Chapter 5 Psychology Notes Consciousness Sleep Hallucinations Hypnosis Drugs Noun Consciousness 1 The state of being awake and aware of one s surroundings 2 she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later The awareness or perception of something by a person Plural noun Consciousnesses her acute consciousness of Mike s presence The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain Sleep Sleep is a state of periodic rest during which we enter a state of diminished consciousness and experience periodic intense hallucinations most notable in the form of dreams There is a 24hour sleep wake cycle 24hour bodily cycles are called circadian rhythms Circadian rhythms are a type of biological rhythms When you get tired the hypothalamus releases a hormone called melatonin During sleep brain activity is measured with using EEG EEG measures electrical activity in the brain There is a more activity when we re awake than we sleep with a MAJOR exception Stages of Sleep Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Rapid Eye movement REM sleep Stage 1 Sleep Stages 2 Sleep Light sleep Lasts for about 10 to 15minutes Sometimes hard to tell if you have slept or not Mild hallucinations called hypnagogic images Brain activity slows down even more than in stage one However there are sudden bursts of activity called sleep spindles Sleep spindles may help memory consolidation About 65 of sleep Stages 3 and 4 Deep sleep Very slow brain activity It is very hard to wake someone up in this stage Dreams in this stage are less frequent less negative and less bizarre than dreams during REM About 40 of sleep REM Sleep Paralysis The Sleep Cycle Brain suddenly becomes very active Most dreaming Eyes move Most muscles except breathing muscles and ocular eye muscles are paralyzed Dreams are bizarre and more negative About a quarter of sleep Sometimes when you wake up during REM your body is stilled paralyzed and you are partially awake and partially dreaming This is called sleep paralysis We cycle through the five stages of sleep about once every 90 minutes during the night However the amount of the sleep cycle spent in REM increases through the night Sleep Disorders Insomnia 1 2 Narcolepsy 3 Sleep Apnea 4 Night Terrors 5 Sleepwalking Insomnia Inability to fall asleep walking too early and having trouble falling back asleep Most of the time the cause is psychological e g depression or anxiety Sometimes cause is physical Psychological treatments are most effective long term Narcolepsy Sleep Apnea Night Terrors Sleeping walking Sudden sleepiness or onset of sleep Can be inherited or caused by brain injuries Medication is used to control the disorder Airways are blocked during sleep leading to sudden awakenings poor sleep and loud snoring Can contribute to sudden death Being overweight is a risk factor In more severe cases a breathing machine may be used a night Sudden awakening while overcome by terror Screaming is common No associated with dreams usually harmless usually end by early adulthood Most common in children Walking while you sleep Self explanatory Occurs during stages 3 and 4 Usually not very dramatic Occasionally people do things like drive Claims of murder and sex while sleepwalking are questionable Most dreams occur during REM REM dreams are more bizarre and easier to remember than Dreams deep sleep dreams Why do we dream Well REM is likely necessary to live Rats that are deprived of REM eventually die But do we dream merely as a bi product or REM or do dreams have other purposes Freud vs UT s Dr Armus Don t they Look alike Theories of Dreams 1 Freud s Dream Protection Theory 2 Activation Synthesis 3 Neurocognitive Perspective Freud s Dream Protection Remember how I said I would come back to the history of psychology It s time to meet Sigmund Freud Freud was a neurologist who became interested in psychological problems that didn t have ready medical explanations Part of Freud s theory of mental illness which has been widely discredited by research was his three part psyche Id Ego Superego Freud s dream theory says that dreams are the disguising of our weird sexual and aggressive desires into symbols that won t disrupt our sleep Problem with the theory No evidence is one The others are that 90 of dreams contain pretty normal things we do in everyday life Also much of the content of REM dreams are negative It is unlikely that nightmares are wish fulfillment Activation Synthesis Merely says that random signals starting in the pons a lower brain structure are interpreted by the cortex Under this theory dreams are random and meaningless Freud s theory gives dreams a lot of theories The Neurocognitive Perspective This perspective on dreams is a middle ground Dreams are meaningful products of our cognitive capacities This one has most merit in my opinion Research actually shows that dreaming can help enhance learning and problem solving A dream may not be as meaningful as a symbol for hidden desires but it s definitely not just a random mess Hypnosis Bias Alert I am skeptical of and as a result somewhat biased against hypnosis research But it IS getting increased attention from legitimate researchers Traditionally hypnosis is considered a technique for inducing relaxation and an altered state of consciousness that makes people open to altered perceptions It only works if you believe it will and are willing to participate It is a real alternate state of consciousness or driven by our beliefs Think facilitated communication But then again I am admittedly biased When you read the book s section on hypnosis think about the sociocognitive theory of hypnosis versus the dissociation theory Which one makes more sense to you Hypnosis What it CAN T DO It can t make you unaware of your surroundings It doesn t put you to sleep or into a trance It DOES NOT improve memory 1 2 3 4 You can rest WHENEVER YOU WANT TO 5 It can t make you forget the hypnotic session Hallucinations Out of Body Experiences Sensory perceptions of things that don t exist in the external world Seeing things that aren t there hearing sounds that don t exist smell scents when there is not actual sent etc Drugs mental illness early stages of sleep and random About 10 of people A type of hallucinations where you believe you have left your body and viewed it from the third person Seems to happen under extreme stress People tend not to be accurate when describing the events from a third person