Consciousness

1. Consciousness Sleep, Hypnosis, Drugs

2. When we are awake, we are in a state of… Consciousness - Our awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. • Is a construct. • Different levels of consciousness (3) • Conscious, Subconscious, Unconscious • Altered States of Consciousness • Sleep, Drugs, Hypnosis, Biofeedback, Meditation

3. Theory of Consciousness Perceptions, Thoughts Conscious Memories and Stored Knowledge Subconscious (Preconscious) – consciousness just below our present awareness Unconscious- thoughts or desires about which we have no direct knowledge Selfish needs, Irrational wishes, immoral urges, shameful experiences, fears, violent motives, unacceptable desires

4. Biological Rhythms • 24 hour cycle: our circadian rhythm – sequence of bodily changes (body temperature, blood pressure, sleepiness and wakefulness) that occur every 24 hours. • When we take away the cues that put us on this 24 hour schedule, humans are more likely to function on a 25 hour cycle. Researchers are unsure why. • 90 minute cycle: sleep cycles.

5. Circadian Rhythm • Our 24 hour biological clock. • Our body temperature and awareness changes throughout the day. • It is best to take a test or study during your circadian peaks. (Lowest point is typically between 3 and 5 am, highest point varies from person to person, i.e. a morning person or night owl). • How can the circadian rhythm help explain jet lag? • (Sunday night insomnia)

6. Sleep Stages • There are 5 identified stages of sleep. • It takes about 90-100 minutes to pass through the 5 stages. • The brain’s waves will change according to the sleep stage you are in. (Four type of brain waves – beta, alpha, theta and delta). • The first four stages and know as Non-REM sleep.. • The fifth stage is called REM sleep. • (Rapid Eye Movement) • Most people have 3-5 REM cycles per night • Infants spend 50% of their time in REM • Adults spend about 20% in REM • REM decreases with the aging process

7. Stages of Sleep • Awake – Beta Waves (short and quick), as we begin to relax we begin to emit Alpha Waves (a little slower than beta) • Stage I: Transition State • • Stage II: Theta Waves s • • Stage III: Delta & Theta Waves • • Stage IV: Delta/Deep Sleep • • Stage V: REM

9. Stage One • This is experienced as falling to sleep and is a transition stage between wake and sleep. • It usually lasts between 1 and 5 minutes (no more than 30 to 40 minutes) • eyes begin to roll slightly. • consists mostly of theta waves (high amplitude, low frequency (slow)) • brief periods of alpha waves, similar to those present while awake • Photograph-like images; if we awake, we feel as if we have not slept at all Hallucinations can occur and feeling of falling.

10. Stage Two • This follows Stage 1 sleep and is the "baseline" of sleep. • This stage is part of the 90 minute cycle and occupies approximately 45-60% of sleep. • Theta waves and spindles.

11. Stages Three and Four • Stages three and four are "Delta" sleep or "slow wave" sleep and may last 15-30 minutes. • It is called "slow wave" sleep because brain activity slows down dramatically from the "theta" rhythm of Stage 2 to a much slower rhythm called "delta" and the height or amplitude of the waves increases dramatically. • Stage 4 would be when we have the hardest time waking someone up.

12. Contrary to popular belief, it is delta sleep that is the "deepest" stage of sleep (not REM) and the most restorative. • It is delta sleep that a sleep-deprived person's brain craves first and foremost. • In children, delta sleep can occupy up to 40% of all sleep time and this is what makes children “un-awake able” or "dead asleep" during most of the night. • From stage 4 we quickly go back to stage 3 to stage 2 to REM sleep (90 minutes).

13. The Sleep Cycle

14. Stage Five: REM Sleep • REM: Rapid Eye Movement • This is a very active stage of sleep. Breathing becomes irregular, blood pressure rises and heart beats faster; brain waves similar to stage 1 sleep • Composes 20-25 % of a normal nights sleep. • Breathing, heart rate and brain wave activity quicken. • Vivid Dreams can occur. • As night goes on, REM periods of sleep get longer, until final period of REM sleep which may last half an hour or longer

15. REM • (Body paralysis).

16. Brainstorm • Why do you think we need sleep?

17. Why do we need sleep? 1) Preservation: back in the day, darkness meant death, those that slept did not go out, thus did not die. Sleep protects us. 2) Restoration: Sleep helps us recuperate and restores the breakdown of our body. 3) Memory Processing – Sleep is thought to be needed for memory processing (those who don’t sleep well, have trouble with memory)

18. How much sleep do we need? • We all need different amounts of sleep depending on our age and genetics. • But we ALL sleep- about 25 years on average. • How do you feel when you don’t get enough sleep?

20. Factors that affect our sleep • ????? • Light • Food • Medications • Cell phone, technologies • Stress, Worries, Anger, Emotions

21. “24/7 Information Age”

22. A Bad Night’s Sleep • Over 50% of Americans are sleep deprived • One-third have Chronic Insomnia • At least 50% of all insomnia is stress-related According to the National Sleep Foundation

23. A recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation found that over 60 % of Americans suffer from poor sleep quality (insomnia) resulting in everything from falling asleep on the job and absenteeism to marital problems and car accidents.

24. Can you just make up lost sleep in one night? NO

25. Sleep Disorders • Fill out Chart

26. Sleep Insomnia • Recurring problems in falling or staying asleep. • Not your once in a while (I have a big test tomorrow) having trouble getting to sleep episodes. • Most common type is difficulty falling asleep; for many insomnia will come and go depending on amount of stress in waking life. • Insomnia is not defined as a problem unless it persists for long periods of time. • Primary versus Secondary insomnia.

27. The Effects Insomnia Depressed Immune System Lapse of Attention Slow Thinking Irritability Poor Memory Poor Judgment Anxiety & Depression Increase in Accidents Decrease in Work Productivity

28. Tips to help you sleep better/more: • Keep a regular sleep schedule • Create an ideal sleep atmosphere • Exercise • Decrease caffeine consumption • Learn to meditate • No TV in the bedroom • Stop using your cell phone after 6pm • Avoid Alcohol and Nicotine • Clear your late night mind • Avoid eating before bed • Keep your bed for sleeping

29. Sleep Apnea • A sleep disorder characterized by temporary interruption of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary reawakening (startled awake). • Air passages are blocked so snoring is common.

30. Narcolepsy • Is rare • Characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks, no matter where or what time it is. • Lapses directly into REM sleep (usually during times of stress or joy). • Often wake up feeling refreshed, however it can be very dangerous. • Drug therapy and frequent naps have been used to treat narcolepsy.

31. Nightmares • Like other dreams, generally occur during REM sleep. • Anxiety, depression, stressful situations are all more likely to cause nightmares to occur. • May be a nightmare specific to one’s profession or to certain events going on in a persons life. • Memories of it are usually vague.

32. Night Terrors (Sleep Terrors) • Similar to, but more severe than nightmares, memories are also usually vague. • Characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified. • Person may feel heart racing, gasp for air, sit up, talk incoherently, and thrash about. They will not fully wake up. • Tend to occur during deep sleep or non-REM sleep (stages 3 and 4). • Most common among young children.

33. Sleepwalking • Sleepwalking is a sleep disorder effecting an estimated 10 percent of all humans at least once in their lives. • Sleep walking most often occurs during deep non-REM sleep (stage 3 or stage 4 sleep) early in the night.

34. Symptoms and Features: • Walking or moving about that occurs during sleep. The onset typically occurs in younger children. • Difficulty in arousing the patient during an episode • Amnesia following an episode • Episodes typically occur in the first third of sleep • Onset of an episode during stage 3 or 4 sleep • Other medical and psychiatric disorders can be present but do not account for the symptom • The movement is not due to other sleep disorders such as REM sleep behavior disorder or sleep terrors. • Fatigue (which is not the same as drowsiness),  • Stress and anxiety

35. The sleep walking activity may include simply sitting up and appearing awake while actually asleep, getting up and walking around, or complex activities such as moving furniture, going to the bathroom, dressing and undressing, and similar activities. Some people even drive a car while actually asleep. The episode can be very brief (a few seconds or minutes) or can last for 30 minutes or longer. • One common misconception is that a sleep walker should not be awakened. It is not dangerous to awaken a sleep walker, although it is common for the person to be confused or disoriented for a short time on awakening. Another misconception is that a person cannot be injured when sleep walking. Actually, injuries caused by such things as tripping and loss of balance are common for sleep walkers.

36. The “sleepwalking” defense • Read about the seven criminal cases that invoked a sleepwalking defense. • On a separate sheet of paper write a 3 paragraph essay discussing whether you believe the sleepwalking defense should be allowed in court. • You must use at least 3 examples from actual cases to support your argument. • Your essay must be grammatically correct. • DUE AT END OF CLASS!!!!

37. REM Rebound • The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation. • What will happen if you don’t get a good nights sleep for a week, and then sleep for 10 hours? • You will dream a lot.

38. Dream Tidbits • One-third of your life is spent sleeping. • In an average lifetime, you would have spent a total of about 6 years of it dreaming. That is more than 2,100 days spent in a different realm. • Dreams have been here as long as mankind. Back in the Roman era, profound and significant dreams were submitted to the Senate for analysis and interpretation. • Everybody dreams. Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you do not dream. In fact you have several dreams during a normal nights sleep.

39. On average you can dream anywhere from one to two hours every night. Moreover you can have anywhere from four to seven dreams in one night. • Blind people do dream. Whether visual images appear in their dream depends on whether they were blind at birth or became blind later in life. But vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sound, tactility and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses. • Five minutes after the end of a dream, half the content is forgotten. After 10 minutes, 90% is lost. • The word “dream” stems from the Middle English word, dreme which means “joy” and “music” • Men tend to dream more about other men, while women tend to dream equally about men and women. • Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep, are able to recall their dreams much more vividly than those who slept through the night until morning.

40. People who are in the process of quitting smoking tend to have longer and more intense dreams. • Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until about age 3 or 4. • If you are snoring, than you cannot be dreaming. • In a poll, 67% of Americans have experienced “déjà vu” in their dreams, occurring more often in women than in men. • According to a research study, the most common setting for dreams is your own house. • The original meaning of the word nightmare was a female spirit who besets people at night while they sleep.

41. DREAMS • A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind. • Have dreams during REM sleep. • Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a dream. • Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream. • Why do we dream? 3 theories

42. Sigmund Freud: Wish-fulfillment Theory • Dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts. • Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our unconscious. • Freud believed it would be the unacceptable and painful unconscious wishes that would be most likely to appear in our dreams. • People dream in symbols

43. Information Processing Theory • Dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day. • REM sleep does increase after stressful events.

44. Biopsychological Approach or Physiological Function Theory • During the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity. • If these neurons fire in the part of the brain that controls running we may dream that we are running away (or towards) something. • Brain simply uses events from that day because it is the most current thing in the brain and then uses that to give structure to the random bursts of neurons during REM sleep. • Most psychologist today caution that there are no rules for interpreting dreams, and that we cannot ever be sure any interpretation is correct. We ourselves are probably the best person to interpret our own dreams.

45. Activation-Synthesis Model • During sleep, circuits in the brain stem are activated, as well as the limbic system (emotion). The brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and attempts to create meaning from these signals, resulting in dreams.

46. Cognitive Theory • Dreaming helps us to solve problems, process information and remember events in our waking life.

47. Daydreams • What are some common daydreams? • Conquering Hero (men) – succesful and powerful, overcome an obstacle or fear, receive glowing praise • Suffering Martyr (women) – other people come to regret their selfishness & acknowledge what a wonderful person the daydreamer really is. • Why do we daydream? • They can help us prepare for future events. • They can nourish our social development. • Can substitute for impulsive behavior.

48. Important Concepts for Inception Viewing • Lucid Dreaming • Any dream in which a person is aware that they are dreaming. • Activation-synthesis Theory • Cognitive Theory

49. Meditation • Attempt to narrow consciousness • Focus on a peaceful, repetitive stimulus

50. Biofeedback • Control of certain unconscious physiological functions (heart rate, blood pressure, tension headaches)