Waking and Sleeping Rhythms

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Waking and Sleeping Rhythms

• Module 17

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Consciousness

• Our awareness of ourselves and our environment.
• Psychology initially focused exclusively on
  consciousness, the study of awareness.
• Later, behaviorism placed focus on observable
  behavior only.
• Now, psychology focuses on both consciousness and
  behavior.

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Levels of Processing

• Consciousness is that which is within your
  awareness, but much information is processed
  outside of your awareness.
• Unconscious processinghow does it help us?
• We have only so much conscious attention to give.

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Daydreams or Fantasies

• Are daydreams normal?
• Why do we have daydreams?
• Daydreams may be about wish or fantasy material,
  or just about future plans, thinking through
  different scenarios, etc.

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The Biological Rhythms of Sleep

• Circadian rhythms
• We have peaks and valleys of arousal and
  attention each day based on this rhythm.
• Light helps set our biological clocks, as do our
  regular sleep patterns.

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Sleep Stages

• Pass through about five distinct sleep stages
  about every 90 minutes or so.
• Stage 1light, lasts about 5 min.
• Stage 2somewhat deeper, sleep spindles.
• Stages 3 and 4slow-wave sleep, deep.
• REM Stagerapid eye movement sleep.

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REM Sleep

• The stage during which dreams occur.
• Brain waves similar to those of being awake.
• Genitals become aroused, even if dream not
  sexual.
• Motor cortex active, but brainstem blocks
  messages, keeping your muscles relaxed.
• As sleep continues through the night, Stage 4
  sleep decreases and REM sleep increases.

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Why Do We Sleep?

• Evolutionarily, sleep was likely protective.
• Primarily, sleep helps us restore body tissues,
  esp. in the brain. It has a restorative effect.
• Without sleep, thought processes, physical
  functions impacted.

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Insomnia

• How do we define insomnia?
• Do alcohol and sleeping pills help?
• What can help combat insomnia?

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Other Sleep Disorders

• Narcolepsyuncontrollable attacks of sleep.
• Sleep apneaa disorder characterized by many
  short cessations of breathing during the night.
• Night terrorsfeeling of high arousal and terror,
  but occurs in Stage 4, not REM.

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Dreams

• Dreams are series of images or stories, have
  associated emotion, occur in REM.
• Story line is the manifest content, and it often
  includes day residue.
• Freud believed (and many still believe) that
  dreams have latent content, a meaning beyond
  their story line that may provide some insight
  into hidden feelings, thoughts.

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Why Do We Dream?

• Information Processing Theorydreams help us sort
  through the days events, fix things in our
  memory.
• Activation-Synthesis Theoryrandom neural
  activity occurs, and dreams are your brains
  attempt to make sense of this.
• Parts of brain activated during dreaming are
  those responsible for emotion and motivation, as
  Freud would have expected! We need REM sleep.