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Prologue to Chapter 5: States of Consciousness. Life is made up of many kinds of conscious awareness Who/what is perceiving this particular stimulus here, now? When you say, “I am” what are you referring to? Who is the “you?” What is the “you” you are talking about? What is consciousness?.
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Prologue to Chapter 5: States of Consciousness • Life is made up of many kinds of conscious awareness • Who/what is perceiving this particular stimulus here, now? • When you say, “I am” what are you referring to? Who is the “you?” What is the “you” you are talking about? • What is consciousness? Psych 101 Chapter 5
What is consciousness? Psych 101 Chapter 5
Wide Awake: Normal waking consciousness • Three varieties of normal waking consciousness • directed consciousness • flowing consciousness • daydreaming • Directed consciousness • a focused and orderly “one tracked” awareness • centered on a specific stimulus Psych 101 Chapter 5
Normal waking consciousness • Flowing consciousness • a drifting, unfocused awareness • your awareness (attention) moves at random from attention to one stimulus to another • Daydreams • focused and directed thinking, like directed consciousness, but these involve fantasies (and not stimuli immediately at hand) Psych 101 Chapter 5
Daydreams Psych 101 Chapter 5
Normal waking consciousness • Divided consciousness: Being two places (mentally) at the same time • the process of “splitting off” two or more conscious activities that occur simultaneously • similar to “multi-tasking” that can be done by computers • for example: rub your head and pat your stomach or divide 81 by 3 while saying the “Pledge of Allegiance” Psych 101 Chapter 5
Normal waking consciousness • The concept of the “Unconscious Mind” • the notion of an unconscious mind helps to explain mental processes that occur without conscious awareness • for example: when you forget something and then, hours later, suddenly remember it though you had not been consciously trying to remember it • the “Unconscious Mind” is a big part of the Psychoanalytic school of thought in psychology Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming: Consciousness while asleep • Stages of sleep • involves passing from waking state into a semi-wakeful state, then into 4 stages of progressively deeper sleep • Hypnagogic State • a twilight state that is neither daydreaming or sleeping that occurs as you begin to fall asleep but are not yet sleeping • unusual things can happen in the hypnagogic state Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • States of light and deep sleep • 4 stages of sleep based on EEG measures of brainwave activity during sleep that reveal different brain-wave patterns in sleep • Stage 1 sleep: shifting from beta-to-alpha wave brain activity patterns; the brain is slowing down • Stage 2 sleep: alpha-to-theta brain wave patterns; the brain is slowing further Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • States of light and deep sleep • Stage 3 sleep: theta-to-delta brain wave patterns; the brain is slowing further • Stage 4 sleep: delta wave brain patterns; the brain is at its slowest • Dream Sleep • Emergent sleep: the brain begins to move faster; returns to beta wave pattern of wakefulness though you are still asleep Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Dream Sleep • Beta-wave brain activity is present and REM (rapid eye movement) activity is present • most people generally dream more than once in a single night; virtually everyone dreams every night • The reoccuring sleep cycle moves from beta-alpha-theta-delta-beta in the course of about 1.5 hours Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • The normal sleep required by individuals is 7.5 hours per night; a typical sleep cycle is about 1.5 hours long so the typical person has 4 to 5 sleep cycles occurring per sleep period • The normal person may have as much as 1 to 2 hours of dreaming every night Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Why do we sleep and dream? • What good is it to sleep and dream anyway? Isn’t it a waste of about 33% of your life? • NO! Sleep and dreaming is important to maintain normal psychological functioning • Sleep deprivation studies show that going more than 40 hours without sleep begins to tell by the appearance of forgetting, irritation, poor judgment, and other symptoms Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Extreme sleep deprivation • studies of extreme sleep deprivation have shown that at about 120 hours of sleep deprivation individuals will begin to behave in ways indistinguishable from paranoid schizophrenics • these symptoms include: hostility, suspicion, paranoia, unpredictable behavior, halucinations and delusions Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • What important thing happens in sleep? • Studies on sleep and REM deprivation show that it is the REM (dreaming state) of sleep that is the KEY reason why we sleep; sleeping without dreaming is not useful in the big picture • We do, like Shakespeare said, “sleep, perchance to dream…” Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • The Content and Meaning of Dreams • Freud’s view of dreams • Dreams have “manifest” content • Dreams have “latent” content • Dreams provide information from the unconscious mind that a person can use to understand themselves • Dream interpretation • We’ll do some dream interpretation now so you can decide for yourself if Freud was right Psych 101 Chapter 5
What do dreams mean? Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Nightmares and other sleep phenomena • Nightmares are exceptionally frightening dreams • they typically involve anxieties • they often involve being chased, being late, or falling • they are typically dark and foreboding • individuals may wake up after nightmares with a sense of uneasiness Psych 101 Chapter 5
Nightmares Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Nightmares and other sleep phenomena • Night Terrors • very frightening event typically in children where they scream out in the night and cannot be easily awakened by a concerned parent • typically these are outgrown as the child gets older • they are not typically a “sign” of emotional problems in the child; rather it is likely that they are due to cognitive physical immaturity Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Nightmares and other sleep phenomena • Sleepwalking and sleeptalking • typically occur in Stage 4 sleep (not in REM sleep) • about 15% of the population has experienced these phenomena • the sleeper should be protected from hurting themself; individuals have been known to leave their home driving their car while asleep • there is no truth to the wive’s tale that the sleepwalker should not be awakened Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Sleep disorders • Insomnia: affects about 20 million Americans • Narcolepsy: a form of epilepsy that causes sudden, immediate sleeping • Sleep apnea: cessation of breathing while sleeping; associated with the very loud snoring person • Incubus/Succubus attacks Psych 101 Chapter 5
Sleeping and dreaming • Sleep is one of the cycles that the body does daily. These cycles are called “circadian rhythms” and the body typically operates on a cycle of about 24 hours. Other circadian body cycles include: • body temperature • urine production • metabolism Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states of consciousness • Altered states involve several common characteristics: • Distortions of perception • Intense emotions (positive or negative) • A sense of “unity” • Altered states are often illogical, indescribable, and transcendent; they may involve a sense of “self-evident” reality Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered States of Consciousness Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • Meditation can produce an altered state of consciousness • extreme focused concentration away from thoughts and feelings • generates a sense of relaxation • focusing on not thinking; try to stop thinking and see if you can do it • use of mantras, koens, praying, or other techniques may be useful in meditating Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • Hypnosis can produce an altered state of consciousness • characterized by relaxation, hypnotic halucinations, hypnotic analgesia, age regression, and hypnotic control • is hypnotism real, fake, or role playing? • about 15% of the population is easily hypnotized Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • History of hypnotism • Anton Mesmer and Mesmerism • his use of “magnetic waters”, magical incantations, and showmanship as “treatment” of psychological/medical problems • was a hit in France in the 1790s • Freud became interested in it for a time but later rejected it as nonsense • Picked up by American behaviorists in the US in the 1930s; still used in the US today Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • Applications of hypnotism • used (with varying results) to help people: • stop smoking • stop drinking • stop eating • has been used to induce anesthesia in certain individuals, e.g., drug-free childbirth; there have been surgeries carried out with the patient only under hypnotic suggestion for pain control Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • Another altered state is “depersonalization” • the perceptual experience of one’s body or surroundings becoming distorted or unreal in some way • a sense of being out of one’s body or that one’s body has no limit; this experience can happen to individuals on an LSD trip • can be very frightening; a bad trip Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altered states • Yet another altered state is the “Near Death Experience” • experienced by individuals clinically dead during surgery or accident who can return to tell about it • similarity of reports of NDE • is it real or is it something else? • heaven/hell or just neurochemistry at work? Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altering consciousness with drugs • Drug use: some basic considerations • Individuals have variable responses to drugs • many factors influence how a person reacts to drugs, e.g., dosage, purity of a drug, a person’s expectations surrounding use of a given drug, a person’s characteristics/personality, as well as a person’s mood • one must consider the drug to be taken and the person taking a drug when considering the effect of any given drug Psych 101 Chapter 5
Drug use is stupidity in action Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altering consciousness • Drug use: some basic considerations • Problems associated with drug use • some drugs can cause physical dependency, e.g., cocaine, heroin • some drugs can cause psychological dependency, e.g., marijuana • physiological addiction to a drug is a huge price to pay for experiencing a drug’s effects • drugs are generally a stupid way of inducing altered states because you can do it without using drugs Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altering States of Consciousness Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altering consciousness • Psychotropic drugs: Drugs that will induce altered states • Stimulants: amphetamines, cocaine, caffeine, and nicotine • Depressants: sedatives, tranquilizers, bennies • Narcotics: morphine, heroin, codeine, as well as Demerol, Percodan, and Methadone • Inhalants: airplane glue, cleaning fluid, some paints, and gasoline Psych 101 Chapter 5
Altering consciousness • Psychotropic drugs • Halucinogens: mescaline, hashish, marijuana, peyote, psilocybin • Typically drug abusers will abuse many drugs (polydrug use). The outcome is often addiction, mental illness, and death. • Use alternate ways to induce altered states, e.g., meditation, fasting, prayer, etc. Psych 101 Chapter 5
Use methods other than drugs to induce altered states Psych 101 Chapter 5
Application of psychology • The legal consciousness-altering drugs • alcohol is the widest-used drug that alters persons’ consciousness • caffeine and nicotine are used by millions of people • history is filled with the trade of drugs designed to induce altered states, e.g., the British East India Company trafficed in opium • Altered states and religions, e.g., ganja, peyote Psych 101 Chapter 5
Questions? • Any questions about Chapter 5? Psych 101 Chapter 5