Please offer any critiquing or editorial edvice that you may have. Thanks! =)
In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you
describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life
and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the
UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about
student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call
to service.
The Beneficent Nightmares
Fantastic. Exotic. Liberating. These adjectives normally describe dreams that,
well, normal people experience. Flight, the replay of daily events, superpowers
beyond imagination, and illusions of grandeur premiere in the depths of one's
conscience during sleep like an 8-hour-long marathon of That 70's Show
or American Idol. Simply put, they are interesting enough for our brains
to put on Prime Time for a third of the day.
But what about the times when commercials begin to pop up? Then infomer-
cials? Pretty soon, the dreamer finds herself stuck in a vortex of advertising
purgatory, listening to that weaselly Sham-Wow guy with the oddly-angled
eyebrow or Billy Mays and his booming "Try it NOW!" escapades. For eight
hours straight. To the dreamer, these present themselves as nightmares,
and I became stuck in a repetitive myriad of these endless infomercials. For
two years.
To make matters worse, however, the spokesperson of my nightmares por-
trayed herself as neither Billy Mays nor the Sham-Wow guy; instead, she
was my best friend.
Every night for those two years, I dreamt that she died in several horrific
ways. The first year, watching her falling from her drum major's podium hap-
pened to be the most popular infomercial.
Then, dozens of more transient but sinister dreams followed. My friend
almost fell to her death off a cliff. Almost killed me with a knife. Fatalistic
imagery continued to wreak havoc in my mind, but it was not the content
of the dreams that frightened me most. Instead, my darkest fears stemmed
from the fact that, despite all my efforts, I could never truly save my best
friend from those deaths. That's what made them nightmares.
After suffering from the nightmares for so long, though, I decided to re-
search their meaning and possible ways in which I could stop them from
happening. Without knowing it, I had embarked on an adventure through
one of the most interesting subjects I had ever crossed: psychology. Spe-
cifically, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams.
I began to crave more information about this Freud and his practice of
psychology. "What is psychology, exactly? The brain and its functions a-
lone? Or is there something more to it?" These thoughts continuously
peaked my interest and transformed my journey from an innocent quest
to a life-changing passion. Hooked, and past the point of no return, I de-
cided to take IB Psychology SL the following year.
At first, I felt disappointed and confused after my psychology professor
revealed that dreams did not always mean what they seemed, and that
little was known about how or why they happened. However, once I be-
gan to learn about the different branches of psychology, my passion
sparked again in the area of Cognitive Psychology. Soon afterwards, I
came to value my AP/IB book as if it were a second Bible and passed
both exams with flying colors.
Finally, I had found my calling in life!
Equally as satisfying, my nightmares began to stop by themselves, and
I have since fully recovered from the memory of them. The experience
as a whole, though, inspired me to pursue a career as a diagnostic or
experimental psychologist. In this way, I can offer both my knowledge
and experience to aid those suffering from similar circumstances in the
future, possibly providing new cures or therapies to treat those with re-
occuring nightmares.
In other words, I plan to help make an infomercial-free world for all to
enjoy. Sans Billy Mays and the Sham-Wow guy to interrupt it.
In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you
describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life
and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the
UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about
student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call
to service.
The Beneficent Nightmares
Fantastic. Exotic. Liberating. These adjectives normally describe dreams that,
well, normal people experience. Flight, the replay of daily events, superpowers
beyond imagination, and illusions of grandeur premiere in the depths of one's
conscience during sleep like an 8-hour-long marathon of That 70's Show
or American Idol. Simply put, they are interesting enough for our brains
to put on Prime Time for a third of the day.
But what about the times when commercials begin to pop up? Then infomer-
cials? Pretty soon, the dreamer finds herself stuck in a vortex of advertising
purgatory, listening to that weaselly Sham-Wow guy with the oddly-angled
eyebrow or Billy Mays and his booming "Try it NOW!" escapades. For eight
hours straight. To the dreamer, these present themselves as nightmares,
and I became stuck in a repetitive myriad of these endless infomercials. For
two years.
To make matters worse, however, the spokesperson of my nightmares por-
trayed herself as neither Billy Mays nor the Sham-Wow guy; instead, she
was my best friend.
Every night for those two years, I dreamt that she died in several horrific
ways. The first year, watching her falling from her drum major's podium hap-
pened to be the most popular infomercial.
Then, dozens of more transient but sinister dreams followed. My friend
almost fell to her death off a cliff. Almost killed me with a knife. Fatalistic
imagery continued to wreak havoc in my mind, but it was not the content
of the dreams that frightened me most. Instead, my darkest fears stemmed
from the fact that, despite all my efforts, I could never truly save my best
friend from those deaths. That's what made them nightmares.
After suffering from the nightmares for so long, though, I decided to re-
search their meaning and possible ways in which I could stop them from
happening. Without knowing it, I had embarked on an adventure through
one of the most interesting subjects I had ever crossed: psychology. Spe-
cifically, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams.
I began to crave more information about this Freud and his practice of
psychology. "What is psychology, exactly? The brain and its functions a-
lone? Or is there something more to it?" These thoughts continuously
peaked my interest and transformed my journey from an innocent quest
to a life-changing passion. Hooked, and past the point of no return, I de-
cided to take IB Psychology SL the following year.
At first, I felt disappointed and confused after my psychology professor
revealed that dreams did not always mean what they seemed, and that
little was known about how or why they happened. However, once I be-
gan to learn about the different branches of psychology, my passion
sparked again in the area of Cognitive Psychology. Soon afterwards, I
came to value my AP/IB book as if it were a second Bible and passed
both exams with flying colors.
Finally, I had found my calling in life!
Equally as satisfying, my nightmares began to stop by themselves, and
I have since fully recovered from the memory of them. The experience
as a whole, though, inspired me to pursue a career as a diagnostic or
experimental psychologist. In this way, I can offer both my knowledge
and experience to aid those suffering from similar circumstances in the
future, possibly providing new cures or therapies to treat those with re-
occuring nightmares.
In other words, I plan to help make an infomercial-free world for all to
enjoy. Sans Billy Mays and the Sham-Wow guy to interrupt it.