GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 5
Consciousness, Sleep & Dream
Consciousness: Awareness of sensations (from external stimuli), thoughts and feelings (internal
experience). Consciousness can range from the extreme low of being in a coma to the high of skydiving,
taking an exam or being in immediate danger.
Altering Consciousness: Methods of altering consciousness include:
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Sleeping & Dreaming
Hypnosis
Meditation
Drugs - Ranging from caffeine & nicotine to cocaine & LSD
Factors Affecting Consciousness:
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Circadian Rhythms -- The internal timeclock of the body. Uses sunlight/darkness as a cue. Light
deprivation research indicates CRs operate naturally on a 25 (not 24) hour day. Many things including
jet travel & changes in work shift can adversely affect our internal time clock.
Sleep Deprivation -- Persons deprived of sleep will show generally decreased awareness to both
external stimuli and internal processes.
Danger & Other Environmental Situation -- Perceived danger results in activation of the Sympathetic NS
and therefore heightened awareness. Compare your level of awareness when (a) sitting at home
watching TV to (b) walking alone at night through a crime-ridden area. It's no wonder drive-way
robberies are so successful for the robber -- most people feel relatively safe once they're home, show
lowered consciousness, let their guards down, giving the robber the element of surprise.
Drugs - Whether prescription or non-prescription, legal or illegal, intended effect or unfortunate side
effect, many commonly used drugs alter a person's awareness to both environment and self.
The Stages of Sleep
The development of the EEG brought advanced understanding of the complex sleep process. The EEG
measures the amount and type of brain wave activity. Brain waves vary in terms of frequency and
amplitude. Brain waves like the beta wave are of high frequency (many waves in a one second interval), but
low amplitude (short in height). Brain waves like the delta wave are of low frequency, but high amplitude. A
brief summary outline of sleep stages and corresponding brain waves is presented below:
Sleep Level
Type of Brain Wave
Waking Consciousness
Hypnagogic State
Stage 1 - Light Sleep
Stage 2 - Light Sleep
Stage 3 - Deep Sleep
Stage 4 - Deep Sleep
REM Sleep - Dream Sleep
Beta Wave
Alpha Wave
Theta Wave
K-Complex & Sleep Spindles
Delta Wave
Delta Wave
REM Wave
The Stages of Sleep, Continued
Waking Consciousness (Beta Wave, hi frequency / low amplitude): Active awareness to surroundings
and mental processes.
Hypnagogic State (Alpha Wave, still hi frequency / low amplitude): Transitional state from waking
consciousness to light sleep. Lowered awareness, drowsiness, relaxed, daydreaming type of
consciousness. Heart rate, breathing begin to slow, muscles begin to relax. Myoclonia (strong muscle flinch
often paired with sensation of falling) often occurs during this level of consciousness.
Stage 1 - Light Sleep (Theta Wave, mod frequency / moderate amplitude): First actual stage of sleep.
Respiration fairly regular. Small chance of dream activity. Fairly easily awakened.
Stage 2 - Light Sleep (K-Complex - moderate frequency / moderate amplitude; Sleep Spindles - short
bursts of increased frequency): Similar to Stage 1 but slightly deeper sleep.
Stage 3 - Deep Sleep (Delta Wave, low frequency / high amplitude): Sound sleep period typically
occurring 45 minutes to one hour into sleep cycle.
Stage 4 - Deep Sleep (Delta Wave, very low frequency / high amplitude): Farthest point from waking
consciousness. Very difficult to awaken. Little if any mental or dream activity as brain is all but shut down.
Heart rate, breathing are slow and even. Body temp decrease. Slight muscle tenseness.
REM Sleep - Dream Sleep (REM Wave, fairly high frequency / low amplitude): Typically occurring about
90 minutes into sleep cycle, brain activity picks up considerably as brain appears to be awakening.
Paradoxically, the body is definitely asleep and awareness to external world is very low. Memory and visual
cortexes become activated yet part of the brain (in the area of the pons) keeps consciousness low and
blocks impulses going out of the brain that would normally activate muscle movement. Most people get an
average of 2 hours of REM per night typically divided into 4-6 segments and occurring roughly every 90
minutes. Each successive REM periods tend to get longer and as a result, the majority of REM is
concentrated toward the end of the sleep cycle. Other physiological sighs of REM include rapid movement
of the eyeballs, irregular heart rate & breathing, slight muscle twitches, evidence of sexual arousal (for both
men and women). REM sleep is also known as dream sleep as an estimated 80+% of dreams, especially
active dreams, appear to occur during REM.
REM sleep appears to be a critically important phase of sleep because (1) persons deprived of REM but
allowed to get non-REM sleep usually feel as if they have had little or no sleep at all, and (2) the REM
rebound phenomena in which persons deprived of REM sleep for a period of time will, when allowed to
return to normal sleep cycle, show an automatic increase in REM until the amount deprived is made up (also
called "sleep debt").
Sleep Deprivation
Persons who have gone with out sleep for a significant period of time will likely experience three general
conditions including (1) fatigue / loss of energy, (2) irritability/moodiness, and (3) impaired thinking and
judgment. Persons deprived of sleep generally show impaired judgment. This is interesting in light of the
fact that many jobs that require good judgment (emergency room doctors, careflight helicopter pilots, combat
soldiers) also involve conditions of sleep deprivation as an inherent part of the job. Statistics show that
drivers who fall asleep at the wheel than by those who drink and drive cause many more highway fatalities
each year.
Sleep Disorders
Insomnia: The inability to get to sleep or to maintain a sleep state. May be caused by many factors
including stress, anxiety, depression, caffeine consumption, side-effects of both prescription and nonprescription medications.
Hypersomnia: The inability to wake up or to maintain a waking state. May be caused by many factors
including depression, stress, side effects of both prescription and non-prescription medications.
Narcolepsy: A neurological condition in which sufferers fall from full waking consciousness to a significant
sleep state (often REM) without any warning. Causes major life disruption as sufferer may fall asleep while
driving resulting in loss of driving privilege.
Sleep Apnea: A condition in which sufferers stop breathing in their sleep. When the brain detects the lack
of oxygen, the person gasps for air and as a result, awakens. This gasping/awakening sequence may occur
a hundred or more times per night resulting in almost total disruption of the sleep cycle. Consequently,
sufferers show effects of severe sleep deprivation (noted above) in their daily lives. Condition tends to be
found mostly in males, tends to run in families, and is most frequently seen in men who are overweight
and persons who snore chronically. Treated with a CPAP machine, which forces a continual air flow during
sleep and as a result, generally stops the gasping/awakening response allowing undisturbed sleep.
Somnambulism: Sleep walking. Mysteriously, almost always occurs in level 4 of deep sleep. Tends to run
in families. Seen more often in children. Can be, but usually is not, dangerous in adults.
Night Terrors: Different than a common nightmare. Sufferers begin screaming in terror and thrashing
about during sleep, and appear to be in a trance. Extremely difficult to awaken person during an episode.
Occurs in level 4 of deep sleep. Seen more often in children. Can be severe and chronic in adults.
SIDS: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Infants simply stop breathing during sleep most likely resulting in
death. Possibly related to sleep apnea. Infants who may be at risk, especially low-birth-weight babies, may
require a respiratory monitor equipped with an alarm to alert the caregiver in the event of respiratory failure.
Dreams
Dreams: Theory and Research
Contrary to common belief, there is little agreement in the discipline of psychology about the nature of
Dreams. In the early years of psychology, dreams were viewed more as a psychologically driven
phenomena, resulting from deep unconscious drives, desires, wishes, conflicts, fears and anxieties. More
recent dream theory and research points to a conclusion that dreams are a more biologically driven
phenomena, resulting from the neuro-chemical-electrical processes occurring in the brain during sleep -especially REM sleep.
Calvin Hall's Theory (1966): Dreams are an extension of our daily lives. What ever causes stress in our
daily lives will affect the contents of our dreams. Dreams are psychological experiences.
Hobson & McCarley's Activation Synthesis Model (1977): Dreams are simply a biological biproduct of
sleep. They result from areas of the visual and memory cortexes being biologically activated during REM
sleep (thus "activation"). Dreams have nothing to do with stressors, psychological wishes, yearnings, or
conflicts. Dreams have no inherent meaning. They are only fragments of memory. Dreams only have
meaning when, after we awaken, we assemble these fragments together and create the story and meaning
of the dream (thus "synthesis"). Therefore, the "Activation-Synthesis" Model.
Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory (1900): Dreams are psychologically driven phenomena
resulting from wishes and yearnings, or conflicts and fears in the unconscious mind. Dreams are the most
direct pipeline to the unconscious mind. Virtually all dreams are driven by a wish-fulfillment theme (related
to unconscious desires for sensual, sexual pleasures). And yet, most dreams show some element of
conflict. That is, the wish theme of a dream is rarely played out without some form of blocking of the desire.
Thus a person who dreams her parents are shot and killed in a robbery likely does not wish them dead -- to
the contrary, wished they would live forever in order to take care of her infantile needs. The murders are
simply the element of conflict blocking the underlying, childish wish of the dream. According to Freud, there
are two levels of content to a dream including (1) manifest content, which is the obvious, surface level
content of the dream -- the events of the dream, and (2) latent content, which is the underlying, hidden or
symbolic meaning of the dream. Also of note is that Freud believed many objects and actions of dreams to
be symbolic and related to latent content. For example, long, cylindrical objects (knives, trains, planes,
canes, flag poles, etc...) were symbolic of male genitalia -- or are "phallic symbols." Hollow objects in which
things can be placed (caves, tunnels, bottles, boxes, pockets, etc...) were symbolic of female genitalia.
Actions in dreams involving moving fast, ascending, or crossing things (climbing a ladder, walking down a
long hall, flying, driving a car fast, riding a horse, riding an elevator, etc...) were symbolic of sexual
intercourse in terms of latent content. Although controversial, Freud's dream theory set the standard against
which all following theories have been compared.
Rosalind Cartwright’s Problem Solving Approach: Cartwright believes that in dreams, we might have a
better chance of solving certain tough life problems that we can’t solve in our conscious waking lives. She
hypothesizes that in our conscious waking mind, we’re so inhibited by the limiting, constricting rules of logic
and reality that some difficult problems may be almost impossible to solve there. But dreams are not limited
by the same limiting rules of reality as conscious waking thought, so it may be possible to solve a problem
while in a dream that one might not be able to solve while awake according to Cartwright.
Crick & Mitchison's Model (1983): Dreams are biologically driven phenomena. Dreams result from the
brain attempting to flush out useless, unimportant chemical memory connections made while processing
huge amounts of information during waking states. Calvin Hall's Theory (1966): Dreams are an extension
of our daily lives. What ever causes stress in our daily lives will affect the contents of our dreams. Dreams
are psychological experiences.