Variations in Consciousness
Chapter 5
Have you ever spaced out while driving
because you were deeply engrossed in
thought?
 You suddenly snap out of it with no
memory of the miles you’ve just driven
 What keeps you on track of the road
and controls your responses at the
wheel???

States of consciousness
Normal waking states
 Sleep/dreams
 Drug-induced experiences
 Daydreams
 Hypnosis
 Unconsciousness

What is consciousness???

Moment-to-moment awareness of
ourselves and our environment
– Subjective and private
– Dynamic (ever changing)
– Self-reflective and central to our sense of self

Connected with process of selective
attention
– e.g., mind is a “theatre”…consciousness
reflects what is “illuminated in the spot light”
Measuring states of consciousness

Self-reports
– People describe their inner experiences

Physiological measures
– EEG recordings during stages of sleep

Behavioral measures
– Performance on special tasks
Levels of consciousness


William James-stream of consciousness
Sigmund Freud-levels of awareness
– Conscious
– Preconscious
– Unconscious

Cognitive unconscious
– Controlled vs. automatic processing

Emotional unconscious
Sleep IQ Quiz
1.During sleep, your brain rests.
 2.You cannot learn to function normally
with one or two fewer hours of sleep
than you need.
 3.Boredom makes you feel sleepy, even
if you have had enough sleep.

Sleep IQ Quiz
4. Resting in bed with your eyes closed
cannot satisfy your body’s need for
sleep.
 5. Snoring is not harmful as long as it
doesn’t disturb others or wake you up.
 6. Everyone dreams nightly.
 7. The older you get, the less sleep you
need.

Sleep IQ Quiz





8. Most people don’t know when they are
sleepy.
9. Cranking the radio while driving will help
you stay awake.
10. Sleep disorders are mainly due to worry
or psychological problems.
11. The human body never adjusts to night
shift work.
12. Most sleep disorders go away without
treatment.
Sleep quiz answers






1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
F
T
F
T
F
T






7. F
8. T
9. F
10. F
11. T
12. F
Average = 5.5 points (1994)
Circadian Cycles: Biological Clock

Daily biological cycles are called circadian
rhythms
– Regulated by suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN)
– Regulates levels of melatonin (hormone that
relaxes body)

What happens if you lived w/out clocks and
can’t determine day from night??
– Circadian rhythm runs longer than 24-hours

Environmental disruptions of circadian
rhythms
– Jet lag (adjust faster when flying west)
– Night-shift work
– Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Sleep and Dreaming
 Spend
1/3 of life asleep…yet we
don’t get nearly enough of it!
 We sleep less as we age
 Before invention of the light bulb,
people slept around 10 hours a
night
– Today we average only 6.9 hours during
the week
Stages of sleep
 Every
90 minutes, we cycle through
different sleep stages
 Measure brain activity during sleep
with EEG recordings
Stage 1 through Stage 4





Stage 1 – light sleep, easily awakened
– Transitional, lose responsiveness to stimuli
– 1-7 minutes
Stage 2 - Sleep spindles (rapid brain activity) appear
– Muscles more relaxed, dreams may occur
– 10-25 minutes
Stage 3-4 – appearance of very slow and large delta waves
– Deepest sleep
– Heart rate, respiration, and body temperature decrease
– Voluntary muscles paralyzed
– 30 minutes
Cycle of stages: 1-2-3-4-3-2
Pg. 134-135
Stage 5-REM sleep
– Characterized by rapid eye
movements (REM), high arousal, and
frequent dreaming
15-45 minutes
 REM sleep cycles become progressively
longer throughout the night
 Brain activity, heart rate, blood pressure
resemble waking state
 Age alters sleep cycles (p. 136)

Why do we sleep?

Restoration model
– Sleep recharges our bodies
– High adenosine levels triggers sleep

Evolutionary/circadian sleep models
– Increase a species’ chance of survival

Memory consolidation
– Strengthening of neural circuits in remembering
important info that we encountered during the day
Sleep Deprivation


Among American adults, 37% report they are
so sleepy that it interferes with their daily
activities
All types of sleep deprivation detrimentally
effect functioning
– Lack of sleep can lead to moodiness, impulsivity,
and depression


Little effect on performance of tasks requiring
physical skill or intellectual judgment
Hurts performance on simple, boring tasks
more than challenging ones
Sleep Studies

Subjects were allowed to sleep 8 hours the first 3
nights, followed by 6 nights of 4 hours
– @ the end of the study, researchers found symptoms of
sleep deprivation

Mimicked signs of aging
– Their cells responded like those of 60 year olds



Higher levels of cortisol (indicator of stress)
Memory impairment
Adverse health effects-more prone to infection and circulatory
diseases
Sleep Deprivation
Studies on Rats




8 pairs of rats studied 5-33 days
Sleep of experimental rats reduced 87%;
whereas control animals slept only 31% less
Experimental rats stopped grooming and
looked ill
Experimental rats died after 28 days, or were
nearly dead and needed to be euthanized at
the end of the study
What we know about sleep
deprivation…

1. Undermines efficiency at work and school




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Lower grades (4o min. later/25 min. less more likely to
receive D’s than C’s)
Lost productivity --- $18 billion/yr
Health care --- $14 billion/yr
Motor vehicle accidents ---$13 billion
2. It contributes to countless accidents
– Getting less than 6 hours has been compared to
having the same effects as being drunk.


70,000 crashes per year
1,550 fatal crashes

3.Affects the body’s ability to
metabolize glucose which leads to
diabetes

4. 2005 study of 10,000 adults suggests
that sleep deprivation leads to obesity.

5. Sleep deprivation leads to
depression.


60% of patients showed immediate recovery
when they got a good night’s sleep
6. Sleep is vital to good health!
Dreams
 When
do we dream?
– Most often during REM sleep (85% of
the time)
 What
do we dream about?
– Not nearly as strange as stereotyped
to be
– Most are negative
– Shaped by culture and experiences
But why do we dream???
Drug-altered Consciousness

Tolerance
– Decreasing responsivity to a drug
– Faster a substance makes it to the brain, the more
quickly addicting it is…WHY???

Withdrawal
– Occurrence of compensatory responses after
discontinued drug use

Conditioned drug responses
Drug-altered Consciousness
 Substance
dependence
– Maladaptive pattern of substance use
that causes a person significant
distress or substantially impairs that
person’s life
Mechanisms of Drug Action
Psychoactive drugs alter
neurotransmitter activity in the brain
 Many researchers believe that all
abused drugs increase activity in a
neural pathway called the mesolimbic

dopamine pathway
Hypnosis
Hypnosis

Demonstration
Hypnosis
A
trancelike state in which
susceptibility to suggestion is
heightened
 Hypnotic susceptibility
Hypnosis
 Inducing
hypnosis and making
suggestions
 clinical applications of hypnosis
– smoking cessation, pain
management, phobia reduction