1. Consciousness
Unit 5

2. Consciousness Our awareness of ourselves and our environment
Much of our information processing is consciousness, much is unconscious and automatic
Selective attention: riding a bike
“Stream of consciousness”

3. State of Consciousness
Normal/waking awareness
Altered states: day dreaming, sleeping, mediating, and drug induced

4. Sleep and Dreams
We process most information outside our conscious awareness
T or F
When people dream of performing some activity, their limbs often move in concert with the dream
Sleepwalkers are acting out their dreams
Some people dream every night; other seldom dream

5. Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Circadian Rhythm are those that occur once each day. It spans 24 hours and is responsible for our varying levels of arousal throughout the course of a day

6. Circadian Rhythm
Body temp rises as morning approaches, peaks during the day, dips for a time in early afternoon, and then begins to drop before we go to sleep
Thinking is sharpest and memory most accurate when we are at our daily peak
All-nighter example

7. Circadian Rhythm
Bright light tweaks the circadian clock by activating light-sensitive retinal proteins
These proteins signal the SCN (nucleus) to decrease the production of sleep-inducing hormone melatonin
Invention of light bulb drastically impacted us
Time-zones

8. Sleep Stages
About every 90 minutes we pass through a cycle of five distinct sleep stages
Armond Aserinsky discovered REM sleep (rapid eye movement)
And along with Nathaniel Kleitman pioneered procedures now used today to measure sleep stages

9. Sleep Stages Follow along Figure 5.4 page 179
Alpha waves: awake, relaxed state (slow)
Transition to sleep: marked by slowed breating and stage 1 brain waves
May experience fantastic images, hallucinations, sensory experiences (sensation of falling-jerks body)
Jerked awake in class (dreaming about tripping or falling)

10. Sleep Stages
Stage 2 characterized by the periodic appearance of sleep spindles-bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity (20 mins)
Still can be woken up fairly easily
Sleep talking can begin to occur
Then for the next few minutes you go through transitional stage 3 to deep sleep stage 4

11. Sleep Stages
First in stage 3 and increasing in stage 4 your brain emits large, slow delta waves
These two stages last for about 30 minutes
Hard to be awoken
Sleep walking or bed wetting may occur

12. Sleep Stages Stage 1-4 (NREM) sleep
Rather than continuing in deep slumber you ascend from your initial sleep dive
For about ten minutes brain waves become active as you enter REM (similar waves to stage 1)
Heart rate rises, breathing become irregular and rapid, every half-minute or so your eyes dart around

13. Sleep Stages (REM)
Essentially paralyzed may experience an occasional twitch
Aroused and calm
Snoring stops
REM announces the beginning of a dream

14. Sleep Stages
As the night progresses deep stage 4 sleep gets progressively briefer and then disappears
The REM and stage 2 sleep periods get longer
By morning 20-25% REM sleep

15. Why dream in REM?
The body is completely relaxed so people do not react physically to their dreams
Other stages body may interpret our dreams as reality and react to them, causing startle

16. Why do we sleep? Age-related difference
Sleep patterns genetically influenced
Culturally influenced
People sleeping less thanks to light bulbs, shift work, the Internet, and social diversions
Most adults (if allowed) could sleep at least for 9 hours
We awake refreshed, better mood, more efficient and accurate work
(peter trip)

17. The Effects of Sleep loss
Teens need 8 or 9 hours of sleep (today average less than 7)
Students often function below their peak
Sleep deprivation: difficulty studying, diminished productivity, tendency to make mistakes, irritability, fatigue

18. The Effects of Sleep loss
Increases hunger-arousing hormone
(weight gain)
Increases the stress hormone cortisol
Suppresses immune cells that fight off viral infections and cancer
Alters metabolic and hormonal functioning in was that mimic aging
Impaired creativity, concentration, and communication

19. Effects of Sleep loss
Devastating for driving, piloting, and equipment operating
Accidents frequently occur later in the evening
Time-change: accidents skyrocket right after we lose an hour of sleep

20. Sleeping vs. Being Bored
Who here has fallen asleep in class?
Boredom does not cause drowsiness
Boredom causes restless behavior like fidgeting or impatience
When people fall asleep while bored, it is an indication of sleep deprivation

21. Sleep Theories Sleep protects: darkness of ancestors
Sleep helps us recuperate: restore and repair brain tissue
Sleep is for making memories
Sleep also feeds creative thinking
Sleep plays a role in the growth process
*Nocturnal animals-______ and _____eyes
*Animals who sleep a lot-_________ metabolism

22. Sleep disorders Insomnia: inability to fall OR stay a sleep
1 in 10 adults, 1 in 4 older adults
Alcohol and sleeping pills aggregate the problem
Treatment: Exercise, avoid caffeine after early afternoon, avoid rich foods before bedtime, relax before bed, stay on regular sleeping schedule, hide the clock, avoid long naps

23. Sleep Disorders Narcolepsy Periodic, overwhelming sleepiness
Collapse directly into a brief period of REM (extreme)
1 in 2000 in U.S.
Causes? Absence of hypothalamic neural center that produces orexin
Treatment? Drugs to relieve sleepiness and scientists developing a drug to mimic orexin

24. Sleep disorders Sleep apnea 1 in 20
People intermittently stop breathing during sleep
Unaware of disorder: may just feel fatigue the next day
Associated with obesity

25. Sleep Disorders
Night terrors: may sit up or walk around, talk, experience a doubling of heart and breathing rates, appear terrified (not nightmares)
Target children
Occur during Stage 4 sleep (2-3 hours of sleep)
Seldom remembered
As we grow older, deep stage 4 diminishes, so do night terrors and sleeping walking/talking
(sleep disorders)

26. What we dream REM dreams are vivid, emotional, and bizarre
May confuse them with reality (kids esp)
We spend six years of our life in dreams
8 in 10 dreams are marked by at least one negative event or emotion

27. General trends of what we dream
Northeastern have dreams with images of time, activity, streets, and architecture
Southerners dream of nature, good fortune, emotion, and family members
Westerners dream about objects, negative emotions, and indoor settings
In the U.S. men are more like to dream about aggression and tools; women were more likely to dream about children, clothes, food, and friendly interactions

28. Freud’s theory of dreams
Plot of the dream the manifest content
Hidden content od reams was supposed to reflect our unconscious thoughts and desires, while to difficult to deal with when we are awake

29. What we dream
We maintain some awareness of changes in our external environment (water example)
Can’t remember recorded information played while we are soundly asleep
To remember a dream, get up and stay awake for a few minutes

30. Why we dream? To satisfy our own wishes
Freud: latent content-consists of unconscious drives and wishes that would be threatening if expressed directly
He considered dreams the key to understanding our inner conflicts
No reason to believe Freud’s claims
Interpretations of dreams?

31. Why we Dream? To file away memories
Dreams help sift, sort, and fix the day’s experiences in our memory
Brain scans confirm the link between REM sleep and memory

32. Why we dream? To develop and preserve neural pathways
Provide the brain with periodic stimulation
To make sense of neural static
Dreams make sense of random neural activity
To reflect cognitive development
Dreams are part of brain maturation

33. Why we dream? We need REM sleep
Increased REM sleep results in REM rebound
Most mammals experience REM rebound

34. Hypnosis Altered state of consciousness Facts and falsehoods
No magical mind-control power; they merely engage people’s ability to focus on certain images or behaviors

35. Can Anyone Experience Hypnosis?
Anyone can turn attention inward and imagine is able to experience some degree of hypnosis

36. Can Hypnosis Enhance recall of forgotten events?
American, Australian, and British courts generally ban testimony from witnesses who have been hypnotized
No we can’t. Fact mixed with Fiction.
Research disputes claims of age regression

37. Can hypnosis force people to act against their will?
An authoritative person in a legitimate context can induce people-hypnotized or not to perform some unlikely acts

38. Can hypnosis be therapeutic?
Posthypnotic suggestions have helped alleviate headaches, asthma, and stress-related skin disorders
Helpful for the treatment of obesity
Not alcohol, drug, or smoking addictions

39. Can hypnosis alleviate pain?
Hypnosis can relieve pain

40. Explaining the Hypnotized state
Hypnosis as a social phenomenon
Some psychologists believe that hypnotic phenomena reflect the workings of normal consciousness and the power of social influence
They point out how powerfully our interpretations and attentional spotlight influenced our ordinary perceptions

41. Explaining the hypnosis state
Hypnosis as divided consciousness
Ernest Hilgard believed a special state of dissociation (a split between different levels of consciousness)
Ex: hypnosis dissociates the sensation of the pain stimulus (cold water)
Today:
More to thinking and acting than we are conscious of
New theory: Hypnosis is an extension of both normal principles of social influenced and of everyday dissociations between our conscious awareness and our automatic behaviors

42. PSA Presentations on Drugs
Be sure to answer the following:
side effects of use of the drug
Addictiveness
category it falls under and why
a problem of some sort
all members must speak
statistics encouraged
Alcohol, Heroin, Caffeine Meth, Cocaine, Nicotine, Ecstasy, Marijuana