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States ofConsciousness

Chapter 6

Objectives

1. Discuss the significance of consciousness in the history of psychology.

2. Discuss how our perceptions are directed/limited by selective attention.

3. Describe the cycle of our circadian rhythm; identify some events that can disrupt this clock.

4. List the stages of the sleep cycle; explain how differ.

5. Describe individual differences in sleep duration and the effects of loss sleep; note four reasons why need sleep.

6. Identify the major sleep disorders.

7. Describe the most common content of dreams, and compare the 5 major perspectives of why dream.

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Chapter Objectives8. Discuss the characteristics of people who are susceptible

to hypnosis.

9. Give arguments for/ag hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness.

10.Discuss the nature of drug dependence and addiction, and identify three common misconceptions about addiction.

11.Explain how depressants affect nervous system activity and behavior.

12. Identify major stimulants.

13.Describe the physiological and psy’cal effects of hallucinogens.

14.Discuss the bio, psych, soc-cultural factors…. Drug use.

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I. Waking Consciousness

1. Psychology began as a science of consciousness; it is now again focusing on our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

2. Behaviorists argued about alienating consciousness from psychology.

3. However, after 1960, mental concepts (consciousness) started reentering psychology.

4. In addition to normal, waking awareness, consciousness comes to us in altered states, including daydreaming, sleeping, mediating, and drug-induced hallucinating.

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Consciousness, modern psychologists believe, is an awareness of ourselves and our environment.

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I. Waking Consciousness

• Consciousness assembles info from various sources, enabling us to reflect on our past and plan for our future.

• It focuses our attention when we learn a complex concept or behavior: ex: driving

• However, w/ practice our conscious attention becomes more selective.

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I. Waking Consciousness•Selective Attention: the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. •Our conscious awareness processes only a small part of all that we experience. •Our selective attention makes us aware of only a very limited portion of the world around us.•As the level of our conscious grows, our attention is divided: texting while driving.

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I. Waking Consciousness

Inattentional blindness: failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.Simons & Chabris (1999) showed that half of the observers failed to see the gorilla-suited assistant in a ball passing game.

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I. Waking Consciousness

•Change blindness is a form of inattentional blindness in which two-thirds of individuals giving directions failed to notice a change in the individual asking for directions.

© 1998 Psychonomic Society Inc. Image provided courtesy of Daniel J. Simmons.

I. Waking Consciousness: Levels of Information Processing

• We process most info outside of conscious awareness.

• We register and react to stimuli outside of our awareness, by means of parallel processing.

• Ex: driving a familiar route.• When we devote full conscious attention to

stimuli we use serial processing. • Serial processing: slower; skilled at solving

new problems which require our focused attention.

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II. Sleep and Dreams

Sleep – the irresistible tempter to whom we inevitably succumb.

Mysteries about sleep and dreams have just startedunraveling in sleep laboratories around the world.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Biological Rhythms and Sleep

Circadian Rhythms occur on a 24-hour cycle and include sleep and wakefulness. Termed our “biological clock,” it

can be altered by artificial light (Thanks Edison!)

Light triggers the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease(morning) melatonin from the pineal gland

and increase (evening) it at night fall.

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II. Sleep and Dreams

• Circadian Rhyme: the biological clock; regular body rhythms that occur on 24 hours cycle

• Body temperature rises as AM approaches, peaks during day, dips in early PM, drops again before go to sleep

• Thinking is sharpest and memory most accurate when we are at our daily peak in circadian cycle.

• At about the age of 20, we begin to shift from being evening energized “owls” to being morning-loving “larks.”

• Most older adults are “larks” w/ performance declining as the day wears on.

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

II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Stages

Hank Morgan/ Rainbow

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Awake but Relaxed

•When an individual closes his eyes but remains awake, his brain activity slows down to a large amplitude and slow, regular alpha waves. A meditating person exhibits an alpha brain activity.•Alpha waves: the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state.•Sleep researches measure brain wave activity, eye movements, and muscle tension by electrodes that pick up weak electrical signals from the brain, eye, and facial muscles.

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•During early, light sleep (stages 1-2) the brain enters a high-amplitude, slow, regular wave form called theta waves . A person who is daydreaming shows theta activity.•During State 1: may experience fantastic images, sensations of falling.•Such sensations may be incorporated into memories.

II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Stages 1-2

Theta Waves

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•During deepest sleep (stages 3-4), brain activity slows down. There are large-amplitude, slow delta waves.•Delta Waves: the large, slow brain waves associated w/ deep sleep. •Even when deeply asleep, brain processes certain stimuli.•Vehicle passing by, baby crying, hearing your name•** We process most information outside our conscious awareness.

II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Stages 3-4

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Stage 5: REM Sleep

•After reaching the deepest sleep stage (4), the sleep cycle starts moving backward towards stage 1. Although still asleep, the brain engages in low- amplitude, fast and regular beta waves much like awake-aroused state.

A person during this sleep exhibits

Rapid Eye Movements (REM)and reports vivid dreams.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: 90-Minute Cycles During Sleep

•With each 90-minute cycle, stage 4 sleep decreases and the duration of REM sleep increases.•REM: Rapid Eye Movement: a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur.•Muscles are relaxed but other body systems are active.•Heart rate rises, breathing becomes rapid and irregular, eyes dart around in burst of activity behind closed lids.

II. Sleep/ Dreams

• Brain’s motor cortex is active during REM sleep, but brainstem blocks its messages, leaving muscles relaxed.

• You are essentially paralyzed during REM… cannot be easily awakened .

• You tend to recall a dream after being awakened from REM sleep.

• The sleep cycle repeats itself every 90 minutes.• As night wears on, deep Stage 4 sleep gets

progressively briefer and then disappears. • People rarely snore during dreams!

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Why do we sleep?

•We spend one-third of our lives sleeping.•Not necessarily “8”: depend on age, culture, genetics•If an individual remains awake for several days, immune function and concentration deteriorates and the risk of accidents increases.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Deprivation

1. Fatigue and subsequent death.

2. Impaired concentration.

3. Emotional irritability.

4. Depressed immune system.

5. Greater vulnerability.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Accidents

Frequency of accidents increase with loss of sleep

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Theories

1. Sleep Protects: Sleeping in the darkness when predators loomed about kept our ancestors out of harm’s 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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1. Insomnia: A persistent inability to fall asleep; recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.

2. Narcolepsy: Overpowering urge to fall asleep that may occur while talking or standing up; a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks.

3. Sleep apnea: Failure to breathe when asleep; temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings.

II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Disorders

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Children are most prone to: Night terrors: The sudden arousal from

sleep with intense fear accompanied by physiological reactions (e.g., rapid heart rate, perspiration) which occur during Stage 4 sleep.

Sleepwalking: A Stage 4 disorder which is usually harmless and unrecalled the next day.

Sleeptalking: A condition that runs in families, like sleepwalking.

II. Sleep/ Dreams: Sleep Disorders

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II. Sleeps/ Dreams: What We Dream

1. Negative Emotional Content: 8 out of 10 dreams have negative emotional content.

2. Failure Dreams: People commonly dream about failure, being attacked, pursued, rejected, or struck with misfortune.

3. Sexual Dreams: Contrary to our thinking, sexual dreams are sparse. Sexual dreams in men are 1 in 10; and in women 1 in 30.

Manifest Content: A Freudian term meaning the story line of dreams; usually incorporates traces of previous day’s experiences & preoccupations.

Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Why We Dream

1. Wish Fulfillment: Sigmund Freud suggested that dreams provide a psychic safety valve to discharge unacceptable feelings. The dream’s manifest (apparent) content may also have symbolic meanings (latent content) that signify our unacceptable feelings.

2. Information Processing: Dreams may help sift, sort, and fix a day’s experiences in our memories.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Why We Dream

3. Physiological Function: 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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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Why We Dream

4. Activation-Synthesis Theory: dreams erupt from neutral activity spreading from the brainstem; dreams make sense of that activity.

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

All dream researchers believe we need REM sleep. Whendeprived of REM sleep and then allowed to sleep,

we show increased REM sleep called REM Rebound.

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II. Sleep/ Dreams: Dream TheoriesSummary

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III. Hypnosis

Hypnos: Greek god of sleep

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A social interaction in which one person

(the hypnotist) suggests to another

(the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will

spontaneously occur.

III. Hypnosis

• Hypnotic Ability: the ability to focus attention totally on a task, to become imaginatively absorbed in it.

• “Hypnotically refreshed” memories combine fact w/ fiction.

• An authoritative person in a legitimate context can induce people, hypnotized or not, to perform some unlikely acts.

• Posthypnotic suggestions: a suggestion, made during hypnotic session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized. Used by some clinicians to help control symptoms and behaviors.

• Smoking, headaches, asthma, stress related skin disorders.

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III. Hypnosis: Facts and Falsehood

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

Can anyone experience hypnosis?

Yes, to some extent.

Can hypnosis enhance recall of forgotten events? No.

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III. Hypnosis: Facts and Falsehood

Can hypnosis be therapeutic?Yes. Self-suggestion can heal

too.

Post-hypnotic Suggestions

Can hypnosis alleviate pain? Yes. Lamaze can do that too. Patients have

required less medication, recovered

sooner, left hospital faster

Can hypnosis force people to act against their will?

No.

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III. Hypnosis: Explaining the Hypnotized State

1. Social Influence Theory: Hypnotic subjects may simply be imaginative actors playing a social role, an extension of their everyday social behavior.

2. Divided Consciousness Theory: Hypnosis is a special state of dissociated (divided) consciousness .

(Hilgard, 1992)

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III. Hypnosis: Both Theories

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III. Hypnosis

• Most psychologists believe that hypnosis is an extension of normal consciousness and that hypnotized people are unknowingly are acting out the role of “good subject.”

• Others believe that hypnosis produces a dissociation –a split– b/w normal sensations and conscious awareness.

• Many contemporary researchers avoid this debate and focus instead on how brain activity, attention, and social influences interact to create hypnotic phenomena.

• Dissociation: a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously w/ others.

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VI: Drugs and Consciousness

•Psychoactive Drug: A chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood (affects consciousness).•Depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens are the three main categories of psychoactive drugs.•All interfere w/ the activity of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) at the synapses of the brain.•Their effects also depends on the user’s expectations.•Continued use of drugs produces tolerance: requiring larger doses to achieve the same effect and may lead to physical or psychological dependence.•Addiction: compulsive drug craving and use.•Users who are physically dependent… withdrawl.

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IV. Drugs & Consciousness: Dependence & Addiction

Continued use of a psychoactive drug

produces tolerance. With repeated

exposure to a drug, the drug’s effect lessens. Thus it takes greater

quantities to get the desired effect.

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IV. Drugs….Withdrawal & Dependence

1. Withdrawal: Upon stopping use of a drug (after addiction), users may experience the undesirable effects of withdrawal.

2. Dependence: Absence of a drug may lead to a feeling of physical pain, intense cravings (physical dependence), and negative emotions (psychological dependence).

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IV. Drugs… Misconceptions About Addiction

1. Addictive drugs quickly corrupt…. Only about 10% become addicts.

2. Addiction cannot be overcome voluntarily… Many people overcome w/o help of therapists.

3. Addiction is no different than repetitive pleasure-seeking behaviors... But should we use it as an excuse for all behaviors? (shopping, overeating, etc)

Addiction is a craving for a chemical substance, despite its adverse consequences (physical &

psychological).

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VI. Drugs… Psychoactive Drugs

Psychoactive drugs are divided into three groups.

1. Depressants 2. Stimulants3. Hallucinoge

ns

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IV. Drugs… Depressants

•Depressants are drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions. They include: alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates.•Alcohol tends to disinhibit– it increases the likelihood that we will act on our impulses, whether harmful or helpful.•Also slows our nervous system, impairs judgment, reduces self-awareness, and disrupts memory processes by suppressing REM sleep.•User expectations strongly influence alcohol’s behavioral effects.

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IV. Drugs… Depressants

1. Alcohol affects motor skills, judgment, and memory…and increases aggressiveness while reducing self awareness. Consumption leads to feelings of invincibility… drunk driving.

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IV. Drugs…. Depressants

2. Barbiturates: Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment.

• Nembutal, Seconal, and Amytal are some examples. These are sometimes prescribed to induce sleep or reduce anxiety. Can lead to impaired memory and judgment… even death.

• Also known as tranquilizers• Mimic the effects of alcohol• If barbiturates and alcohol are combined, the total depressive effect can

be lethal.

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IV. Drugs… Depressants3. Opiates: Opium and its

derivatives (morphine and heroin) depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety. They are highly addictive.

• Morphine, heroin.• When repeatedly flooded w/

artificial opiate, the brain stops producing its own opiate, endorphins.

• If w/d, brain lacks the normal level of those painkilling neurotransmitters.

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IV. Drugs… Stimulants•Stimulants are drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions; highly addictive.•Examples of stimulants are: caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines, and methamphetamines.•Nicotine’s effects make smoking a difficult habit to kick, but the % of smokers is decreasing.•Continued use of methamphetamines may permanently reduce dopamine production.•Ecstasy is a combined stimulant and mild hallucinogen that produces a euphoric high and feelings of intimacy. Its users risk immune system suppression, permanent damage to mood and memory, and dehydration and escalating body temperatures.

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IV. Drugs… Caffeine & Nicotine

Caffeine and nicotine increase heart and breathing rates and other autonomic

functions to provide energy.

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IV. Drugs… Why Do People Smoke?

1. People smoke because it is socially rewarding; peer influence, advertising, movies

2. Smoking is also a result of genetic factors.

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IV. Drugs… Why Do People Smoke?

3. Nicotine takes away unpleasant cravings (negative reinforcement) by triggering epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, and endorphins.

4. Nicotine itself is rewarding (positive reinforcement).

5. Nicotine is addictive… develop a tolerance; quitting causes nicotine-withdrawl symptoms: craving insomnia, anxiety, and irritability.

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IV. Drugs…. Cocaine

Cocaine induces immediate euphoria followed by a crash. Crack, a form of cocaine, can be smoked.

Other forms of cocaine can be sniffed or injected.

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IV. Drugs… Ecstasy

•Ecstasy or Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a stimulant and mild hallucinogen. It produces a euphoric high and can damage serotonin-producing neurons, which results in a permanent deflation of mood and impairment of memory.•The “Hug Drug”

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IV. Drugs… Hallucinogens•Hallucinogens are psychedelic (mind-manifesting) drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.•Ex: LSD•Sensations are similar to “near death experiences”: an altered state of consciousness after a close brush w/ death.

Ronald K

. Siegel

IV. Drugs… Hallucinogens

• Hall’ns such as LSD and pot distort perceptions and evoke hallucinations: sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

• User’s mood/ expectations influence effects; but common experiences are hallucinations from euphoria to panic.

• People who have experienced a near death experience during a life-threatening illness or accident have reported sensations that closely parallel or drug-induced hallucinations, possibly reflecting a brain under stress.

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IV. Drugs… Hallucinogens

1. LSD: (lysergic acid diethylamide) powerful hallucinogenic drug that is also known as acid.

2. THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol): is the major active ingredient in marijuana (hemp plant) may trigger feelings of disinhibition, euphoria, relaxation, relief from pain, and intense sensitivity to sensory stimuli. It may also increase feelings of depression or anxiety, impair motorcoordination and reaction time, disrupt memory formation, and damage lung tissue (inhaled smoke).

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After a close brush with death, many people report an

experience of moving through a dark tunnel with a light at the end. Under the influence of hallucinogens, others report bright lights at

the center of their field of vision.

IV. Drugs… Near-Death Experiences

(From “H

allucinations” by R.K

. Siegel. Copyright

© 1977 Scientific A

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IV. Drugs… Drugs

Summary

Why do some people become regular users of consciousness-altering drugs?

• Psychological factors (stress, depression, and hopelessness) and social factors (peer pressure) combine to lead many people to experiment w/ --and sometimes become depended on– drugs.

• Cultural and ethnic groups have differing rates of drug use.

• Some people may be biologically more likely to become dependent on drugs such as alcohol. Each type of influence– bio, psych,soc/cult– offers a possible path for drug prevention and treatment programs.

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IV. Drugs… Influences on Drug Use

The graph below shows the percentage of US high- school seniors reporting their use of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine from the

70s to the late 90s.

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IV. Drugs… Influences on Drug Use

The use of drugs is based on biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences.

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IV. Drugs… Marijuana Use

The use of marijuana in teenagers is directly related to the “perceived risk” involved with

the drug.

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IV. Drugs… Influence for Drug Prevention and Treatment

1.Education about the long-term costs

2.Efforts to boost people’s self-esteem and purpose

3.Attempts to modify peer associations and teaching refusal skills