Chapter 3:

States of Consciousness

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Consciousness• An awareness of ourselves and our

environment

• Selective attention to one’s ongoing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions

• Levels of information processing:

- conscious

- subconscious.

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• Consciousness - a chief executive

• Assistants - take care of routine tasks

• Altered states of consciousness

• Different

• Examples: sleep, dreaming, hypnosis, drug induced states, and near death experiences.

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Sleep and Dreaming

• Stages of sleep - stages 1, 2, 3, 4 & REM

• What distinguishes these stages?

• pattern of brain wave activity

• Electroencephalograph (EEG) - machine for monitoring neuron firing

• Five different patterns are noted during sleep.

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Brain Wave Activity and

Sleep

Page 277

Sleep Research Subject

Researcher monitors brain wave activity, muscle tension, eye movements, genital arousal, and other bodily responses (p.272).

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Dream Research Findings: Stages of Sleep

As can be seen, sleep throughout the night has a predictable pattern to it (p. 278).

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• Light sleep

• Lasts up to 5 minutes

• Some experience fantastic images, resembling hallucinations

• Example: sensations of falling or of floating weightlessly.

Sleep: Stage 1

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• You are clearly asleep

• Sleep spindles

• About 20 min. in length

Sleep: Stage 2

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• Large, slow delta waves• Called slow wave sleep

• Hard to awaken

•About 30 minutes

• End of stage 4, children sometimes walk in sleep

• Brain still processes information (selective attention)

• Stage 4 gets briefer as sleep continues.

Sleep: Stages 3 & 4

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• After going through stages 1-4, you ascend returning through stage 3 and stage 2

• You then enter REM sleep

• REM - Rapid Eye Movement (1952)

• Brain waves become rapid

• Much like nearly awake stage 1 sleep

• Important sleep; REM rebound.

Sleep: REM

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• Stages vary in length - get longer as sleep goes on

• Breathing rapid and irregular

• Heart rate rises, genital arousal

• Body paralyzed, muscles relaxed

•Motor cortex is active, but brainstem blocks its messages

• REM called paradoxical sleep. Why?

Other Characteristics of REM:

One Other Characteristic of REM:

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REM Sleep: • Awaken someone during REM, they will usually

recall a dream

• REM dreams are often emotional and story like

• REM’s protective paralysis

• Are eye movements due to watching the dream?

• REM sleep periods (dreams) get longer

• 20-25% of sleep time is dream time.

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What Do We Dream?• We spend 600 hours a year dreaming - 6 years of

our lives• 8 in 10 dreams - marked by negative emotions• Awakened during REM, males report only one in

ten dreams as being sexual. Women one in thirty• Usually dream about events in daily life• 65% of characters in men’s dreams are males.

Women 50/50 split.

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Why Do We Dream?• Sigmund Freud: manifest and latent content

• Freud - dreams allow for the expression of unconscious, anxiety-laden material

• Unconscious emerges in dreams in the form of symbols

• Wish fulfillment

• Example.

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Why Do We Dream: Another Theory

• The activation-synthesis theory

• Dreams result from random neuron firings

• Provides periodic stimulation

• Dreams - brain’s attempt to make sense of random neuron firings

• Emotion related limbic system active during REM adding emotions.

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Why Do We Sleep?• Obviously, we need sleep

• We sleep 1/3 of our lives, 25 yrs. average

• But why?

• Not an easy question to answer

• Effect of sleep deprivation - sleepiness, diminished productivity, mistakes, fatigue

• Sleep deprivation “makes you stupid”.

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Other Effects of Sleep Loss:• Suppression of the disease fighting immune

system

• Impaired creativity and concentration

• Slight hand tremors

• Slowed performance & reaction times

• Misperceptions on monotonous tasks- makes driving hazardous.

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But Still, Why Do We Sleep?• We have very few answers

• Sleep may have evolved because . . .

• Helps us recuperate, restores body tissue, especially brain

• Brain is active, perhaps, repairing and organizing itself

• However, unsure what is restored

• May play a role in the growth process.20

Sleep Disorders• Insomnia - recurring problems in falling or

staying asleep

• Narcolepsy - periodic, overwhelming sleepiness, uncontrollable sleep attacks, usually lasting less than five minutes

• Sleep apnea - characterized by temporary cessations of breathing and consequent reawakenings.

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• Night terrors - characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified

• Night terrors - stage 4 sleep, within two or three hours of falling asleep

• Seldom remembered.

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Hypnosis

• A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur

• If instructed to forget once out of the hypnotic state, the subject will have posthypnotic amnesia, a temporary memory loss, like being unable to recall.

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• Can anyone experience hypnosis?

• Can hypnosis enhance recall of forgotten events?

• Can hypnosis force people to act against their will?

• Can hypnosis be therapeutic?

• Can hypnosis alleviate pain?

• Theory of dissociation

• Is hypnosis an altered state of consciousness?24