Shadowing Practice: I study demonic possession dreams. Here’s what we’ve found. | Patrick McNamara - Learn English Speaking with Video
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So I've been arguing that REM sleep is crucial for religious consciousness
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and for human creative capacities and for human cultural evolution but
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when it goes off the rails is associated with a lot of very serious disorders as well
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Everything from depression to isolated sleep paralysis, and nightmares in particular.
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Now, a nightmare is defined by most sleep medicine specialists as simply a scary,
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terrifying dream that wakes you up.
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A lot of other sleep medicine specialists say, well, it doesn't need to wake you up.
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If you have a really terrifying dream, that's a nightmare.
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And we know that nightmares tend to occur during REM sleep.
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And we know that lots of kids go through a phase where they have lots of nightmares, and then they sort of disappear for most people.
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But people who are vulnerable to nightmares have sort of a disinhibited form of REM neurobiology.
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REM tends to erupt into their waking consciousness a little bit, and they get these dissociative states during the daytime,
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and unfortunately, nightmares during the night
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so nightmares for the most part there's nothing good about them
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and I just want to underline the fact
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that there are very good treatments you don't have to suffer from nightmares
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but from the point of view of somebody investigating religious consciousness nightmares are particularly important
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because for most people who have nightmares supernatural agents appear
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and for many of them particularly for people with religious backgrounds those supernatural agents will be demonic agents
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and unfortunately those demonic agents really have very specific enduring effects on this person suffering from nightmares
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there are many examples but
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when you look at series of nightmares over time one common
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pattern is it before the series of nightmares begin a demon appears just in the room
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The person has a nightmare, and they say, I woke up from this dream, and it's, wow, this is this weird demon in my room.
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But he was just there.
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He wasn't doing anything.
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Scared me, and I woke up.
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And then a week later, they'll have a very similar dream, but the same demon, and the demon will now be near the bed.
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No longer in the corner of the room, but near the bed.
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The third week, I have the nightmare.
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Again, it's a very similar nightmare.
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And now the demonic agent knows that the dreamer is aware of them
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and so the demonic agent ups his game and tries to get closer
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and closer to the individual having the nightmare and so the individual starts to put up barriers to protect themselves.
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In an individual who's particularly vulnerable to nightmares these barriers will eventually not work
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and they need to get clinical help before that happens
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because in many cases the demonic agent is out to possess the individual's consciousness
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and the individual will wake up i mean
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if you look at case studies of demonic possession they invariably occur after a series of nightmares
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and then finally the demonic agent in the nightmare possesses the individual consciousness
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and they wake up in a possessed state
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and then you need you know like exorcism rituals to get rid of the demonic agent
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so those are some of the ways in which nightmares teach us about supernatural agents and religious consciousness
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and why obviously you do not want to have nightmares.
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However, nightmares have been around, we're almost certain, for many thousands of years.
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We have evidence that people who experience frequent nightmares
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but are able to control them
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and able to control the demonic agent in traditional tribal societies gain great social status
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because who can be more powerful than a person who can
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control a demonic agent the nightmares mark them off as special human beings
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that the divine has called them in a special way
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and only somebody who's strong enough to deal with those demonic agents are called to be a shaman
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or a spiritual guide for others
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so that's how people with nightmares in traditional societies were held in special high regard because they carried this special burden.
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So nightmares tell us a lot about religious consciousness and about REM neurobiology.
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One of the things they tell us about REM neurobiology is REM has special computational neurological machinery to handle trauma.
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We think that the fear extinction circuit in REM sleep functions differently during a nightmare than during an ordinary dream.
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And the reason why the fear extinction circuit, the computational machinery that's used to handle emotional traumas doesn't function well is
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that the fear extinction circuit breaks down at a certain gate.
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It's blocked for some reason in some individuals.
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And because the brain uses REM sleep to handle traumas
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And when the trauma can't be handled effectively,
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immediately, the trauma memories hang around in REM sleep and you get PTSD.
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So every night, the individual continually tries to integrate the trauma into long -term memory stores and then get rid of it.
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And that's why RIM is so crucial for getting through calamities
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and plagues and all kinds of horrible events because it's nature's special way to handle emotional trauma.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “I study demonic possession dreams. Here’s what we’ve found”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: nightmare, agent, demonic, Rem, sleep. This video has 34 sentences and 859 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:54. The speaker talks at a steady 146 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| nightmare noun | /ˈnaɪt.mɛɚ/ | A very unpleasant or frightening dream. |
| trauma noun | /ˈtɹɔm.ə/ | Any injury to the body of a living thing. |
| consciousness noun | /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/ | The state of being conscious or aware; awareness. |
| demon noun | /ˈdiː.mən/ | An evil being resident in or working for Hell; a devil. |
| circuit noun | /ˈsɝ.kɪt/ | The act of moving or revolving around, or as in a circle or orbit; a revolution |
| possess verb | /pəˈzɛs/ | To have (something) as, or as if as, an owner; to have, to own. |
| supernatural adjective | /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/ | Above nature; beyond or added to nature, often so considered because it is given by a deity or some force beyond that with which humans are born. |
| extinction noun | /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/ | The action of making or becoming extinct; annihilation. |
| occur verb | /əˈkɜː/ | To happen or take place. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| crucial adjective | /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/ | Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital. |
| specialist noun | /ˈspɛʃəlɪst/ | Someone who is an expert in, or devoted to, some specific branch of study or research. |
| vulnerable adjective | /ˈvʌln(ə)ɹəbl̩/ | More or most likely to be exposed to the chance of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. |
| barrier noun | /ˈbæɹi.ə/ | A structure that bars passage. |
| machinery noun | /məˈʃiːnəɹi/ | The machines constituting a production apparatus, in a plant etc., collectively. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go off verb | To explode. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| put up verb | To place in a high location. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is associated · is defined · are called |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · people who have · people who experience |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have been · has called |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 10 contractions and reduced forms, such as doesn't, wanna, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, extinction /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/, crucial /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/, specialist /ˈspɛʃəlɪst/, machinery /məˈʃiːnəɹi/
- Long words — get the stress right: supernatural /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/, machinery /məˈʃiːnəɹi/, computational /ˌkɑmpjʊˈteɪʃənəl/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like nightmare, trauma, consciousness.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.