XI. Прочтите и переведите текст а: Text a. Dreams

A person sleeps one-third of his life. Dreaming alone accounts for more than five years of the average life-span.

Freud, one of the first to analyze dreams, characterized dreaming as “a royal path to the subconscious”. Dreams reflect our desires and motivate our behaviour.

Some people claim they do not dream at all. That’s not right. Everybody dreams. It is quite another matter if upon waking one forgets one’s dreams. This depends on many factors including family traditions.

Some people dream in black and white, others in colour. Dreaming in colour is more common among emotional people with a flexible nervous system. Well-balanced, calm people sometimes dream in colour too but pay less attention to it.

Sleep is composed of consecutive rapid and slow phases. One dreams several times per night but only during a rapid phase of sleep. Dreams are so important that if deprived of dreams, a person can experience serious psychic changes.

A person can be deprived of dreaming by waking at the beginning of a rapid phase. This moment can be recorded. Heartbeat becomes more frequent, breathing becomes irregular and eye movements become more rapid.

Rapid sleep, and consequently dreams, is crucial for many reasons. Superficial sleep is followed by moderate sleep and then deep sleep. If this process did not stop the logical progression would be the coma stage – a cerebral state that cannot be reversed.

Dreaming is a vital mechanism of psychological safeguard against difficulties of everyday life. There is a Chinese saying: “We can sneeze away all our problems in our sleep”.

Nowadays there are very many books interpreting dreams. But the same images are interpreted in completely different ways. Interpreters of dreams try to predict a person’s future while the scientific research is to understand the essence of an individual, to penetrate into the subconscious.

TASKS

I. Translate the following word combinations:

средняя продолжительность жизни, отражать желания, все видят сны, во время бодрствования, видеть черно-белые сны, видеть цветные сны, гибкая нервная система, спокойные люди, быстрая и медленная фазы, быть лишенным сновидений, испытывать серьезные психические изменения, учащенное сердцебиение, неровное дыхание, по разным причинам, жизненно важный механизм психологической защиты, предсказывать будущее человека, проникать в подсознание

II. Complete the following sentences:

1. A person sleeps … of his life.

2. … was the first to analyze dreams.

3. Dreams reflect …

4. Dreams motivate …

5. Dreaming in colour is more common among …

6. Sleep is composed of …

7. A person deprived of dreams can experience …

8. One dreams only during …

9. Dreaming is a vital mechanism of …

10. Interpreters of dreams try …

11. Scientific research tries …

III. Answer the following questions:

1. How long does a person sleep during his life?

2. Who was the first scientist to analyze dreams?

3. What do our dreams reflect?

4. Do all people dream?

5. Does everybody remember dreams?

6. What dreams can people have?

7. What people usually dream in colour?

8. What phases is sleep composed of?

9. What phase do we dream during?

10. Is it good to sleep without dreaming?

11. What is dreaming?

12. Are there any books interpreting dreams?

13. Have you read any of them?

14. What are the books interpreting dreams based on?

15. What do interpreters of dreams try to do?

16. Is it a scientific approach?

17. What is scientific research to do?