Episode 21: Dreams

In this episode, Donielle and Khrystyna discuss common dreams, dream meanings, and our own dream habits. Be sure to grab the show notes for even more content!

Transcript

D           Welcome to Coffee and Conversation for ESL Listening. I'm Donielle.

K            And I'm Khrystyna, so grab a cup and join the conversation.

D           Hey Khrystyna, how's it going?

K            Going well, how are you? I haven't seen you in a while. Ha ha.

D           Okay, I know. Yeah, and we're coming up on a weekend. So, got any big plans?

K            Oh, actually I do. My son is turning 10. So, yeah. So he, of course, you know, the family is coming and all that. So it's, it's going to be busy here, but fun. It'll be good.

D           Oh, that's right! Uh, that's, I know he's going to have a lot of fun. For some reason, I remember when I turned 10, like a million years ago, and people would be talking about the birthday or whatever. And that'd be like, yeah, I'm turning the big one-0. I could totally hear your kid saying something like that.

K            Oh yeah. Well, he was telling me that at church, I'm sorry, at school in the morning, every morning they have like a little assembly. So all the kids are there and teachers and principal, and they always acknowledge kids who have birthdays coming up on the weekend and they sing happy birthday and you've got to go stand up there with all the kids. So he told me this morning he was nervous. ‘Cause he had to go and walk up there and stand while everybody sings happy birthday. I was like, well -it's not like you have to, you know, give a 20 minute speech and all that. You just go there and smile pretty and wave.

D           But it is awkward, I get it. Imagine when you're in a restaurant or something and someone does the whole bringing out a cake and the servers come out and start singing happy birthday and you're just sitting there looking like, oh, okay, it's awkward, yeah. So, yeah.

K            Awkward. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. But it's fun. Hey, you turn big one-0 only once in your lifetime.

D           Exactly. Alright. So we have an interesting conversation today. At least I think it will be interesting. We're going to talk about dreams today. And I don't know. It's funny because I have lots and lots of dreams. I dream a lot. I remember quite a bit of them. But then I know some people who just don't remember dreams at all. And I find that interesting.

K            Yeah, I was just gonna ask you, like, do you usually remember your dreams, but, um, you know, it's kind of, it kind of depends. Some days I remember dreams. Some days, like you have this very vivid, right? The dream that you're almost like, it's very realistic. But then you wake up in the morning and you're like, well, what was I dreaming about? What was that? Like, I can't remember.

D           Yeah, it is really weird like how fast it can just disappear. Like it's so fresh and crisp and clear. And then a minute later it's gone and there's just like little wisps of memory, you know?

K            Yeah. Have you ever had a situation where you were dreaming and then somehow you woke up and then you went back to sleep and you were back in that dream?

D           Oh yes, I do that a lot.

K            And I don't know if it happened to you, but with me, when this happens, I'd always go back into a dream where I don't want to be like, I want that dream to end, but then for some reason you fall back asleep and it's back in that dream. And I was like, I really don't want to be back here.

D           That's funny. I don't think that happens for me, but you know what does happen, which is really interesting. It's something called lucid dreaming. That means that you're dreaming and in the dream, you know it's a dream. So, you're aware of what's going on. I do that a lot and I can actually control where the dream is going. If it's... Yeah. So if it's a really terrible dream and I'm just not having it at all, I'll tell myself, okay, that's enough of this dream. Let's get out of this. And...

K            Lucky you!

D           Yeah. It's really, it's really interesting though. Like sometimes I'll be like, I'm getting bored of this. This has gone on too long. Let's switch it up and let's, you know, go over here. Let's, you know, have something different happen. And then the dream just changes course. It's really interesting.

K            That is interesting. I feel like I've never been able to just change my dream. And you know, if you have a dream that you don't like, I was like, oh, I'm stuck in here. Like I can't seem to get out of it.

D           Yeah, yeah, it's very convenient. It doesn't happen all the time, but quite often. Yeah.

K            Have you ever woken up from a dream and you were, you know, like emotional, like you were crying or you were just scared or I don't know, like, you know how sometimes you’re in a dream and it's almost like you're so in it that you wake up and you just get emotional about it or…

D           Well, I don't know, sort of. I wouldn't say like I woke up crying or anything, but this one is just the strangest one for me. And it was so clear. I remember I was working at this job and I was very stressed and I woke up, it was a Saturday morning and all of a sudden I was like, Oh no, I forgot to do something. I was supposed to tell somebody - my boss that somebody had called. It was a very important thing. And I started panicking. I said, Oh my gosh, I never told this person. I never told my boss. And literally I started freaking out because I said this was really, really important and I've made a huge mistake. And it so happened that I was friends with my boss's brother [who also worked there]. So it was like seven o'clock in the morning on a Saturday and I was just panicking and I waited till about eight o'clock and I finally called him and I said, “Listen, you have to help me. Was this a dream?” Because as the day passed, you know, I started thinking well, maybe this wasn't real and …So I had to call him to confirm. He's like, “No, that didn't happen.” It was so weird. I was really sure it happened.

K            Wow, that was a very realistic dream.

D           So realistic. It was really weird. Nothing like that has happened again. Thank goodness because man, that was stressful. How about you?

K            Yeah. Well, I, there were a couple of times I remember I woke up from a dream and I was crying, like I was crying in my dream. And I woke up and I had like tears going down my head. I was like, Okay, well, that was weird. I remember one time I had a dream and I don't remember what the dream was about. But I know it was very scary. Because I woke up and I was just - like my heart was beating fast. And I was panting like a dog. I was like, I know I was scared. But you know, they also say like bad dreams. Sometimes they call them nightmares, right? If you have a really bad dream. Or they call them night terrors.

D           Yeah, night terrors are pretty extreme and thank goodness I don't have those.

K            Right. So and I think like a night terror just is it's very it becomes really realistic and it's very scary for a person and all that. So I think this one time, my husband had a night terror. I kind of tease him about it because I don't think it was a night terror. I think he actually saw a ghost, but he wouldn't admit to it. Because he keeps telling me he doesn't believe in ghosts. So okay. So we were at our…

D           Maybe the ghost has other opinions. 

K            Exactly.

D           I believe in you though. Sorry.

K            I know, I was trying to tell him, but he's like, no, it's not, they don't exist. I'm like, okay. So we were at our old apartment and I remember in the middle of the night, he woke up, he literally sat up in bed and he was screaming.

D           Oh my gosh.

K            I've never heard my husband scream like that. So of course...

D           I was gonna say, that's what you like to wake up next to, right? Oh my gosh!

K            So obviously I woke up, couldn't sleep through that. And I was like, what's going on? And so he laid back down and I can see him shaking, kind of was like, what's going on? He goes, I just had a bad dream. So I started asking him what happened and all that. And he said, “I woke up”, but still in his dream. And he said, “I saw somebody standing by your side of the bed.”

D           Ahhh!

K            So, and I said, you know, are you sure it was just a dream? Are you sure you didn't see a ghost? He's like, no, it was a dream. So, of course, now I'm awake, right, laying* in bed. He's trying to go back to sleep and, you know, he's all kind of shaking. So I hugged him, but I'm laying in bed and I was like, I gotta go use the bathroom. Because, you know, when you wake up in the middle of the night, you gotta go use the bathroom. But now I'm in bed and I was like, well, I'm afraid to leave the bed and go to the bathroom in case there is a ghost in the house. So it was just crazy like it took us a while to get back to sleep after that.

D           Oh my gosh. You know, that reminds me of something. Now, when he was having this dream, he didn't say anything about like not being able to move or anything, right? Or just that he saw this thing and that was it.

K            You know, I mean, now that you ask. I think that might be why he woke up because he felt like he couldn't do anything.

D           That's called sleep paralysis. And that happens to me more than I care to say. Yeah, that's what he had. It is a terrifying thing. And it happens to me, I'm laying* in bed, I'm like sort of on the edge of am I awake or asleep? I don't know, sort of half and half. And sometimes it's a visual thing that I see, something scary like that, or sometimes it's just this terrible feeling of dread. And I want to move and get up and I physically can't. Yeah. I feel like this has taken a scary turn, but anyway, I just thought that was interesting.

K            Yep. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, and you know, so I was looking at some most common dreams that people see usually, or dream about and not being able to move is one of the common things people experience in their dreams. And like you said, it's called the sleep paralysis, but they also say that it means that you're experiencing some sort of fear or anxiety or like lack of confidence in your life. They're some sort of area where like causing you feel that that's why that's why these dreams happen.

D           Hmm, interesting.

K            Yeah. Do you so you know that people… like a lot of people interpret dreams, right? They said that they have meanings. Do you believe in those meanings?

D           Yeah. I don't know because the thing is, if you look up, say for example, I know you're probably going to mention this, but one of the most common dreams people have is that your teeth are falling out. 

K            Oh yeah, oh yeah.

D           Right? I've had that happen for sure. And if you look up the meaning, you'll get like five different things, you know? So it's like, well, maybe it means one of them. And I don't know who knows what it is. But it's interesting to think about if nothing else.

K            Right. And the thing is I've noticed as I was kind of looking at the meanings of a lot of common dreams, a lot of them have to do with anxiety, fear, confidence, something happened, something you don't have control over. And like, so, but the funny thing is like, I come from a culture and a family that really believes in dreams.

Donielle (12:40.285)

Okay, all right. Surprise [sarcastic]

K            And to this day, when I talk to my mom, she's like, oh, I had a dream the other night about this, and that. So I'm just afraid this will happen. And sometimes it gets to the point I was like, mom, maybe you should just not sleep anymore.

D           Oh my goodness.

K            There's always a meaning behind every dream and there's always something to worry about. So I'm like, you know, dreams are dreams. Sometimes you believe, sometimes you don't because they don't always come true.

D           Yeah, but sometimes I can understand there can be some really terrifying ones that you just wake up and you go, oh my gosh, this has to mean something, you know? It's like, where does that come from? But then I think on the other hand, you know, with all the scary movies and true crime and stuff like that I watch, I could attribute it to any of that stuff.

K            Well, have you ever had the experience when, when you were a child, usually kids kind of experience that more than anyone else where you watched a movie before bedtime and then you couldn't sleep at night because you kept getting scared about that movie.

D           Nah. 

K            That can't be true.

D           I was a weirdo. I loved scary movies and it never bothered me. I could sleep like a baby right after that, no problem.

K            I can't wait for you to include weirdo as a vocabulary word in this show notes.

D           I have a feeling I've done it before because it's a word I tend to use a lot. I'm a big weirdo.

K            We have this new word now we use quite commonly at work. You know how random things, we just call them randos. Weirdo, rando. So I knew.

D           Uh huh, rando, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, well, we like to shorten everything, you know. Yeah.

K            It sounds funny too. So some you know when you said about falling teeth right and then like they say it's anxiety and they say actually the meaning is you're anxious or not sure about your appearance or how people perceive you. That's the meaning about falling teeth.

D           Yeah, you know, and I think that's a common fear. I mean, I think we're always kind of thinking about, okay, so how are people perceiving me? You know, sometimes I think we get all in our head. How are people perceiving me on this podcast? Oh no. But you know what I mean? It's like, we think about it so much ourselves and like we're focused on, oh, I, you know, what am I saying? How do I sound? How do I look? And you know. Everybody else is focused on themselves too.

K            So funny thing in my culture when you have a dream about losing teeth it's actually sickness - it's like the meaning is that somebody is gonna get sick.

D           I've heard that a lot too. Yeah. And it's interesting though, because, you know, do you ever have certain recurring dreams, like dreams that you have over and over again? And that was one of them. I used to have that dream all the time. And I have not had it in a really, really long time. I'm gonna knock on wood here because it's no fun. And I wonder if maybe the sickness has something to do with it because do you remember I used to have sinus infections all the time? Yeah and at the time that I was having that dream a lot it was in that era you know so it could have been because of that, who knows. Oh and talking about sickness this was a good one just last week this happened to me I woke up clearly remembering that in my dream I had a terrible splitting headache. Terrible, terrible headache. And I woke up and I said, huh, well that's interesting. You'd think that I was having that dream because I have a headache, but I don't. About four hours later, I started developing a headache. It started like, you know, you could start feeling the seed, you know, like starting a little spark, and then all of a sudden, I had a full blown terrible headache. I was like, okay, now that's weird.

K            Oh, that's no fun. No fun. 

D           Was it a prediction? I don't know. Yeah.

K            Maybe. So you know, another thing about like sickness, if in my culture, if we, if in our dreams, you're in like a water that's not clear, right?

D           Okay.

K            It's like not crystal clear water, but maybe dirty water or kind of, I don’t know, 

not nice clean water. 

D           Murky

K            Yeah, yeah, that's a good word for it. It's gonna you know, so that's another prediction or like a dream meaning that sickness is coming. I you know, I also noticed as I was thinking about dreams, and I don't know, maybe it's because how I was remembering them. But a lot of like meanings about these dreams is just something bad. Always.

D           Yeah. Oh, and I meant to look this up before. I forgot -- I forgot to do this because I remember hearing something about a connection with Abraham Lincoln having a dream or something before he was shot. There's like certain stories I've heard along those lines. I need to look that up and maybe I'll include that as a link in our show notes that I always forget to remind people to listen to grab.

K            Yes, good idea. I feel like I've heard of it too, but I don't know exactly what.

D           Yeah, it's kind of, you know, in the very depths of my memory, so I don't really know. But yeah, you know, you're talking about something bad, anxiety. Definitely, I have anxiety dreams. And I have two recurring ones, and I bet one of them has happened to you too, because it's another really common one. Have you ever had a dream that you are back in school…

K            Oh yeah!

D           …and you like you show up and you forgot there was a test or something like that. Well, my big one is I show up in my classroom or I realize that I've missed… like I'm in college…and I've missed two months of the semester already. Oh my gosh. And how did I…I forgot all about my class! And then I'm like rushing around and I try to get into the class. And what am I going to do? Yeah.

K            Oh yeah. Yeah. They say that's one of the common dreams too. Like a lot of people experience that too. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with anxiety.

D           Yeah. And but funny that it's always about college because you know, you’ve got anxiety…a smorgasbord of anxiety-inducing things in life, right? But it's always about college or school or something like that. 

K            Here's another good word you're going to include in show notes. Smorgasbord.

K            We're full of those today. So have you ever had the dream that you were flying in your dream?

D           No, no, I know that's a common one. Have not.

K            Yeah, they say that like you're flying or you're falling. And again, they say sometimes when people are like either flying or falling in their dreams, it could be a sign of depression.

D           Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. The flying seems cool. That seems like that would be fun. But yeah, I did have one dream though. Now that you say that - it wasn't flying, but I remember it being very cool. And again, it was sort of a lucid dream. So I was aware of it at the time and I was like, this is an amazing feeling. And I had like floated up in the air and I was like, lounging on a cloud. And I was like, this is quite delightful. And I - but I knew I was dreaming - but I was like, yeah, let's roll with this. This is nice.

K            You know, they say if kids dream of flying, that means they're growing. Like physically growing when they're having growth spurts or, you know, like that's why they dreamed that they're flying, which is interesting. I thought it was kind of interesting. Um, so there's a couple of ones that I remember from growing up, like the meanings and all that, that my mom sometimes reminds me of this…

D           Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

K            …which is interesting. I thought it was kind of interesting. Um, so there's a couple of ones that I remember from growing up, like the meanings and all that, that my mom sometimes reminds me of. I know this, this probably would be your ultimate, favorite dream. Snakes.

D           Ugh. I’ve had those for sure. You know I have.

K            So in my culture, if you see a snake in your dream, it's for prosperity and money.

D           Oh, okay.

K            So it's actually a good thing to see snakes in your dream.

D           Well, you know, I think you have to take it with, with some kind of reference with, you know, is it relevant? For example, I hate snakes. And so the fact that I might have a dream about snakes could be more like anxiety rather than I'm getting money. I mean, I would like to think that's it, but…

K            Whatever you believe in, right? 

D           Yeah, whatever works.

K            So I always remember, my mom was telling me about like dreams that mean something, right? [Something] that's coming and all that. And one of them was, I remember once we were talking about, oh, my mom said, oh, I knew I was gonna get pregnant soon. I was like, well, how did you know? And she said, well, I had a dream that your father caught a big fish.  So apparently in my culture, if you catch a fish or see a fish in your dream, that means soon you will become pregnant.

D           Oh my goodness, well, okay.

K            But I also remember talking to some of my students because we had a unit once on dreams and all that. And it was really cool to hear like all the different cultures. 

D           Oh yeah.

K            There are so many similarities, but one of my students said that in their culture, if you dream of like abundance of fruits and vegetables, that means pregnancy.

D           Interesting. So fish or fruit or vegetables, basically any of your food items that you're, what is that? The, the food groups. But I… you know, as you were talking about that, I completely forgot about this. And you probably did too. When you were pregnant very early on and I came to you and I said, Khrystyna, I’ve got to tell you, you're going to have a boy. Do you remember?

K            I remember that! I do remember that!

D           And I said, “I had a dream.” I said, “You had a boy, so I think it's a boy.” And you're like, “No.” And I'm like, “It's a boy for sure.” And it was!

K            I do remember that. I remember us having a conversation about it. And I was like, No, how would you know? You know, it's just a dream. And sure enough.

D           Yeah. I mean, I totally forgot about that. Yeah. But I was sure of it too, because I was -  you know, it could have just have been a dream. But for some reason, I was like, no, I'm sure. Weird.

K            So another kind of a good luck dream, like a positive meaning of a dream, if you have a dog, like you see a dog in your dream, like sometimes a dog follows you around or you pet the dog or see a new dog, that means a new friend. 

D           Oh, okay. I like that.

K            Yeah. So, um, but again, like let’s go back to you know sad stuff about dreams you know when you're dancing in your dream right. You would think that when you're dancing and you're happy and you're having fun it would be something good, but actually they say if you see yourself dancing with somebody in your dream, it’s a death. And you know what? I, I try not to believe in that because it's just such a, you know, negative dream and all that. 

D           Yeah.

K            But that happened to me before…

D           Oh no!

K            …that I had a dream. Yeah. I had a dream that I was dancing with my friend once and we were talking about his father while we were dancing. And I remember that in my dream and sure enough, a week later, his father passed away.

K            Oh man, I don't like that. Wow, that's really scary. Yeah.

K            Yeah. And my mom once had a dream that she was dancing with one of her coworkers. And shortly after that, he was diagnosed with a terminal disease and passed away soon. 

D           Oh wow.

K            So I was like, man, I don't want to - I don't want to see these dreams.

D           I mean, it sounds lovely, you know, right? But it's interesting because they say like a lot of dreams really have a completely opposite meaning of what you would think. Like, I'm sure almost everybody's had dreams about death and it doesn't mean death. It means like maybe a new chapter in your life or something, I don't even remember. But yeah, it's not actually death, even though you have the dream and you think, oh, this is horrible. But you're like, oh, okay, it was actually good. 

K            Yeah, yeah. I also know that they say if you see yourself wearing a wedding dress or a white dress in your dream, that's for bad luck too. Yeah, I was like, come on. But you know, like when you're growing up, you always like, Oh, I’ll have a wedding dress and like, is this the one that's going to be mine? Like, no, I don't want to do that. Because apparently it's no good.

D           Now, talking about anxiety things again, and this is another recurring one that I just think is really interesting and I don't have this very much anymore, but I used to have it all the time to the point where I had to lucid dream my way out of it because I was getting so annoyed. And it was that I was in a huge rush. Some urgent thing was happening and I never really know what it was in the dream, but I have to communicate with somebody. So I'm trying to call them and there's always some obstacle. Like the big one is the numbers are all mixed up on the phone. So they're like, say if I want to dial nine, I can't press nine. It's a different number and I don't know what that number is. And I used to dream that all the time.

K            Oh, that’s crazy. Oh, yeah, it's like you or sometimes when you try to walk or run and you can't you're like in this slow motion, you can’t seem to make the next step. So it's it and it's so frustrating in the dream because you're like, what I know I can walk I know I can run. But you know, they say one of also very common dreams is when you're being chased like you're running away from somebody or something in your dream. And I remember a time where I used to have like those dreams a lot, but guess what that means.

D           What?

K            Anxiety.

D           Oh, I guess I should have guessed. Yeah, it's all about anxiety pretty much, you know, we can just chalk it up to that most of the time.

K            Right? They say you’re like trying to run away from some sort of an issue, right? Trying to postpone something or don't want to deal with something that you have to. But anxiety, it's like when in doubt, anxiety.

Donielle (29:15.562)

Anxiety, exactly. Well, we need to end this on something a little bit more upbeat. So I have a couple of things that happened to me not that terribly long ago. And it's just the kind of thing that makes you go, huh, well, that's interesting. So one thing you may remember about me is I am a Scrabble fanatic.

K            Yes.

D           And I love to play Scrabble. There's this online thing, it’s Words With Friends,

K            We used to play it!

D           What happened to that? 

K            I don't know. Well, you probably kicked my butt so badly that I was just, you know, I was like, I'm not doing this anymore.

D           That's funny. But yeah, I play Scrabble a lot and to the point where apparently it came into my dream because I remember clearly, of course I should have written it down because I don't remember exactly but there was a word that was in my dream and I was looking at the word and I was like, oh, that's an anagram of blah, blah. Anagram just means mixed up letters.

K            Right.

D           to spell something else. And I was like, oh yeah, that's an anagram of whatever. And it was a long word. I was like, what the heck? And I woke up and I said, well, that's weird. So I wrote down the word and checked to see if it was indeed an anagram of the thing that I said. Yeah, it was. Yeah, and I'm so dumb. I should have actually put that somewhere that I could reference it later because now I only have half a story because I don't remember what the words were, but I definitely checked it and I was like, wow, that's cool.

D           That's interesting.

D           Yeah. And then one more that happened just recently, really weird and cool. I didn't quite remember the dream. It was just these little pieces of it by the time I, you know, was coming to - coming, awake, but it was - as I was dreaming lucid dreaming again, I'm seeing the situation and I'm thinking to myself, man, this is a cool story. This needs to be a book. And so I woke up remembering that and thinking, I have to write down everything I can remember. This is a really cool story. And I could only get little bits and pieces of it. And it was driving me so crazy that I sat there and in my mind, I just pieced together a story. And I thought, I wish I were a writer because that's a good story! But anyway.

K            That's actually really cool that you could like remember and try to...

D           Yeah, I think sometimes I'm like, you know, I need to make a short story out of that because it came from my dream. It was interesting. It was cool. I liked the plot. So who knows? Maybe someday.

K            You never know, you never know what those dreams will bring.

D           Yeah. Well, do you have any last-minute thoughts that we need to wrap up here? Because this was super cool.

K            This is super cool. I would just say, you know what, maybe in order to avoid those kind of crazy anxiety dreams, just, you know, before you go to bed, take a relaxing bath, maybe have a cup of tea. 

D           There you go.

K            So then you'll have pleasant dreams. Yes. Pleasant dreams.

D           Yes, pleasant dreams. Exactly. All right, well this has been awesome. It's great talking to you. This was a fun topic. So until next time, here's to good coffee, good vibes, and great conversations. Cheers.

K            Cheers!