Chapter 5: Variations in Consciousness

1. Chapter 5: Variations in Consciousness

2. Consciousness: Personal Awareness • Consciousness • Includes: • Awareness of external events • Your awareness of internal sensations • Your awareness of the uniqueness of having these experiences • Your awareness of the thoughts of these experiences

3. Consciousness: Personal Awareness • Levels of awareness • James 1902 – stream of consciousness- an endless flow of ideas • Freud – unconscious- was one of the first theorists to recognize that consciousness is not an all or none phenomenon…rather there are levels of awareness • Sleep and dreaming researchers also showed that awareness is different during sleep and dreaming, but mental processes occur that are quite similar to waking thought and surprisingly sophisticated

4. The Electroencephalograph:A Physiological Index of Consciousness • EEG – monitoring of brain electrical activity • Brain-waves: across large areas of the cerebral cortex. It is basically a physiological index of consciousness • Amplitude (height) • Frequency (cycles per second) • Beta (13-24 cps): alertness and problem solving • Alpha (8-12 cps) resting and relaxation • Theta (4-7 cps): low alertness and sleep • Delta (<4 cps): deep, dreamless sleep

5. Table 5.1 EEG Patterns Associated with States of Consciousness

7. Biological Rhythms and Sleep • Circadian Rhythms– 24 hr biological cycles • These daily cycles are particularly important in the regulation of sleep, but also in the regulation of temperature, blood production, hormone production, and other bodily processes. • Our bodies are set-up on a 24.2 hour sleep cycle

9. Biological Rhythms and Sleep • Physiological pathway of the biological clock: • The pathway for regulation of the human biological clock appears to be based in light levels, which go from the eye to an area of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (in the hypothalamus). • This nucleus tells the pineal gland to secrete melatonin, a hormone that adjusts biological clocks • Light levels  retina  suprachiasmatic nucleus of hypothalamus (in the hypothalamus) pineal gland  secretion of melatonin

10. Biological Rhythms and Sleep • Sleep and Work (or school for you) • Your body likes a set schedule • Shift rotation is hard on the body and leads to more fatigue, lower production, and more accidents • 40% rise in cardio. Disease • Irregular menstrual cycles • increase in premature deaths • Lower fertility

11. Biological Rhythms and Sleep • Melatonin and circadian rhythms • Melatonin supplements are sold in the U.S. as nutritional supplements, but many researchers worry that people are taking too high doses of this substance, when long-term effects have not been tested. • Research shows that may be helpful in the treatment of jet lag, but timing is very important and hard to get right. Studies also show that melatonin may be useful as a mild sedative, more so in the daytime than at night, when melatonin levels are naturally higher

12. Sleep/Waking Research • Instruments: • Electroencephalograph – brain electrical activity • Electromyograph – muscle activity • Electrooculograph – eye movements • may also record heart rate, breathing rate, temperature, etc., as well as videotape the person sleeping through a window • people get used to the wires and cameras after only one night

13. Sleep Stages: Cycling Through Sleep • Stage 1: brief, transitional (1-7 minutes) • moves from predominately alpha waves, when the person is just about to fall asleep, to more theta activity • Hypnic jerks, those brief muscle contractions that occur when one is falling asleep, occur in stage 1 sleep. • Stage 2: (10-25 minutes) • characterized by more mixed brain wave activity with brief bursts of higher-frequency brain waves, called sleep spindles

14. Sleep Stages: Cycling Through Sleep • Stages 3 & 4: slow-wave sleep (30 minutes) • characterized by low frequency delta waves; 30 minutes to reach stage 4, and usually people stay there for about 30 minutes • Then the cycle reverses. When stage 1 should be next in line in the cycle, something interesting happens…rapid eye movement (REM) sleep begins. • REM sleep was accidentally discovered by Nathaniel Kleitman in the spring of 1952

15. Sleep Stages: Cycling Through Sleep • Stage 5: REM • EEG that looks awake and alert…and by rapidly moving eyes behind the lids, an irregular pulse and breathing rate, and loss of muscle tone • someone awakened from REM sleep often reports vivid dreaming • Developmental differences in REM sleep: • Infants spend much more time in REM than do adults. • During adulthood, sleep changes continue with the percentage of slow-wave sleep declining and the percentage of time spent in stage 1 increasing

17. Figure 5.5 An overview of the cycle of sleep

18. The Neural Bases of Sleep • Brain Structures: • Ascending reticular activating system • a system of afferent fibers running through the reticular formation that influence physiological arousal. When these fibers are cut, animals will sleep continuously. If they are stimulated, arousal and alertness result • Pons (REM sleep), medulla, thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system

20. The Neural Bases of Sleep • Neurotransmitters: • Acetylcholine and serotonin (sleep itself) • Also norepinephrine, dopamine, and GABA (involved in arousal and the course of sleep) • Basically, no one center or chemical is at work; sleep is rather an interplay of many neural centers and neurotransmitters.

21. Figure 5.7 The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)

23. Why Do We Sleep? • Hypothesis 1: • Sleep evolved to conserve organisms’ energy • Hypothesis 2: • Immobilization during sleep is adaptive because it reduces danger • Hypothesis 3: • Sleep helps animals to restore energy and other bodily resources

24. Sleep Deprivation • Complete deprivation • Sleep deprivation studies indicate that people can function surprisingly well when sleep deprived; although effects on mood and performance are present, these are modest • 3 or 4 days max

25. Sleep Deprivation • Partial deprivation or sleep restriction (very common) • impaired attention, reaction time, coordination, and decision making • accidents: Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez • Selective deprivation • When researchers wake subjects up whenever they go into REM sleep, thus depriving them of this one particular stage, they find that soon, the person will try to go back into REM faster • REM and slow-wave sleep: rebound effect

27. College kids and standardized tests (both intelligence and moods)- What were the results? Featured Sleep Study

28. Figure 5.9 Effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance

29. Featured Study • Those who were deprived of sleep did much worse, but predicted they did much better (and their attitudes/moods were still good)…

30. Sleep Problems • Insomnia – trouble falling asleep, trouble remaining asleep, and persistent early morning awakening. • Difficulty falling asleep is most common among young people, while early morning awakening and trouble staying asleep are more common among middle-aged and elderly people • 34-35% of adults report problems with insomnia and about 15-17% have severe or frequent insomnia • 50% more common in women than in men

31. Sleep Problems • Narcolepsy – falling asleep uncontrollably during normal waking hours • person with Narcolepsy goes directly into REM sleep • Sleep Apnea – reflexive gasping for air that awakens • the person literally stops breathing for 15 to 60 seconds…can cause heart and lung damage

32. Sleep Problems • Nightmares – anxiety arousing dreams - REM • Night Terrors – intense arousal and panic - NREM • Somnambulism – sleepwalking

33. Figure 5.12 Sleep problems and the cycle of sleep

34. Figure 5.11 The vicious cycle of dependence on sleeping pills

35. Dreams and Dreaming:Content and Significance • Dreams – • mental experiences during REM sleep that are often based in vivid imagery, have a storylike quality, are often bizarre, and seem real to the dreamer • people dream in non-REM too, although the dreams are less story-like and vivid in imagery, recent research shows that content is usually not bizarre, and that dreamers are often aware that they are dreaming

36. Dreams and Dreaming:Content and Significance • Content usually familiar • Common themes: include things like falling, being pursued, trying repeatedly to do something, school, sex, being late, eating, being frightened, etc • Children’s dreams appear to differ from those of adults, with preschool children reporting bland images with no story lines when awoken from REM sleep (if they recall dreaming at all – children under the age of 9-11 report dreaming only 20-30% of the time when awoken from REM sleep, as opposed to an adult’s 80% of the time).

37. Dreams and Dreaming:Content and Significance • Between 5 and 8, children begin to report dream narratives, but these are not well developed. Adultlike dreams develop at around 11-13, suggesting that dreaming is a cognitive ability that develops gradually. • Waking life spillover – day residue- Freud said that the contents of waking life tend to spill into dreams; he called this day residue • Western vs. Non-Western interpretations

38. Figure 5.14 Three theories of dreaming

40. Hypnosis: Altered State of Consciousness or Role Playing? • Hypnosis = a systematic procedure that increases suggestibility- as well as relaxation, narrowed attention, and enhanced fantasy. • Hypnotic susceptibility: individual differences- 10% of people are especially easy to hypnotize, 10% especially difficult • Susceptibility linked to higher levels of absorption in a task and in a person’s imaginativeness…greatly depends on expectations.

42. Hypnosis: Altered State of Consciousness or Role Playing? • Effects produced through hypnosis: • Anesthesia • Sensory distortions and hallucinations • Disinhibition • Posthypnotic suggestions and amnesia • Researchers argue about whether hypnosis is really an altered state of awareness or if it is simply people doing what they think they are supposed to do when they are hypnotized…the dissociation hypothesis holds that hypnosis splits consciousness into two streams…divided consciousness

44. Meditation • Meditation = practices that train attention to heighten awareness and bring mental processes under greater voluntary control • Some of the most widely practiced forms of meditation are yoga, Zen, and transcendental. All three of these are rooted in Eastern religions; however, many who meditate do so separately from religious practice • Effects of meditation include decreased heart rate, respiration rate, etc., and a relaxed EEG, with predominant theta and alpha rhythm patterns

45. Meditation • Yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation (TM) • Potential physiological benefits • Similar to effective relaxation procedures • research using the CT scan to track blood flow in the brain in experienced Tibetan Buddhist meditators shows high activity in the prefrontal cortex (an area important for focused attention) and low activity in parts of the parietal lobe that are known to process information about the body’s location in space

46. Psychoactive drugs • Psychoactive drugs: modify mental, emotional, or behavioral functioning… • Recreational drug use: pleasurable alterations in consciousness. • Narcotics (opiates) – pain relieving; morphine, codeine, Demerol, and methadone…high doses produce an overwhelming sense of euphoria • Sedatives – sleep inducing; barbiturates…downers • Stimulants – increase CNS activity; caffeine and nicotine, as well as much stronger drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines

47. Psychoactive drugs • Hallucinogens – distort sensory and perceptual experience; Hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin • Cannabis – produce mild, relaxed euphoria; Cannabis is the hemp plant from which marijuana, hashish, and THC • Alcohol – produces relaxed euphoria, decreases in inhibitions • MDMA – produces a warm, friendly euphoria; ecstasy

48. Table 5.3 Psychoactive Drugs: Tolerance, Dependence, Potential for Fatal Overdose, and Health Risks

49. Drug Effects • Tolerance: you need more of the drug to gain the same pleasure • Physical Dependence: must take the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms • Psychological Dependence: must take the drug to satisfy mental and emotional cravings • Many physiological and mental symptoms: vary based on the type of drug