Informative Speech Outline On Dreams

Informative Speech Outline: Dreams 6-8min
I. Introduction
A. Attention Getter: Have you ever woken up from a dream and remembered it clear as day, or not remembered anything at all? How about wondered what your dreams, or what your lack of dreams meant?
B. General Purpose: To inform.
C. Specific Purpose: My goal today is to share with you as much as I can about dreaming.
D. Thesis Sentence: I will describe why and how we dream, answer commonly asked questions about dreaming, and go a little bit into dream analysis.
E. Establish Credibility: For years I’ve tried to find the meaning of my dreams, I’ve even kept dream journals to follow through with my curiosity, and now I’ve done extensive research into the understanding of dreams.
F. Preview Main Points: Today I would like you to be able to leave with the knowledge of something according to dreams, whether it be why we dream, a question you’ve always had answered, or simply something about dream analysis.
G. Relevance to Audience: All of us have at some point wondered something about our dreams, today is the day to have your questions answered. Transition: Let’s get started.

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II.
Body
A. First of all, let me share the facts about how and why we actually dream.
1. We dream because our brain does not completely shut down when we sleep.
a. The brain is still active, but our muscles are paralyzed.
b. REM sleep disorder is a sleep disorder where our muscles are not paralyzed during REM sleep; therefore a person will excessively move in their sleep, which explains sleep walking, or sleep talking.
c. REM stands for rapid eye movement
d. The system of the brain that directs our dreams is called the limbic system.
e. The limbic system also controls our emotions; hence, if a person has many sad dreams, their dreams alone can lead them into a depression.
2. Now back to REM, we have two ways of dreaming, REM sleep and non-REM sleep.
a. REM sleep lasts about 20 minutes and we cycle into it about every 90 minutes.
b. During REM sleep we have our most vivid dreams because the brain is most active, explaining our rapid eye movement and why it’s called REM sleep.
c. When we’re not in REM sleep we’re in non REM sleep and we can still remember our dreams during this time but often forget them by the time we wake up; we would usually only remember them if we woke up during that period of
sleep.
d. About 50% of people remember their dreams when they wake up, remembered dreams are called lucid dreams.
B. Now, let me cover some of the forefront questions in peoples mind when it comes to dreams.
1. Is it possible to just not dream?
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a. It is very rare but some people do not dream; this group of people though are only stroke victims who have had damage to the parietal lobe and sometimes after years regain the ability to dream.
2. If someone dreams that they die, do they die in waking life?
a. It is a common misbelief that if we were to die in a dream, we would therefore die in waking life; truth is, we can do anything in our dreams.
b. Many people will say they have dreamt of near death but always wake up right before they actually die in their dream.
c. I have actually had a reoccurring dream where I was stuck in a Russian Roulette situation and I lost; I get shot in the head twice and rather than waking up I fell to the floor and just went into another dream, I actually started dreaming about butterflies.
3. Is it possible to control ones dreams?
a. Though my research I found this to be very possible.
b. In fact my 8th grade math teacher always told me he could control his dreams.
c. He always said the trick was to think about something before you go to bed, but not immediately before you fall asleep.
d. My research shows this is the most common way people try to direct their dreams.
e. Say your someone who reads before you go to bed, you would think about what you want to dream about before you read and you would let what you read be the last thing you think about.
C. My last topic is going to be dream interpretation.
1. The way we interpret our dreams is based on what we believe, which usually reflects our culture and how we have been raised.
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2. Many tribal cultures take dream interpretation very seriously; they will gather every morning to share their dreams and everyone discusses the meaning of them.
3. Some people, like me, will just look up interpretations in books or on the internet to find what their dream means, not taking it as serious as tribal cultures.
4. Then there’s people who don’t believe in dream interpretation at all; they may believe dreams are completely random thoughts in the subconscious or that their just answers to the days questions.
5. My point is though, that if you are interested in what your dreams mean you have to do your own research and find what suits you best.
Transition: Now, I’m coming to the end of my speech.
III. Conclusion
A. Review Specific Purpose: I hope you learned something about your dreams today.
B. Review Main Points: For me, the best outcome would be that you learned something about why we dream, you had a curiosity of a longing question quenched, and you were intrigued by what I could tell you about dream analysis.
C. Closing Statement: I will leave you with this quote from Abdul Kalam, a past president of India, “You have to dream before your dreams can come true.” (India Times n.p.) Thielman 5
Works Cited

Compiled by the Association for the Study, of Dreams. "Frequently Asked Questions about Dreams." St. Louis Post - Dispatch: 0. Oct 24 2004. ProQuest. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Cheung, Theresa. The Element Encyclopedia of 20,000 Dreams. HarperCollins Publishers: December 17, 2009.
"Dream, do, Deliver." India Today Feb 19 2007: 74. ProQuest. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
Judd, Sandra. Sleep Disorders Sourcebook. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2010. Print. 259-319
"Why Do We Dream?" Films on Demand. Films Media Group, 2008. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.