Unit 3 Intro to Altered States of
Consciousness
What is consciousness?
You are aware of you... right?
Individual awareness of your unique
thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations
& environment.
Conscious experiences are constantly
shifting & changing.
One moment you may be focused on these
notes. Your consciousness may then shift
to the memory of a conversation you
had earlier with a friend.
Next, you might notice how uncomfortable
your chair is or maybe you are daydreaming about dinner.
This ever-shifting stream of thoughts can
change dramatically from one moment to
the next, but your experience of it seems
smooth and effortless.
Consciousness
Consciousness: our level of awareness
about ourselves and the environment.
This psychological definition implies that
consciousness is NOT like an on/off switch.
We are NOT conscious or unconscious.
Psychologists refer to different levels &
states of consciousness.
It is ironic that we experience states of
consciousness... without being fully
aware that we are experiencing them!
Not all researchers agree about what
specific levels of consciousness there are,
but there are some possible suggestions
that most agree to...
Conscious Level - What you are currently aware of, including yourself &
environment.
Nonconscious Level - Body processes controlled by your mind that are
not usually (or ever) aware of... Heartbeat, respiration, digestion, etc.
Preconscious Level - Information about yourself & environment that you
are NOT currently thinking about, but could be. You aren’t currently
thinking about your favorite toy as a child, but if asked about it, you would
be.
Subconscious Level - Information we are not currently aware of, but we
know must exist due to behavior. (Great example: Mere Exposure Effect when we prefer stimuli we have seen before over novel/new stimuli, even
if we do not consciously remember seeing the old stimuli.)
Unconscious Level - Psychoanalytic psychologists believe some events
& feelings are unacceptable to our conscious mind & are repressed.
(Many psychologists object to this concept as difficult or impossible to
prove)
Great analogy of conscious behavior:
Conscious
Subconscious
Unconscious
Biological
Rhythms
Annual Cycles: seasonal variations
(examples: bears hibernation, seasonal affective disorder)
★ 28 day cycles: menstrual cycle
★ 24 hour cycle: our circadian rhythm
(melatonin=light)
★ 90 minute cycle: sleep cycles
SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
(SAD):
Prevalence in the U.S. ranging from 1.4%
in Florida to 9.7% in New Hampshire.
Symptoms of SAD:
★ difficulty waking up in the morning
★ morning sickness
★ tendency to oversleep
★ over eating
★ especially a craving for carbohydrates,
which leads to weight gain.
Other symptoms include a lack of energy,
difficulty concentrating on or completing
tasks, withdrawal from friends, family, and
social activities, and decreased sex drive.
WHY DO WE SLEEP?
Scientists do NOT know for sure why
sleep occurs & why we need it
Mechanism: causes us to fall asleep in brain (2
really). Believe it has evolutionary purpose
Body does not do as much recuperation during
sleep as we might believe
& brain is active during sleep, so we are not really
decreasing activity.
1 Theory: Sleep helps us to process &
consolidate new memories
Our memory system is a psychological wonder, &
several studies have suggested that sleep provides
some behind-the-scenes maintenance.
It is likely that as well as fine-tuning our brains, our
bodies use this opportunity to carry out a list of
housekeeping tasks (ex: repairing damaged cells)
Not only do we have to sleep, but it is
good for your mind & body as well
Sleep Cycles
Sleep is just a state of
consciousness; To a
psychologist, a sleeping person is
NOT unconscious
While we are asleep we are just
less aware of ourselves & the
world around us, than normally.
Most studies show that a large
number of Americans, in
general, & students, in particular,
are sleep deprived.
Researchers use EEG machines
to record brain waves to see how
active our brains our during sleep.
★ Falling to sleep - transition stage
★ Lasts between 1 and 5 minutes and
occupies approximately 2-5 % of a
normal night of sleep.
★ Eyes begin to roll slightly.
★ Consists mostly of theta waves that are
high amplitude & low frequency
★ Brief periods of alpha waves, similar to
those present while awake
Stage 1
Hallucinations can occur
& feeling of falling.
★ Follows Stage 1 sleep and is the
"baseline" of sleep.
★ Part of the 90 minute cycle & occupies
approximately 45-60% of sleep.
★ Brain waves slow down dramatically.
★ Deeper stage of sleep.
★ Sleep spindles (bursts of neural activity
or neural firings) occur.
★ Not easy to wake up.
Stage 2
Stage 3 & 4
Stages 3 & 4 are "Delta" sleep or "slow wave"
sleep and may last 15-30 minutes.
"slow wave" sleep because brain activity
slows down dramatically.
"theta" rhythm of Stage 2 to a much slower
rhythm called "delta" and the height or
amplitude of the waves increases
dramatically.
Stage 3 and 4 (cont.)
Contrary to popular belief, it is delta
sleep that is the "deepest" stage of
sleep (REM is not) and the most
restorative.
It is delta sleep that a sleep-deprived person's
brain craves the first and foremost.
In children, delta sleep can
occupy up to 40% of all sleep
time & this is what makes children
difficult to wake or "dead asleep"
during most of the night.
Stage 5: REM
REM: Rapid Eye Movement
This is a very active stage of sleep.
Composes 20-25 % of a normal nights
sleep.
Breathing, heart rate and brain wave
activity quicken.
Vivid Dreams can occur.
From REM, you go back to Stage 2
But the brain causes a decrease in
muscle tone and control.
Impossible to sleepwalk in this stage
(the body is immobile).
REM cycles decline during
childhood and levels off at 20%
8 hours is the average
need. But we ALL
sleep- about 25 years
on average in our life.
How do you feel when you
don’t get enough sleep?
Insomnia
Recurring problems in falling
or staying asleep.
Not your once in a while, I’m having
trouble getting to sleep episodes...
because you have a big test
tomorrow.
Insomnia is not defined by the
number of hours you sleep every
night.
Narcolepsy
Characterized by uncontrollable sleep
attacks.
Lapses directly into REM sleep (usually
during times of stress or joy).
Excessive sleepiness. Unpredictable &
uncontrolled.
YouTube: Skeeter - the narcoleptic dog
Sleep Apnea
Sleep disorder characterized by
temporary cessations of breathing
during sleep & consequent
momentary re-awakenings.
Night Terrors
A sleep disorder characterized
by high arousal and an
appearance of being terrified.
Occur in Stage 4, non REM, and
are not often remembered.
Sleepwalking
(Somnambulism)
Sleepwalking is a sleep
disorder affecting an
estimated 10% of all humans
at least once in their lives.
Sleepwalking most often
occurs during deep non-REM
sleep (stage 3 or stage 4
sleep) early in the night.
Symptoms and Features:
★ difficulty in arousing the patient
during an episode
★ amnesia following an episode
★ episodes typically occur in the first
third of the sleep episode
★ polysomnographic monitoring
demonstrates the onset of an
episode during stage 3 or 4 sleep
★ Fatigue (which is not the same as
drowsiness)
★ Stress and anxiety
Dreams
Dreams can help us
prepare for future
events
★ nourish our social
development
★ substitute for impulsive
behavior
Why do we
daydream?
Dreams
A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts
passing through a sleeping person’s mind.
Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a
dream.
Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream.
Freud’s Wish-Fulfillment Theory
Dreams are the key to understanding our
inner conflicts.
Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our
unconscious.
Manifest and latent content
Freud argued that the purpose of dreams
was wish fulfillment.
Information-Processing
Theory
Dreams act to sort out and
understand the memories
that you experience that day.
REM sleep does increase
after stressful events.
Activation Synthesis Theories
During the night our brain stem releases random neural activity,
dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.
Hobson & McCarley assert that dreams are side effects of the
neural activation seen during REM sleep.
hypothesis:
When we dream, our
brain is as active as
while we are awake.
We experience images,
sensations, etc. that we
synthesize into a
dream. We ‘create’ them,
or synthesize them.