States of Consciousness

1. States of Consciousness Chapter 7

2. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge • What does the film say about four characteristics of Consciousness? • Its Personal • Its Changing • Its Selective • Its Continuous

3. Waking Consciousness

4. The nature and significance of Consciousness in Psychology • Psychology began as the study of consciousness • Scientifically difficult to study • Psychologists turned to studying behavior • By 1950’s it becomes known as the Science of Behavior • Advances in technology • Made possible to relate brain activity to various mental states • Waking, sleeping, and dreaming

5. Contrast Consciousness and subconscious information processing • Conscious information processing • Enables us to exert voluntary control and to communicate our mental states to others • Slow and limited capacity • Beneath the surface • Faster subconscious processing is taking place. • Example: First meeting someone

6. Daydreams and Fantasies • Nearly everyone has day dreams or waking fantasies • Young adults spend more time daydreaming • Also admit to more sexual fantasies • Most daydreams involve familiar details • Can also be adaptive • Prepare for future events • Substitute for impulsive behavior

8. Sleep and Dreams

9. Biological Rhythms • Varying periods of time cause psychological fluctuations in our biological rhythms • Annual cycle • People experience seasonal variations in appetite, sleep length, and moods • Menstrual Cycle in Females • Causes fluctuation in mood • Male 24 Hr. Cycle • Varying alertness, body temp, and hormone secretion

11. Cyclical Nature of sleep • Our daily schedule or waking and sleep is based on a biological clock called then circadian rhythm • Each nights sleep has its own rhythm • From Stage 1 to Stage 4 and back up REM sleep (Stage 5)

12. Stages of Sleep

13. Sleep Disorders • 10-15 percent of adults complain about insomnia • Other disorders • Narcolepsy • Periodic, overwhelming sleepiness • Sleep Apnea • Intermittently stop breathing during sleep • Night Terrors • Extreme paranoia or terror in Stage 1 • Sleepwalking • Name says it all

14. Dreams • Most are ordinary events that relate to everyday experiences • Freud • Dreams manifest content is censored latent content • New ideas about dreams • Help process and fix information in our memory • Serve a physiological function • Neural activates areas of the brain that processes visual images

15. Hypnosis

16. What is it? • A social interaction in which the hypnotist suggests to a subject that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts or behaviors will occur • Afterward subjects may experience posthypnotic amnesia

17. Behavior of Hypnotized People • Subjects under hypnosis • Reliving childhood experiences (age regression) • Recall • Although hypnotist beliefs may interfere • Temporarily therapeutic (posthypnotic suggestion) • Pain Relief • Explained through dissociation • **Can not be made to do things against their will

18. Hypnosis an altered state of consciousness? • Not altered state argument • Hypnosis is a by-product of normal social and cognitive processes • Behaviors produced can be done without hypnosis • Acting the role • Is an altered state argument • Subjects carry out behaviors on cue • Pain relief and hallucenations • Ernest Hilgard: a hidden observer explains a subjects awareness of experiences that go unreported during hypnosis

19. Drugs and Consciousness

20. Drug Dependence • Psychoactive Drugs • Chemicals that change perceptions and moods • Continued use creates tolerance • Cessation can produce effects of withdrawal • Pain of withdraw indicates physical dependence • Psychological Dependence can occur especially with stress relieving drugs

21. Three Myths of Drug Addiction • Medical drugs, like pain killers, are powerfully addictive • Addictions can only be overcome through treatment • Addiction can extend to a large spectrum of pleasure seeking behaviors • Overeating, excerise, sex, surfing the net

22. Drug Types: Depressants • Depressants act by depressing neural functioning • Offer pleasures but at the cost of impaired memory, self-awareness, and other physical consequences • Depressants: • Alcholol, barbituates, opiates (vicodin)

23. Drug Types: Stimulants • Stimulants act by stimulating neural functioning • Act at the synapses by influencing the brains neurotransmitters • Stimulants • Nicotine, Caffeine, cocaine, meth, any amphetamine

24. Drug Types: Hallucinogens • Hallucinogens distort the user’s judgment of time and can alter sensations and perceptions • Hallucinogens • Marijuana (THC), LSD, Peyote, mushrooms • Ecstasy: Both a stimulant and hallucinogen

25. Near-Death Experience • 1/3 of those who survive a brush with death recall a near-death experience • Out-of-body sensations, visions of tunnels, bright lights, feelings of love, joy, peace • Dualists • Believe mind and body are distinct entities • Monists • Believe these are hallucinations and just the brain under stress