States of Consciousness Chapter 5

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States ofConsciousnessChapter 5
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Consciousness

• Awareness or state which a person is awake
• Could be to
• Sensory awareness
• Inner awareness
• Sense of self that each person experiences

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Selective Attention

• Focusing on a particular stimulus
• What you pay attention to

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Levels of Consciousness

• Preconscious level
• Not in your awareness at the moment but able to
  recall them
• Example what did you eat for lunch yesterday
• Unconscious level (Subconscious)
• Unavailable to awareness
• Example Being mad at a parent but not really
  knowing why
• Turns out that parent was not there for you when
  you were sick and you are still upset about it
• Nonconscious level
• Things that you will not be aware of
• Example your finger nails growing (feeling them
  grow)
• Example your pupils getting smaller

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Altered States of Consciousness

• Where a persons sense of self or sense of the
  world changes
• Examples include
• When you doze off and no longer conscious of what
  is going on around you
• When you are asleep
• If an individual is under the influence of drugs
• During meditation, hypnosis, sensory deprivation
  or starvation

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Sleep Dreams

• Circadian rhythms are
• Your natural biological rhythms
• Your natural 24 hour clock
• Circadian rhythms include
• body temperature, blood pressure, sleepiness and
  wakefulness

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Sleep Stages

• Measuring sleep About every 90 minutes, we pass
  through a cycle of five distinct sleep stages.

Hank Morgan/ Rainbow
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Awake Alert
During strong mental engagement, the brain
exhibits low amplitude and fast, irregular beta
waves (15-30 cps). An awake person involved in a
conversation shows beta activity.
Beta Waves
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Stage 1
Click to see an awake brain.
Click dude for alpha Waves.

• Lightest stage of sleep
• Kind of awake and kind of asleep
• Alpha waves
• Produces mild hallucinations, like a feeling of
  falling or floating.

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Stage 2

• Fully asleep
• Begin to show sleep spindlesshort bursts of
  rapid brain waves.

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Stage 3 Stage 4

• Slow wave sleep
• Deep sleep
• You produce Delta waves.
• If awoken you will be very groggy.
• Vital for restoring bodys growth hormones and
  good overall health.

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REM Sleep

• Dream sleep
• Often called paradoxical sleep.
• Brain is very active.
• Body is essentially paralyzed.

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Stages of Sleep

• Stage 1
• lightest stage of sleep
• Stage 2
• We spend the most time in stage 2 sleep
• Stage 3
• Deep sleep
• Stage 4
• Deep Sleep (Deepest stage of sleep)
• REM sleep
• Dream sleep

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Why do we sleep?
We spend one-third of our lives sleeping. We
sleep to help the immune system, to help our
bodies function normally, and to help with
concentration
Jose Luis Pelaez, Inc./ Corbis
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Sleep Deprivation

1. Fatigue and subsequent death.
2. Impaired concentration.
3. Emotional irritability.
4. Depressed immune system.
5. Greater vulnerability.

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Sleep Theories

1. Sleep Protects Sleeping in the darkness when
   predators loomed about kept our ancestors out of
   harms way.
2. Sleep Recuperates Sleep helps restore and repair
   brain tissue.
3. Sleep Helps Remembering Sleep restores and
   rebuilds our fading memories.
4. Sleep and Growth During sleep, the pituitary
   gland releases growth hormone. Older people
   release less of this hormone and sleep less.

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Dreams
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Freuds Theory of Dreams

• Dreams are a roadway into our unconscious.
• Manifest Content (storyline)
• Latent Content (underlying meaning)

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Activation-Synthesis Theory

• Our Cerebral Cortex is trying to interpret random
  electrical activity we have while sleeping.
• That is why dreams sometimes make no sense.
• Biological Theory.

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Information-Processing Theory

• Dreams are a way to deal with the stresses of
  everyday life.
• We tend to dream more when we are more stressed.

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• Physiological Function theory Dreams provide the
  sleeping brain with periodic stimulation to
  develop and preserve neural pathways. Neural
  networks of newborns are quickly developing
  therefore, they need more sleep.

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1. Cognitive Development theory Some researchers
   argue that we dream as a part of brain maturation
   and cognitive development.

All dream researchers believe we need REM sleep.
When deprived of REM sleep and then allowed to
sleep, we show increased REM sleep called REM
Rebound.
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Dream Theories
Summary
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Sleep Disorders
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Insomnia

• Persistent problems falling asleep
• Inability to fall asleep or stay asleep

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Night Terrors

• Wake up with from a deep sleep.
• May feel panic
• May wake up screaming and have no idea why.
• Not a nightmare.

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Somnambulism

• Sleep Walking
• Most often occurs during the first few hours of
  sleeping and in stage 4 (deep sleep).
• If you have had night terrors, you are more
  likely to sleep walk when older.

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Sleep Apnea

• A person stops breathing during their sleep.
• Wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then falls
  back asleep.
• Very common, especially in heavy males.
• Can be fatal.

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Narcolepsy

• Suffer from sleeplessness and may fall asleep at
  unpredictable or inappropriate times.
• Directly into REM sleep
• Video
• Narcoleptic dog

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Meditation

• A method some people use to try to narrow their
  consciousness so to get rid of stress

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Biofeedback

• Training the body to calm itself down and slow
  down the heart rate using machines

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Hypnosis
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Hypnosis

• Altered state of consciousness where people
  respond to suggestions and behave as though they
  are in a trance

Franz Anton Mesmer
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• Posthypnotic suggestion

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Hypnotic Feats

• Strength, stamina, and perceptual and memory
  abilities similarly affect those who are
  hypnotized

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Hypnotic Theories

• Social influence/Role Theory

• Divided consciousness/ State Theory

• Hypnosis is NOT an altered state of
  consciousness.
• Different people have various state of hypnotic
  suggestibility.
• A social phenomenon where people want to believe.
• Work better on people with richer fantasy lives.

• Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness.
• Dramatic health benefits
• It works for pain best.

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Facts and Falsehood

• Those who practice hypnosis agree that its power
  resides in the subjects openness to suggestion.

Can anyone experience hypnosis?
Yes, to some extent.
Can hypnosis enhance recall of forgotten events?
No.
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Facts and Falsehood
No.
Can hypnosis force people to act against their
will?
Can hypnosis be therapeutic?
Yes.
Yes.
Can hypnosis alleviate pain?