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Conversation Lesson

Dan: Birbiglia. I love the sound of that name, Birbiglia.

Aaron: Birbiglia.

Dan: Birbiglia. I think I’m going to name my kid Birbiglia.

Aaron: Don’t do that.

Dan: Yeah, my wife wouldn’t like that.

Aaron: Well, it’s an okay last name, but for a first name I don’t think it works.

Dan: Yeah. Anyhow, Mike Birbiglia - crazy story about him sleepwalking. Have you listened to him on Youtube telling this story?

Aaron: No, I haven’t. I heard you talk about it, but I haven’t actually listened to it.

Dan: He’s a comedian. The way we talk about it, it’s interesting; but if you listen to him talk about it, it will make you laugh. He’s a really funny guy.

Aaron: Oh, okay. I’ll listen to that, yeah.

Dan: Yeah. So, yeah, I’ve never heard of someone…you know, of course I’ve heard of people sleepwalking, but jumping through a window?

Aaron: Yeah, that’s pretty extreme.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: And kind of scary in a way.

Dan: Yeah. Have you ever had any kind of sleep problems?

Aaron: Not…well, not recently. I do remember several sleepwalking incidents when I was a child, and one of them in particular was a little bit unnerving, and that is I was having a dream about walking my dog. I had a Shetland Sheepdog.

Dan: Me, too.

Aaron: Oh yeah?

Dan: I think we talked about this recently.

Aaron: Really? Anyway, I had a dream I was walking my dog, I opened the front door, and in my dream I was taking my dog down the street when suddenly I heard my name being called. It was my father saying, “Aaron! Aaron! Where are you going?” And at that moment, I woke up from my dream and I found myself in my pajamas, alone, in the street outside in front of my house.

Dan: So your father was in the dream? Or in real life he was yelling?

Aaron: No, in real life he heard…when he was sleeping in his bed, he heard the front door open, and naturally he became very afraid. Maybe he thought it was an intruder.

Dan: Uh-huh.

Aaron: And so he went to see what the noise was, and he found me outside.

Dan: Were you in the street?

Aaron: Yeah, I was in the street. In my pajamas. He yelled my name, but in my dream I heard him yelling, and that’s what woke me up.

Dan: Oh. Did you have your dog with you?

Aaron: No. No, I didn’t. My dog was still inside the house.

Dan: Do you remember what you thought when he woke you up?

Aaron: No, I was just very confused, and actually I didn’t even remember it until my parents reminded me the next morning, “By the way, you were in the street last night.” And oh really?

Dan: Did they think that was funny?

Aaron: No, they didn’t think it was funny. No. Looking back it’s funny, but at the time it wasn’t so funny. How about you? Have you ever had any, I don’t know, strange dreams or have you ever sleepwalked?

Dan: Well, I’ve had actually a dream that was a little bit similar to Birbiglia’s story in that it was a recurring dream.

Aaron: Oh, okay.

Dan: It was a dream that I had many, many times…

Aaron: I see, I see.

Dan: …that ended up in sleepwalking, actually sleep running.

Aaron: Sleep running?

Dan: Yeah. Actually, no, sleep jumping and then sleep running.

Aaron: Wow, this is getting stranger as you go.

Dan: Okay, let me back up.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: The dream that I had many times that did not end up in sleepwalking was there was this gigantic meatloaf - very big, like maybe the size of a building, a giant building - and this meatloaf was rolling across cities and destroying buildings, people…every- thing in front of it.

Aaron: Wow, that’s strange.

Dan: And the meatloaf was heading towards me, and for some weird reason I felt that this meatloaf was my fault. somehow I was guilty of setting this meatloaf loose on the world.

Aaron: Whoa.

Dan: So anyways, I’m running…I’m running from this meatloaf, feeling re- ally guilty, feeling like I’ve done this terrible thing, it’s going to destroy humanity. That was in my dream, and in real life…at that time, I was in a bunkbed, so I was in a raised bed. It was about 2 meters off the ground. While being asleep, I slept-jumped out of my bed to the ground, 2 meters to the ground, with my blanket kind of tied, held around my neck and draped around my back, kind of like a Superman cape.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: And I jumped out of bed, and then I just started running out of my bedroom, running down the hall with my Superman cape draped around my back.

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: And then all of a sudden I woke up.

Aaron: Did your parents know this was going on?

Dan: No, I don’t think they ever…I mean, I probably told them this crazy story, but they didn’t know at the time.

Aaron: Oh.

Dan: Yeah, so it was a recurring dream that ended up in sleep jumping and sleep running.

Aaron: Whoa.

Dan: Yeah, very weird.

Aaron: And I think it’s also strange that you were dreaming about a meatloaf and feeling guilty about it.

Dan: Yeah, it is very weird.

Aaron: That’s a pretty strange thing. I mean, they say that what you see in your dreams and what you experience in your dreams sometimes symbolizes or represents something in your life - in your real, waking life - that is causing you trouble or some kind of problem. I wonder what did the meatloaf represent to you at the time in your waking life? I wonder.

Dan: I think I just didn’t like meatloaf.

Aaron: You just didn’t like it. But why’d you feel guilty about it? That’s…

Dan: Okay. Well, yeah, I’ve thought about that. That’s very strange. One thing…my mother would make meatloaf a lot, and in my house you could not leave the table until you ate every single bite.

Aaron: Okay, well that’s good.

Dan: And I was a really picky eater, so this was tough for me.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: So, I was always making plans and scheming to somehow get rid of the food.

Aaron: M-hm.

Dan: My Shetland Sheepdog…

Aaron: Yeah?

Dan: She would come under the table, and I would…

Aaron: Oh, you’d feed her the meatloaf?

Dan: …I’d feed her the food when my parents were looking a different way. But sometimes, every once in a while, my dog wasn’t around or she wasn’t hungry, so in those situations I would put the meatloaf in napkins in my lap, then put it in my pocket…

Aaron: Eww.

Dan: …and then with my pockets full of meatloaf, I would go into my bedroom and hide it.

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: I mean, sometimes I would flush it down the toilet, but for some reason sometimes I couldn’t and I would hide it, thinking I’m just hiding it for now and I’m going to get it later and I’ll throw it away later.

Aaron: But I can see that you knew you were doing something sneaky, and you felt guilty about it.

Dan: Yes. And then I would forget about the meatloaf in my closet, and then months later my mother would find it and it was…it was bad.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: So, yeah, I don’t know if there’s anything deeper than that.

Aaron: Well, anyway, back to dreams in general, I think there are different…according to scientific studies on sleeping, they’ve identified different sort of stages of sleep in terms of what is happening in the brain and in the nervous system, and I think sleep happens on one level that’s deep, like a deep sleep.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: And then very often people…when you’re dreaming, your mind is not as deep in sleep; it’s more active, obviously, and it generates all these images and experiences in the sleep. So, I think some people who dream frequently, who have wild dreams and frequent dreams, may not be getting the quality sleep that they need to adequately refresh their bodies.

Dan: I don’t know. I’ve heard that…no, actually you’re right. I have heard that REM is not…it’s necessary, the stage…

Aaron: You’re talking about rapid eye movement.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Aaron: Okay.

Dan: REM…dreaming is necessary, but it’s not the most restorative. It doesn’t give you the most benefit for your body.

Aaron: Uh-huh.

Dan: I once heard about this truck driver who actually had these special glasses that would detect when his eyes were moving, and these glasses were hooked up to a laptop in his truck; and whenever the glasses could see that he was in REM, it set off an alarm to wake him up.

Aaron: Oh really?

Dan: Because he wanted to have the least amount of sleep possible so he could drive.

Aaron: Oh, I see.

Dan: He owned his own truck; so the more he could drive, the more money he made.

Aaron: The more money he made. Interesting.

Dan: And he said that REM was not the best use of his sleeping time.

Aaron: Interesting.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Actually, especially in this digital age of computers and technology, and especially how busy people are in their lives, a lot of people suffer from sleep disorders, usually mild sleep disorders, but it’s quite common for people to suffer from insomnia or to not be able to fall asleep at night because their mind is racing…

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: …or they wake up in the middle of the night and they can’t get back to sleep. I think it’s really interesting that this hormone, melatonin… have you heard of melatonin?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Yeah. This hormone, melatonin, in your natural body rhythms is secreted when the sun goes down. Your body starts producing more of it, and it makes you drowsy and it helps you fall asleep; and what causes you to be very active during the day is the fact that the light, the natural light - like sunlight and light from the environment - hits your eyes and it stimulates the production of, I think, dopamine, which is the chemical that goes up in the daytime and falls at night in reverse proportion to melatonin.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: So when melatonin goes up, dopamine goes down; and when dopamine goes up, melatonin goes down. But I find it interesting now with so many people watching television at night, using the internet at night, this light hits the eyes and tricks the body into thinking that it’s still daytime, and I think that is one of the main causes of this disruption in getting deep sleep.

Dan: Yeah, I mean, you often hear that advice to not watch TV or not use your computer late at night or it’s going to cause sleep problems.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: Which is something that I don’t follow. I’m always…I use my computer at night.

Aaron: Oh yeah, me too. I know it’s not good for me, but I do it.

Dan: But melatonin is something I do use, especially when I’m traveling.

Aaron: Oh, you’re talking about like supplements?

Dan: Yeah, melatonin supplements.

Aaron: I see.

Dan: Very effective.

Aaron: I heard that’s really good for jet lag, so if you fly…

Dan: Yeah. Whenever I’m traveling, I always take melatonin to help me get to sleep.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: And incredibly cheap. At least in the U.S., available anywhere, any kind of pharmacy.

Aaron: Yeah. I would just be a little bit concerned about taking that frequently as a means of falling asleep.

Dan: Yeah. I think messing around with your hormone levels and neurotransmitters just seems kind of dangerous to me.

Aaron: Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t seem…

Dan: On a regular basis.

Aaron: On a regular basis, yeah, right. Anyway, going back to the story, Birbiglia, Mike Birbiglia, when he had this terrible nightmare it frightened him so much that he did something very extreme, and that is jump out of a window. I mean, he’s quite lucky to be alive.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Aaron: I’ve had nightmares, and I’m sure you have as well, and they can be re- ally scary.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: A lot of times, when you wake up you’re still feeling the fear – right when you wake up - even though you knew it was a dream, you’re still very afraid.

Dan: Right.

Aaron: And it reminds me of a practice I heard about called lucid dreaming. I think this is practiced by Tibetan monks; I’m not 100% sure. But it’s this practice they have of learning to recognize that they are dreaming when they are dreaming, because normally we get afraid because we think it’s real…

Dan: Right.

Aaron: …if we encounter a monster or something very scary. What they do is they learn to recognize that they’re dreaming so that they can confront their fears and not let the fear control them, and they can actually transform it into some positive experience.

Dan: Right.

Aaron: And the idea is if you can do that in your dream, then you can do that in life, because in life it’s also kind of a very similar thing. Where is the fear coming from? It comes from within you; it doesn’t exist from without. So if you can learn to control your fear in your dreams, the idea is you can learn to control it in…or just transform it, let’s say, not necessary control it, but change it into some- thing positive in your real life. I’ve often wondered maybe I should try that. That would be something interesting.

Dan: Yeah. You know, I think the ability to be more in touch with your subconscious is very valuable.

Aaron: M-hm.

Dan: When I was I think maybe 12, I was reading some magazine of my father’s, and there was an article about lucid dreaming. The technique - it was kind of a how-to article - and the technique in this article was throughout the day, look at your hands…

Aaron: Oh really?

Dan: …and focus on your hands - maybe 10, 20, 30 times a day, constantly look at your hands - and then, as you know, anything that you’re doing a lot in the daytime is likely to come up in your dream.

Aaron: Uh-huh.

Dan: And so that’s kind of a cue, and then when you see your hands in your dream that’s a cue, oh, what’s going on here? Am I dreaming?

Aaron: Ah.

Dan: Oh, I forgot one main point.

Aaron: Yeah?

Dan: When you look at your hands in the daytime, ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?”

Aaron: I see.

Dan: So you ask yourself 30 times a day, “Am I dreaming?” when you look at your hands; and then eventually that will come up in your dreams, and when you ask yourself that question hopefully it will be a cue…

Aaron: It will trigger…

Dan: …for your conscious mind to under- stand, yes, I am dreaming.

Aaron: Interesting.

Dan: And then you can take control of your dreams.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: I wasn’t able to do it many times, but I was able to do it a few times.

Aaron: Oh, really? You’ve had some experience with that?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Oh.

Dan: The problem I had was I would realize I was dreaming, and then a common goal…another thing is they say you should have a goal. As soon as you realize you’re dreaming, you should plan what you are going to do in your dream.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: So, a lot of people’s goal is to fly. That’s kind of a common fantasy, being able to fly.

Aaron: Sure, sure.

Dan: So, usually that cue would happen…not usually; this happened maybe three times in my life. I looked at my hands; am I dreaming? Yes, I’m dreaming. Cool, now I’m going to fly.

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: And I would take off flying, and then…it would only last maybe a minute, and in that minute I would either get too excited and wake up or I would lose consciousness. I would continue flying, but it would just become a regular feeling again.

Aaron: I see, yeah.

Dan: I would forget that I was dreaming.

Aaron: Interesting.

Dan: But I recently read about another technique that is very similar. It’s about doing something many times in the daytime and hoping it will come up in your dreams. this technique is every time you walk through a doorway, touch the doorway and ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Or say to yourself, “Am I dreaming?”

Aaron: Uh-huh.

Dan: So, yeah, I think I’m going to try that one. You just reminded me. I heard that a few months ago.

Aaron: Okay, good. Well, there’s one other thing, though, that is quite common; it’s not something rare. You talked about getting in touch with your subconscious and how much you can learn from that, and another thing people do, which is actually a lot simpler, is just keep a dream journal.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: So they just keep a notebook and pen right next to their bed, and as soon as you wake up, you write down the contents of your dream before you forget it, because we always forget our dreams…

Dan: Right, right.

Aaron: …and then you build up a library, a whole record of all the dreams that you’ve had in the past few months, and you maybe can start seeing patterns and start learning a little bit more about what’s happening in your subconscious, so that’s another thing to try.

Dan: Yeah. And I’m sure you train yourself. You get better at remembering your dreams by doing that.

Aaron: Yeah, I bet you do, yeah. Well, there we go. Dream journals and lucid dreaming.

Dan: Yeah. touch the doorway every time you walk through it.

Aaron: Touch the doorway. Or look at your hands.

Dan: Am I dreaming?

Aaron: Am I dreaming? Are we dreaming?

Dan: Yeah.