Running head: Writing Prompt 9 1

Writing Prompt 9

Alex Barrera-Fuentes

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Writing Prompt 9

For the conversation of my semester long multimodal topic, I spoke to my roommate and

two of the members in my small group. My roommates name is Brandon Smith and my small

group members are Alicia Law and Canaan Howard. This conversation took place in my dorm,

where I asked them a series of question. The questions asked were; What are your thoughts about

the significance of dreaming, do you have or know of any cultural beliefs in dreaming, and what

would you like to know about dreaming?

Brandons response to the question of what he thinks about dreaming: (B. Smith,

personal communication, July 30, 2017) Regarding dreams, I believe that sometimes dreams

can have some type of meaning, and in general that some dreams happen simply because one is

thinking about something certain before they fall asleep, and so they dream of it. Alicia believes

that dreams reflect who you are, explain what you are going through at the moment in life and

she also believes that scary movies may be a cause to nightmares (A. Law, personal

communication, July 30, 2017.) (C. Howard, personal communication, July 30, 2017) Canaan

believes that the significance of dreaming is that it shows there is more going on in our head

than we believe. After going over their responses as well as comparing them I noticed that

Brandon and Alicia had similar views in that dreaming has something to do with what is on that

individuals mind. Canaan had a different view and thinks that dreaming shows there is more to

the human mind than what we believe there is.

As for cultural beliefs regarding dreaming, Brandon stated Native American cultures as

well as Biblical ones. For Native Americans Brandon believes that Dream Catchers were utilized

and were believed to be able to prevent nightmares. As for the Bible, (B. Smith, personal
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communication, July 30, 2017) stated, in the Bible, dreams were perceived to have some occult,

obscure meaning, able to be interpreted and when interpreted, revealed to have some grand

revelation. Alicia and Canaan both believed that dreams can help tell the future. Canaan also

stated Native American cultural beliefs about dreams; however, unlike Brandon, he focused

more on dreaming as interpretation of the future rather than the present moment. Alicia views of

dreams predicting the future is similar to Brandons Biblical beliefs, that dreams can tell the

future, as shown in the Biblical story of Joseph and the Pharaoh (B. Smith, personal

communication, July 30, 2017).

When asked about what they would like to learn about dreaming, I got intriguing

responses such as, (A. Law, personal communication, July 30, 2017.) Do dreams predict the

future and if dreams tie into dejavu? (B. Smith, personal communication, July 30, 2017) Why

do people have both good and bad dreams? Canaan had a similar question Brandon but it was

more broad as he wanted to know Why do people dream? Brandons and Canaans question

will be answered in my group's project, as they will be the main focus in answering the

significance of dreaming. As for Alicia, she stated a good point that my group has not thought of

and that really intrigued me to include in my research.

At the end of our conversation, I wasnt too surprised or shocked about any of the

responses I received. The one response that stood out for me was Alicias question about

dreaming. But I was able to see the different perspectives of what people think about my group's

topic as well as getting some ideas that I can research in the near future.
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References
Smith, B. (2017, July 30). Personal Communication Interview

Law, A. (2017, July 30). Personal Communication Interview

Howard, C. (2017, July 30). Personal Communication Interview