Reading log

Name: Martín, María Fernanda
Title: In the dreamscape of nightmares, clues to why we dream at all
Source: New York Times
Link: http://.nytimes.com/2007/20/23angi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Date: October 23, 2007

Vocabulary:
1. schizophrenia noun [U]1 a serious mental illness in which someone cannot understand what is real and what is imaginary:paranoid schizophrenia. 2 INFORMAL behaviour in which a person appears to have two different personalities
2. outrageous adjective 1 shocking and morally unacceptable:The judge criticized the "outrageous greed" of some of the lawyers.[+ that] It is outrageous that these buildings remain empty while thousands of people have no homes. These prices are just outrageous (= much too high).2 describes something or someone that is shocking because they are unusual or strange: outrageous clothes/behaviour. an outrageous carácter
3. host (A LOT) noun a host of a large number of something: There's a whole host of reasons why he didn't get the job.
4. bogey man noun [C] (ALSO bogy man, US ALSO boogeyman)an imaginary evil person who harms children: Be good, or the bogey man will come and get you!
5. bawdy adjective containing humorous remarks about sex: bawdy humour/songs
6. bona fide, bonafide adjective real, not false: Make sure you are dealing with a bona fide company.
7. bona fides plural noun LEGAL good or sincere intentions.
8. ricochet verb [I] If a ball or bullet ricochets, it hits a surface and bounces away from it at an angle: The ball ricocheted off the goalkeeper and into the net.
9. ricochet noun [C] He was hit by a ricochet from a stray bullet.
10. splice verb [T] to join two pieces of rope, film, etc. together at their ends in order to form one long piece:Scientists have discovered how to splice pieces of DNA.
11. splice noun [C]a join between two pieces of something so that they form one long piece

Main ideas:
A person with a traumatic past may reactivate his trauma by having nightmares. Yet, bad dreams are universal human experiences.
A good reason why bad dreams offer us an insight into the architecture of our thoughts.
Most of our dreams are bad.
We spend 60 to 70 percent of sommonolence dreaming or in a dreamlike state called sleep mentation.
Nightmare frequency varies by age and sex.
Nightmare rates climb through adolescence , peak in young adulthood and then it begins to drop.
Women report having more nightmares than men.
Nightmares content also varies over time and across cultures for example arab women dream with their repression and submissive roles in their society.
The survey and research was based upon brain imaging devices. Scientists have begun identifying which regions of the brain are active during sleep and which are largely off line.

Personal Reaction:
All people, in every age and culture have suffered from these terrors at nights. Nightmares are normal and frequent in our lives. It is considered by many a sort of channel through which we put all our fears and traumas. The research gives interesting information about the age and gender propensity to have nightmares. Besides the different varieties of nightmares depend on the people’s cultures. I think nightmares are a blurred topic to discuss but interesting at the same time. Interesting enough to go on finding out something relevant and useful for people’s better understanding of this topic. It would be great to know why nightmares take place in our brains.