## Project B: Writing

#### Project B Writing: Memories in Dreams

You are going to write a summary about dreams.

- Read the text.
- Do the assignment (on your own): fill in the grid and write a summary.
- Hand in your work to your teacher.

1. Read the text.

Memories in Dreams What’s the most recent dream you can remember? Was anyone you know in it? Did it happen in a place you know well? Were you doing something familiar? Most dreams incorporate fragments of experiences from our waking lives. It’s common to dream about disconnected snippets like a particular person, place, or activity. But do dreams ever replay complete memories—for instance, the last time you saw your mother, including the place, activities, and people? Memories like this are called episodic because they represent whole episodes instead of just fragments; studies the secret world of sleep of dreaming show that these types of memories are sometimes replayed in sleep, but it is quite rare (around 2 percent of dreams contain such memories, according to one study). Most of our dreams just recombine fragments of waking life. These fragments are relatively familiar and reflect the interests and concerns of the dreamer. This means cyclists dream about cycling, teachers dream about teaching, and bankers dream about money. Some researchers have capitalized upon dream reports to gain insight into the process by which memories are immediately incorporated (i.e., in the first night after they were initially experienced). Freud famously referred to this as “day-residues.” One study showed day residues appear in 65 to 70 percent of single dream reports. On the other hand, a more recently described phenomenon called the dream-lag effect refers to the extraordinary observation that, after its initial appearance as a day residue, the likelihood that a specific memory will be incorporated into dreams decreases steadily across the next few nights after the memory was formed, then increases again across the following few nights. Thus, it is very common for memories to be incorporated into dreams on the first night after they were initially experienced (if I have a car crash today, I’m likely to dream about it tonight). The likelihood of such incorporation decreases gradually across the next few nights, with few memories incorporated into dreams three to five days after they occurred. Extraordinarily, however, the probability that a memory will be incorporated into a dream increases again on nights six and seven after it was initially experienced. What is going on here? Why are memories less likely to be incorporated into dreams three to five days after they originally occurred than six to seven days afterward? One possibility relates to the need for consolidation. Memories may be inaccessible at this stage because they are being processed in some way which takes them temporarily “offline.” Notably, this effect is only true for people who report vivid dreams, and it also appears to only be true of REM dreams. As with most research, the dream-lag effect raises more questions than it answers. Source: www.scientificamerican.com

2. You are going to write a summary of this text.
   To help you to get information from the text, first fill in the grid before writing your summary.

introduction |
types of memories |
examples of dreams |
research |
time |
conclusion |

After finishing this assignment you will be able to get information from a text and use this to write a summary.

#### Writing - Evaluation

You did well if you fit the category 'good' or 'sufficient' when assessing yourself using the grid below.

| Good | Sufficient | Insufficient
--- | --- | --- | ---
Content | The information I have used is relevant. I have used many of the words mentioned in the assignments. I can organize the text I have written well in the report. | The information I have used is mostly relevant. I used some of the words mentioned in the assignments. I can reasonably organize the text I have written in the report. | I find it difficult to determine what is relevant information to use in the report. I find the words mentioned in the assignments difficult to use. I cannot properly organize the text I have written in the report.
Words | I have used the words correctly. | I can use most words well. | I can't use the words properly.
Grammar | I can use / apply the following components well: basic sentences word order Pronouns and prepositions I make little to no writing mistakes. | I can use / apply the following components reasonably well: basic sentences word order Pronouns and prepositions I still make a few typing mistakes. | I cannot properly use / apply the following components: basic sentences word order Pronouns and prepositions I still make quite a lot of writing mistakes.