique dreaming genre that is specific to one culture, at least i think, one culture like, like i said, maybe other cultures around the world have this as well, who knows?
Yeah, I'd love to know more from our listeners.
Yeah, if there are any particular dreams like this, like conception dreams or maybe other auspicious or fortune telling dreams that can sort of Yeah, certain symbolism or imagery might say something about the future.
That would be fascinating to hear from our listeners.
And I also wonder, with this conception dream thing.
I wonder if it's equally experienced among women who are trying to get pregnant or women who oh, just found out that I'm pregnant.
Like I wonder if the dream is more commonly associated with somebody who's trying to get pregnant, because they're thinking about it and they're maybe more primed to have such a dream.
Or yeah, I'm very curious about that.
I wonder if there's like a study somewhere out there that might, yeah, some survey.
It might be like the OG pregnancy test.
Exactly.
Before pregnancy tests existed, that technology.
Huh.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Indiana, what about other kind of sleep habits like sleepwalking or sleep talking?
Have you ever experienced these?
So not as an adult, but I definitely had a few sleepwalking spells as a child.
One so bad that I actually like, went to my front door and tried to open it, which would not have been good.
I think I was about nine years old, and yeah, that could have ended pretty poorly.
And then at a few sleepovers.
Who knows if my friends were just lying to me to tease me, but I've been told that I've said some incoherent or short sentences that were coherent in English.
While sleeping so a handful of times that has happened.
How about you?
Are you a sleepwalker?
No, no, I don't think so.
I always wake up where I started.
Thankfully.
I don't even think I'm much of a sleep talker.
I think I do so much talking for my career that probably it's my time to shut up and be quiet while I sleep.
So I don't even think that I talk too much.
My wife will occasionally, when she's very, very tired, will talk in her sleep.
It's fascinating because my wife is such a deep sleeper and I'm a very light sleeper.
So we have these very kind of different sleeping styles.
And I'm so jealous of her because when she falls asleep it seems like she's in just another dimension and even trying to wake her up sometimes can be difficult.
Like i'll talk to her, i'll call her name, like five times, no response.
Even her phone alarm sometimes, no response.
It's just like a very deep sleep And I think sometimes when she gets really tired or like overly exhausted and she's sleeping, then occasionally she'll talk in her sleep.
And usually it's kind of like almost babbling, right?
Doesn't make a lot of sense.
But because I'm such a light sleeper, it always wakes me up.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
What are you saying?
And then I'm like, oh, she's sleeping.
Like she's sleeping and talking.
So it is a real thing.
People do it for sure.
But I think the only thing that I do unfortunately, when I'm extra tired and I'm really really sleepy and I fall into a deep sleep, is I'll start snoring.
So that's unpleasant and i wish that didn't happen.
But yeah, when i am really overly exhausted and i like fall into a very, very deep sleep, then the snoring comes out.
Thankfully, i think it's not an everyday thing, but sometimes yeah, I'm a well if it, if it bothers your wife, I wonder if this would be a solution.
I know that some people snore so strongly that nothing will stop them.
Right.
But for some reason, when my husband snores.
If I just touch, poke his arm so lightly, like it's enough of a stimulus for that deep sleep to maybe become slightly less deep sleep and he stops snoring completely.
And I feel bad because I'm probably ruining the quality of his sleep.
But just a little poke.
He's not really awake, but it stops him from snoring.
Yeah.
Well, thankfully, I mean, this is great.
My wife is such a deep sleeper that she doesn't even notice, doesn't bother her at all.
She only really notices it like if I'm taking a nap and I fall into a deep sleep while I'm taking a nap, she'll be like, man, you were snoring there. so that's good i do get paranoid when i have to sleep in a public place like on an airplane if i'm taking a light a long flight oh yeah i'm always like man i hope i'm not the guy that falls asleep and just starts snoring because often i'm so exhausted when i'm traveling too so that's always a fear of mine that i have but i think It's just a fear and not a reality.
But who knows, really?
Can never tell when you're sleeping.
Okay Indiana, was there anything else that you wanted to mention about dreaming?
Before we wrap this episode up?
I don't think so.
Just about sleep quality, I would say that I've noticed certain foods, or like alcohol or something like that will really negatively impact my sleep quality.
And sometimes I'll, like, soon after falling asleep...
I will sort of kind of wake up a little bit with a bit of a racing heart if I've like eaten something right before bed or had alcohol that night or something like that.
And it's really annoying and troublesome and...
I don't really know what I want to say about this, but if anybody is struggling with sleep, I think like yeah, you know, seeing what you're ingesting, that could have a huge impact on your sleep.
Like even just, yeah, like whether it's dairy or just like food right before bed or alcohol.
Yeah, if you haven't already considered that, caffeine for sure.
Yeah, like maybe do some experimenting with that.
It can definitely ruin my quality of sleep, so.
And Indiana, you're still young.
Just wait till you hit your 40s like me.
Then it gets really wild because, yeah, alcohol can have a huge impact.
I don't even like to have one beer these days, just because I feel like I can't get into a deep sleep if I drink any alcohol.
So it's so annoying.
And yeah, I don't. like to to have to drink alcohol these days because of the the way that it affects my sleep it'll ruin my whole day not like it's giving me a hangover but it's just uh making it so that i can't sleep well i'm curious indiana do you use like a smart watch to track your sleep quality at all I don't.
Because I do have like a Garmin smartwatch that I use for exercising sometimes.
I think I've used it a couple times just to give that a try.
But I think I well, maybe I don't, but I think I generally have a pretty good sense of if I had quality sleep or not.
I don't know.
But do you use one, Andrew?
Yeah, I also have a Garmin that I use for running, but I do like tracking the sleep data.
And it's totally true, right?
Like what you said.
You don't need some statistics on your phone to tell you if you've had a good night's sleep or not.
You can feel it.
But it is interesting to see the data.
And I'm just looking at my sleep here from last night.
I do feel a little bit tired today, and my data reflects that.
I slept for six hours and 57 minutes, and it says that I slept 48 minutes of deep sleep, four hours and 43 minutes of light sleep, one hour and 26 minutes of REM sleep and seven minutes awake.
So overall I think that was a pretty decent sleep, but maybe just for me about an hour too short.
I could have used one extra hour.
I should have gone to bed earlier.
Story of my life should have gone to bed earlier.
All right well guys, I think we'll wrap it up here.
Thank you so much for listening and spending some time here with us today.
And congratulations on making it to the end of this episode.
You can pat yourself on the back for doing a good job and doing some solid English listening.
We know that this is what you need to do if you wanna improve your English fluency, is that you need to spend a lot of time getting the language into your head.
You've done your listening for today, but how about being active with your English?
Have you spent any time writing English or speaking in English?
If not, then I would highly encourage you to do so.
And we've got you covered for doing that.
You can join us for our speaking classes.
We have three classes each and every week for Q-Lips members where we practice speaking together.
And we also have our Discord server, which is where we can communicate with each other, sending text messages, sending voice messages and participating in a lot of other fun activities like our monthly challenges and our book club.
Indiana.
Did you know that on our Discord server some of the members have been reading through Harry Potter together and doing a book club?
I think Alina is the organizer for that.
And I believe they're on the third Harry Potter book.
It's really cool.
I mean, there's things like this that you can do over on our discord community for free for everybody.
So come on over and join and yeah, it's a great way to have fun and connect with our community and, of course, ultimately improve your english as well.
So The link to join the Discord is in the description for this episode, and we'd love to see you there.
But for now, I think we'll sign off.
Indiana, thank you so much.
Absolutely.
And everybody listening.
Maybe your friends or your spouse doesn't want to hear about the dream you had last night, but I do.
Tell me about the crazy dream you had.
Show up in our conversation class or tell us on the Discord, because I would seriously like to know what kind of wacky dream you've had this week.
We'll sign off here.
Thank you, everybody.
Take care, and we'll talk to you in the next episode.
Bye-bye.
Bye now.
