Unit 4 Sleep and Dreams

1. Unit 4 Sleep and Dreams

2. New words and expressions for Reading One: • logy: characterized by lethargy; sluggish • 懒散的：以懒散的特征的；行动迟钝的。 • irritable: If you are irritable, you are easily annoyed. • He had been waiting for over an hour and was beginning to feel irritable.

3. simulate: If you simulate an object, a substance, or a noise, you produce something that looks or sounds like it. • The wood had been painted to simulate stone... • endorphin: [countable usually plural] a chemical produced by your body that reduces pain and can make you feel happier 内啡肽

4. relieve: If something relieves an unpleasant feeling or situation, it makes it less unpleasant or causes it to disappear completely. • Drugs can relieve much of the pain... • antidote: Something that is an antidote to a difficult or unpleasant situation helps you to overcome the situation. • Massage is a wonderful antidote to stress. • = cure, remedy

5. heavy: A heavy meal is large in amount and often difficult to digest. • He had been feeling drowsy, the effect of an unusually heavy meal. • = filling ≠ light • spicy: hot • Thai food is hot and spicy.

6. groggy: If you feel groggy, you feel weak and rather ill. (INFORMAL) • She was feeling a bit groggy when I saw her. • tryptophan: An essential amino acid, formed from proteins during the digestive process by the action of proteolytic enzymes. • 色氨酸：一种重要的氨基酸，在消化过程中，通过蛋白水解作用酶的运动而由蛋白质形成。

7. eosinophilia: 嗜曙红细胞过多，嗜曙红血球增多 • myalgia: 肌痛 • stimulant: A stimulant is a drug that makes your body work faster, often increasing your heart rate and making you less likely to sleep.

8. nicotine: Nicotine is the substance in tobacco that people can become addicted to. • Nicotine marks stained his chin and fingers. • diet pills: <美> 减肥药丸 • ephedrine: [药]麻黄碱, 麻黄素

9. restorative: Something that is restorative makes you feel healthier, stronger, or more cheerful after you have been feeling tired, weak, or miserable. • She opened the door to her bedroom, thinking how restorative a hot bath would feel tonight.

10. sedative: Something that has a sedative effect calms you or makes you sleep. • Amber bath oil has a sedative effect. • wear off: If a sensation or feeling wears off, it disappears slowly until it no longer exists or has any effect. • For many the philosophy was merely a fashion, and the novelty soon wore off... • Now that the initial shock was wearing off, he was in considerable pain...

11. unrefreshed: adj. 昏昏沉沉 • A small glass of wine once in a while at bedtime may help relax you, but stronger drink disturbs the quality of sleep, leaving you unrefreshed in the morning. • unwind:When you unwind, you relax after you have done something that makes you tense or tired. • It helps them to unwind after a busy day at work...

12. circadian: [only before noun] • relating to a period of 24 hours, used especially when talking about changes in people’s bodies • the body’s circadian rhythm • drift: to gradually change from being in one condition, situation etc into another without realizing it • drift into • She was just drifting into sleep when the alarm went off. • He drifted in and out of consciousness.

13. Check Your Comprehension • 1. By sleeping in total darkness during the day and working under bright lights that simulate sunlight, rather than conventional indoor lighting. • 2. It relaxes muscles and stimulates the release of endorphins — chemicals that act as natural pain relievers. • 3. No.

14. Check Your Comprehension • 4. We need to keep a meal schedule to get a good sleep. • 5. We should refrain from a) eating too late in the evening; b) eating heavy or spicy food in the evening; and c) snacking in the middle of the night. • 6. The side effects of taking sleeping pills are: a) feeling groggy; b) insomnia getting worse; c) developing a tolerance for sleeping pills; and d) a potentially fatal blood disorder with some sleeping pills.

15. Check Your Comprehension • 7. Alcohol suppresses restorative dream sleep, causes numerous short awakenings and may leave you awake but unrefreshed toward morning. • 8. We can read a book, listen to quiet music, take a hot bath or try relaxation techniques, such as meditation or yoga. • 9. Lights absorbed through the eyes can reset our biological clocks and make our sleep problems worse. • 10. We should stay in bed because we would still get some rest that way.

16. Check Your Vocabulary • 1. Because exercise can relax muscles and increase the release of endorphins, which are chemicals that are natural agents to reduce or get rid of pain, it helps to overcome stress. • 2. There are no special foods to help you sleep, but you can have a regular timetable for your meals, just like a regular sleep timetable. A regular timetable for your meals helps keep your body clock running smoothly.

17. Check Your Vocabulary • 3. Your body can also become used to the pills, and after a while they are no longer effective and you need larger doses or stronger drugs. • 4. Alcohol reduces refreshing dream sleep, causes numerous short awakenings and, once its calming effects have disappeared, may leave you wide awake but unrefreshed toward morning.

18. Check Your Vocabulary • 5. The researchers used bright light which is as strong as natural sunlight just after dawn (at least 100 times stronger than ordinary room light), which reset subjects’ body clocks by as much as 12 hours and made them as alert at midnight as they would ordinarily be at noon.

19. New words and expressions for Reading Two: • vivid: If you describe memories and descriptions as vivid, you mean that they are very clear and detailed. • People of my generation who lived through World War II have vivid memories of confusion and incompetence... • On Wednesday night I had a very vivid dream which really upset me.

20. prick:If something sharp pricks you or if you prick yourself with something sharp, it sticks into you or presses your skin and causes you pain. • She had just pricked her finger with the needle. • manifest:If you manifest a particular quality, feeling, or illness, or if it manifests itself, it becomes visible or obvious. (FORMAL) • He manifested a pleasing personality on stage... • Their frustration and anger will manifest itself in crying and screaming... • = show

21. rouse: If someone rouses you when you are sleeping or if you rouse, you wake up. (LITERARY) • Hilton roused him at eight-thirty by rapping on the door... • When I put my hand on his, he stirs but doesn’t quite rouse. • = wake

22. prophetic: If something was prophetic, it described or suggested something that did actually happen later. • This ominous warning soon proved prophetic... • integrity: If you have integrity, you are honest and firm in your moral principles. • I have always regarded him as a man of integrity...

23. whine: If something or someone whines, they make a long, high-pitched noise, especially one which sounds sad or unpleasant. • He could hear her dog barking and whining in the background... • The engines whined.

24. twitch: If something, especially a part of your body, twitches or if you twitch it, it makes a little jumping movement. • When I stood up to her, her right cheek would begin to twitch... • Stern twitched his shoulders.

25. analogy: If you make or draw an analogy between two things, you show that they are similar in some way. • It is probably easier to make an analogy between the courses of the planets, and two trains travelling in the same direction.

26. revert: When people or things revert to a previous state, system, or type of behaviour, they go back to it. • Jackson said her boss became increasingly depressed and reverted to smoking heavily.

27. disguise: To disguise something means to hide it or make it appear different so that people will not know about it or will not recognize it. • He made no attempt to disguise his agitation（焦虑； 不安）...

28. fanciful: If you describe an idea as fanciful, you disapprove of it because you think it comes from someone’s imagination, and is therefore unrealistic or unlikely to be true. • ...fanciful ideas about Martian life... • Designing silicon chips to mimic human organs sounds fanciful.

29. New words and expressions for Reading Three: • fulfillment: The fulfillment of a promise, threat, request, hope, or duty is the event or act of it happening or being made to happen. • Visiting Angkor was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. • = realization

30. shaft:A shaft is a long vertical passage, for example for a lift. • He was found dead at the bottom of a lift shaft. • ...old mine shafts. • activation: If a device or process is activated, something causes it to start working. “Activation” is the noun form. • A computer controls the activation of an air bag.

31. synthesis: A synthesis of different ideas or styles is a mixture or combination of these ideas or styles. (FORMAL) • His novels are a rich synthesis of Balkan （巴尔干半岛的）history and mythology... • pons: A pons is a band of nerve fibres on the ventral surface of the brain stem.脑桥

32. impulse: An impulse is a short electrical signal that is sent along a wire or nerve or through the air, usually as one of a series. • cortex: The cortex of the brain or of another organ is its outer layer. (MEDICAL) • ...the cerebral cortex. 大脑皮层 • neuron: A neuron is a cell which is part of the nervous system. Neurons send messages to and from the brain. (TECHNICAL) • Information is transferred along each neuron by means of an electrical impulse.

33. neural: Neural means relating to a nerve or to the nervous system. (MEDICAL) • ...neural pathways in the brain. • reconstruct: If you reconstruct something that has been destroyed or badly damaged, you build it and make it work again. • The government must reconstruct the shattered economy... • Although this part of Normandy was badly bombed during the war, it has been completely reconstructed. • = rebuild

34. illuminate: If you illuminate something that is unclear or difficult to understand, you make it clearer by explaining it carefully or giving information about it. (FORMAL) • They use games and drawings to illuminate their subject.

35. marital: Marital is used to describe things relating to marriage. • Caroline was keen to make her marital home in London... • Her son had no marital problems. • royal road: n.捷径（坦途）

36. New words and expressions for Reading Four • panther: A panther is a large wild animal that belongs to the cat family. Panthers are usually black. • allusion: An allusion is an indirect reference to someone or something. • The title is perhaps an allusion to AIDS.

37. folkloric: adj. 民间传说的 • correlate: If one thing correlates with another, there is a close similarity or connection between them, often because one thing causes the other. You can also say that two things correlate. (FORMAL) • Obesity correlates with increased risk for hypertension and stroke... • The political opinions of spouses correlate more closely than their heights... • The loss of respect for British science is correlated to reduced funding... • At the highest executive levels earnings and performance aren’t always correlated.

38. indifferent: If you accuse someone of being indifferent to something, you mean that they have a complete lack of interest in it. • People have become indifferent to the suffering of others. • monochrome: A monochrome picture uses only one colour in various shades. • ...an old monochrome etching of a brewery.

39. decipher:If you decipher a piece of writing or a message, you work out what it says, even though it is very difficult to read or understand. • I’m still no closer to deciphering the code. • revolve: If you say that one thing revolves around another thing, you mean that the second thing is the main feature or focus of the first thing. • Since childhood, her life has revolved around tennis...

40. plague:If you are plagued by unpleasant things, they continually cause you a lot of trouble or suffering. • She was plagued by weakness, fatigue, and dizziness... • Fears about job security plague nearly half the workforce.

41. Check Your Comprehension B 1. Paragraph 2: You may have different representations in your dreams. 2. Paragraph 3: Whether the animals in your dreams have positive or negative meanings depends on how you feel about these animals. 3. Paragraph 4: It is good to know the mood of your dream.

42. Check Your Comprehension B • Paragraph 5: Another tip in understanding your dreams is analyzing what feelings and emotions you had during them. • Paragraph 6: The colour in dreams differs from people to people.

43. New words and expressions for Section Three • monumental: You can use monumental to emphasize the size or extent of something. • ...a series of monumental disappointments. • = huge, massive • four-poster bed: also four-poster [countable] • a bed with four tall posts at the corners, a cover fixed at the top of the posts, and curtains around the sides • 有四根帷柱的床：有很高的原意为支撑床的华盖或顶棚的角柱的床。

44. debase: To debase something means to reduce its value or quality. (FORMAL) • Politicians have debased the meaning of the word ’freedom’... • = degrade

45. what with something: spoken used to introduce a list of reasons that have made something happen or made someone feel in a particular way • She couldn’t get to sleep, what with all the shooting and shouting.

46. Speed Up Your ReadingWrite down the main idea of the text here. Getting to sleep at night and waking up in the morning are two perennial problems for human beings, who do not always regard sleep as very important. The importance we attach to sleep is correlated with what kind of beds we use for sleep and how highly we rate beds in our life.