By: Jenna Goodrich AP Psychology 2009

 Consciousness– our awareness of ourselves and our environment

We register and react to stimuli that we do not consciously perceive  Unlike the parallel processing of subconscious information, conscious processing takes place in sequence

 Daydreaming can be adaptive

 Some daydreams prepare us for future events  Playful fantasies enhance the creativity of scientists, writers and artists  For children, the daydreaming of imaginative play nourishes social and cognitive development

Biological Rhythms -periodic physiological fluctuations -annual cycles– bears hibernate -28-day cycles– female menstrual cycle -24 hour cycles– varying and falling alertness -90 minute cycles- various stages of sleep

 Circadian Rhythm– the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24 hour cycle  Thinking is sharpest and memory most accurate when we are at their daily peak in circadian arousal

 About every minutes we pass through a cycle of five distinct sleep stages.  REM sleep– rapid eye movement sleep, a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur.  Also known as paradoxical sleep because the muscles are relaxed but other body systems are active

 Alpha waves– the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state  Sleep– periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness– as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation

 Lasts up to 5 minutes  During stage one sleep you may experience hallucinations  Hallucinations- false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus

 About 20 minutes long  Characterized by the periodic appearance of sleep spindles– bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity

 First in stage 3 and increasingly in stage 4, your brain emits delta waves  Delta waves– the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep  These stages together are called slow-wave sleep

 Sleep Deprivation Effects  Major effect of lessened sleep in not only sleepiness but a general malaise  Less sleep= more accidents  More sleep= less accidents

 Other effects of sleep loss are subtle  Suppression of the immune system, altering of the metabolic and hormonal functioning, irritability, slowed performance, and impaired communication, concentration, and creativity.

 Sleep Functions  Sleep protects  Sleep helps us recuperate  Sleep may also play a role in the growth process During deep sleep, the pituitary gland releases a growth hormone

 Insomnia  Recurring problems in falling or staying asleep

 Narcolepsy  A sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks.  The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times.

 Sleep Apnea  A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary reawakening

 Night Terrors  A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified.  Unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during stage 4 sleep, within 2 or 3 hours of falling asleep and are seldom remembered. Occur mostly in children

 REM dreams  “hallucinations of the sleeping mind”  Are vivid, emotional, and bizarre

 Dreams  A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind.  Dreams are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer’s delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it. Freud argued that by fulfilling wishes, a dream provides a psychic safety value that discharges otherwise unacceptable feelings.

 Manifest content  According to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream  A dreamer’s manifest content is a censored, symbolic version of its latent content  Latent Content According to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream. Freud believed that a dream’s latent content functions as a safety value

 Dreams may also serve a physiological function  Provide the sleeping brain with periodic stimulation  Activation-Synthesis Theory this neural activity is random, and dreams are the brain’s attempt to make sense of it

 REM rebound  The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation

 Hypnosis  A social interaction in which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.

 Posthypnotic Amnesia  Supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis Induced by the hypnotist’s suggestion

Nearly everyone can experience hypnosis. 60 years of research dispute the claims of age regression. Hypnosis can NOT force someone to act against their will. Behaviors produced through hypnotic procedures can also be produced without them

 Can hypnosis be therapeutic?  Posthypnotic Suggestion A suggestion, made during a hypnotic session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized. Used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.  Can Hypnosis Alleviate pain?  YES!.. Dissociation- a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others.  Selective attention- an injured athlete, caught up in the competition, feels little or no pain until the game ends.

 Hypnosis as divided consciousness:  Most hypnosis researchers grant that normal social and cognitive processes play a part in hypnosis, but they nevertheless believe hypnosis is more than imaginative acting  Hidden observer Hilgard’s term describing a hypnotized student’s awareness of experiences, such as pain, that go unreported during hypnosis.

 Psychoactive drug  A chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods  Tolerance  The diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug’s effect  Withdrawal  The discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug

 Physical dependence  A physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued  Psychological dependence  A psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions

 Depressants  Drugs that reduce neural activity and slow bodily functions Ex: alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates

 Barbiturates  Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system and reduce anxiety and impair memory and judgment.

 Opiates  Opium and its derivatives such as morphine and heroin  They depress neural activity and temporarily lessen pain and anxiety

 Stimulants  Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions Ex: caffeine, nicotine, and powerful amphetamines

 Amphetamines  Drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing sped-up body functions, associated energy and mood changes

 Ecstasy (MDMA)  A synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen  Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer- term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition

 Hallucinogens  Psychedelic (“mind-manifesting”) drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input Ex: LSD A powerful hallucinogen drug (also known as acid)

 Biological influences  Some people may be biologically vulnerable to alcohol

 Psychological and cultural influences  Psychological The feeling that one’s life is meaningless and directionless  Social Drugs can have social roots, evident in differing rates of drug use across cultural groups Peers influence through words and examples

 Near-death experiences  An altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death  Often similar to drug-induced hallucinations about 1/3 of those who have survived a brush with death, such as through cardiac arrest, later recall visionary near-death experiences

 Dualists  The presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact Dualists interpret near-death experiences as evidence of human immortality

 Monists  The presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing Monists point out that reports of near-death experiences closely parallel reports of hallucinations and may be products of a brain under stress