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Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast,

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number six. Welcome to another edition of English

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as a Second Language Podcast, brought to you

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by www .eslpod .com. I'm your host, Dr. Jeff

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McQuillan. Senior Researcher at the Center for

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Educational Development here in Los Angeles,

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California. ESL Podcast is especially made for

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you, those who are trying to improve their English

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listening and speaking. If this is the first

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time listening to this podcast, I recommend that

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you go to our website, www .eslpod .com. to read

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more about how best to use this podcast to improve

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your English. ESL podcasts have two parts. The

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first part is an interview, conversation, or

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story by a native speaker. We recommend you listen

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to this several times. The second part is an

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explanation of some of the vocabulary and expressions

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used by the native speakers. This second part

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is optional, but some people find it helps them

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understand better. Before we begin today's podcast,

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I want to thank one of our podcast listeners

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in Japan, Noriko, who emailed us to tell us about

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a problem that we had with ESL pod number 4 on

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our website. Apparently, we had a problem recording

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the audio, and so only one side of the audio

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came out. So if you were listening in your headphones,

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you may have only heard it out of one ear. We

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apologize for that. We may have had that problem

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also in our ESL pod number 5. But we think we

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have the problem fixed. We want to thank... Noriko

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for letting us know, and encourage all of you

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to email us your ideas and suggestions, and if

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you have problems, let us know. Now let's get

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started. Today's topic is bad dreams. We asked

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two people to talk about their worst dreams.

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Let's listen to what they had to say. I do have

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nightmares sometimes. I do have bad dreams. A

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lot of my bad dreams are things like I'm being

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chased by someone and I can't get away from them

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or I'm hiding from them. Some other of my bad

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dreams involve not being able to get home. I'm

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trying to get home and there are a lot of different

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obstacles that I have to get past before I get

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home. And I usually wake up before I get there.

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So I find it very frustrating. So these bad dreams

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make me really tense. And when I wake up, I'm

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very, very stressed out. A bad dream that I kept

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having over and over again, a recurring bad dream

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I had when I was in high school, was a really

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horrible one. I dreamt that... My mother had

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a knife, a meat cleaver. And I was a child, and

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I saw her in the bathroom cutting up a dead body

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with a meat cleaver. And she saw me watching

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her, and she started chasing me with her knife.

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And she never caught me, but I had to hide from

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her. And she chased me and chased me, and I was

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really scared. I had this recurring dream, probably,

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I don't know, for several months. And to this

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day, it's the scariest, worst, bad dream I've

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ever had. Boy, that's an interesting question.

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Bad dreams. Well, I would have to say that...

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the worst bad dream I ever had, and this happens

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a lot to me in my dreams, is that I was trapped

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inside a building or I'm trapped in another country

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and I can't get back home. Usually what happens

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is that I meet someone there from my past. an

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old friend, an acquaintance, a classmate, someone

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from high school. And, of course, it seems normal.

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It seems just natural when I'm having the dream

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that I meet these people. But it's always in

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a situation that never actually occurred. But

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usually my dreams, like most people's, bad dreams,

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I think are related to things that I thought

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about or happened to me that day or recently.

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For example, I had a very difficult time getting

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my car fixed the other day, and that night when

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I had a dream, I dreamt that I was broken down

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on the highway. And I couldn't get home. And

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it was dark. And it was starting to rain. So

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I started to get desperate and so forth. So when

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I woke up, of course, I was sweating and a little

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bit scared. But fortunately, I was able to calm

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myself down. And eventually, I actually got my

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car fixed. I hope I don't have that nightmare

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again. You've just heard two people talk about

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a bad dream, including me. And I want to now

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talk about some of the vocabulary that they used

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that you might have had difficulty with. Remember,

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this section of our podcast is optional. If you

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want to go back and listen again and again, we

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recommend that. But if you want some additional

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help, then stay tuned. One word that both speakers

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used is nightmare. A nightmare is another word

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for a bad dream. When Lucy was talking about

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her bad dream, she mentioned that she couldn't

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get home because she had lots of obstacles. An

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obstacle is something that gets in your way either

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when you're walking, running, in a car, or just

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generally in life. We talk about obstacles that

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get in our way, things that prevent us from going

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or doing what we want to do. In the Army, they

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have something called an obstacle course. And

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sometimes in school, in physical education class,

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they'll set up a game called an obstacle course.

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And you have to go through all sorts of different

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obstacles, different challenges, such as walking

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through some tires or climbing up a rope and

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so forth. Another word that Lucy used was recurring.

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She said that she had a recurring dream. To recur

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means to repeat. So she had that dream several

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times. During my discussion of nightmares, I

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mentioned that my nightmare is about being trapped.

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And to be trapped is to be put in a situation

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where you cannot leave. But we also use the term

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trapped in a more general way. You can be trapped

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in a job or you feel like you are trapped in

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a situation. This is a situation or a job that

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you can't leave or you can't escape from easily.

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Another word I used in my description of the

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bad dream is that my car had broken down. Now

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you probably already know that broken means something

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that doesn't work. For example, my radio is broken

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or my computer is broken. But when we talk about

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motor vehicles, cars, trucks, we use the term

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broken down when it stops running, when it stops

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being able to move. So broken and broken down,

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slightly different meanings. That's going to

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wrap it up for today's ESL podcast. I want to

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thank you again for listening. I want to urge

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you and recommend that you email us your ideas

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for topics, suggestions for what you would like

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to hear in these ESL podcasts. These podcasts

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are made for you, the listener, all around the

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world. So we hope that you will email us. You

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can email us by going to our website, www .eslpod

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.com, or simply send us an email at eslpod at

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learningexperts .com. That's eslpod at l -e -a

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-r -n -i -n -g. Thank you again for listening,

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and please come back again tomorrow to ESL Podcast,

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English at the Speed of Sound. ESL Podcast is

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produced by the Center for Educational Development

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in Los Angeles.