Consciousness

Consciousness: the awareness of internal and external stimuli

- Personal awareness

- Throughout life we maintain a stream of personal awareness

- Provides us with a sense of continuity

- Arises from a combination of brain processes

- Consciousness lags the brain events that evoke it

- Major issue

- How do physical processes result in conscious experience

- Psychophysiology

- Variations in consciousness are related to changes in the brain

- Electrical changes

-  Electroencephalograph: Used to study changes in electrical activity in the brain
- Different patterns of EEG are associated with different states of consciousness

Normal Altered States

- Daydreaming

- Nearly everybody daydreams every day

- Content addresses familiar details of our lives

- Sleep

- 1/4 of life spent sleeping

- Sleep and Dreams

- Brain States

- Awake

- Low voltage, high frequency beta waves dominate

- Relaxed

- Alpha waves become more common

- Stage 1 Sleep

- Brain waves slow further
- Become more irregular
- Theta waves prominent
- Lasts about two minutes

- Stage 2 Sleep

- Lasts bout 20 minutes
- Periodic appearance of sleep spindles
Sleep spindle: bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain-wave activity
- Mixed EEG activity

- Stage 3 Sleep

- Transitional stage
- Beginning of slow wave sleep
- Start seeing delta waves

- Stage 4 Sleep

- Delta waves
- Stage 3 & 4 sleep lasts about 30 minutes
- Difficult to awaken sleeper

- REM sleep

REM sleep: a deep stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, high frequency brain waves, and dreaming
- Lasts about 10 minutes
- Brain waves become erratic and saw toothed
- Heart rate rises
- Breathing becomes rapid and irregular
- Eyes dart around in bursts of activity behind closed lids
- Paradoxical sleep
- Body internally roused/externally relaxed
- Signals onset of dream

- Sleep Cycle

- Repeats every 90 minutes

- REM sleep increases

- Stage 4 sleep decreases

- Purpose of sleep

- Evolutionary theory

- Sleep suits our ecological niche
- Rest when most inefficient

- Restorative theory

- Sleep promotes physiological processes that rejuvenate the body each night
- Restore body tissues
- Brain actively consolidates memories
- Preserve energy for daylight hours
- Slow-wave sleep

- Circadian theories

- An aspect of circadian rhythms
- Regulated by neural mechanisms
- REM sleep serves an important function in the survival of mammalian species

- Growth process

- Sleep Disorders

- Insomnia

Insomnia: chronic problems in getting adequate sleep
- Difficulty falling asleep
- Difficulty remaining asleep
- Persistent early morning awakening

- Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy: A sleeping disorder characterized by bouts of periodic, “overwhelming” sleepiness
- Last about 5 minutes
- Can occur at any time
- Disorder may have genetic origins

- Sleep apnea

Sleep apnea: a sleeping disorder in which sleeper intermittently stops breathing during sleep
- Deprives a person of slow-wave sleep

- Night Terrors

- Experienced mainly by children
- Doubling of heart and breathing rates
- Appear terrified
- Seldom awakens fully
- Recalls little or nothing the next morning
- Occur w.in the first few hours of sleep
- During stage 4 sleep

 - Sleep walking

- Occurs during stage 4 sleep.

- Nightmares

- Occur mainly during early morning REM sleep
- More frequent in children than in adults

- Dream Content

- Tend to remember the bizarre or emotionally strong dreams.

- Sexual content

- Fairly infrequent

- Daily events

- Public affairs or current events

- Opposite/same sex dreams

- Troublesome dreams

- Most common

- Manifest/Latent content

- Freudian
- Manifest content
- The story line of our dreams
- Often incorporates experiences and preoccupations from the day's events
- Sensory input may be incorporated into dream
- Censored, symbolic version of the dream’s latent content
- Latent content
- Consists of unconscious drives and wishes
- Would be threatening if expressed directly in dream

- Dream Interpretation

- Frequently symbolic
- Concepts explored in our dreams are frequently abstract
- Need to understand symbology in order to understand the content of the dream
- Words used to describe dream can be revealing

- Theories of Dreaming

- Wish fulfillment (Freud)

- Dreams are a psychic safety valve
- Discharge unacceptable feelings and impulses
- Some support

- Problem Solving

- Dreams provide an opportunity to work through everyday problems
- Dreams allow people to engage in creative thinking about problems
- Dreamer not retrained by logic or realism

- Activation Synthesis

- Dreams are side effects of the neuronal activation
- Cortex constructs a dream to make sense of random neural signals

- Information Processing

- Dreams help sift, sort, and fix in memory our day's experiences
- Following stressful events or intense learning experiences, REM sleep increases

- Physiological theories

- REM sleep provides brain with needed stimulation

Drug States

-  Sleeping, hypnosis, or meditation

-  “Natural” or self induced states of consciousness

-  Psychoactive Drugs

- Drugs which induce changes of consciousness

-  Modify mental, emotional, or behavioral functioning

Types of Drugs

-  Depressants

- Sedatives

Sedatives: sleep inducing drugs that tend to decrease central nervous system activation and behavioral activity

- Inhibit activity in the central nervous system

-  Decreases anxiety, pain, and related states

-  Alcohol

Alcohol: encompasses a variety of beverages containing ethyl alcohol
- The most widely used depressant in the Western world
-  Physical effects
- Slows sympathetic nervous system activity
-  Tendencies
-  Memory
-  Disrupts the processing of recent experiences into long term memories
-  Self awareness
- Reduces self awareness
-  Inhibits foresight

-  Barbiturates

- Depress central nervous system activity
- Sometimes prescribed to induce sleep or reduce anxiety
- In larger doses can lead to impaired memory and judgment

-  Stimulants

Stimulants: drugs that tend to increase central nervous system activation and behavioral activity

- Increase heart and breathing rates

-  Amphetamines

-  Cocaine

- Ingested, inhaled, smoked , or injected

-  Caffeine

- Use is common in the United States
- In many products
- Can produce tolerance and withdrawal

-  Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens: a diverse group of drugs that have powerful effects on mental and emotional functioning

-  Include both natural and man made substances

-  LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, “acid”)

- Man-made drug
-  Derived from ergot
-  Discovery was a scientific accident
-  Dr. Albert Hofmann
- Tolerance develops quickly
-  Tolerance wears off quickly
-  Effects

-  Marijuana

-  Natural substance
- Methods of ingestion
- Leaves and flowers of the hemp plant
- Medicinal uses
- Active ingredient
- Effects
- Psychological dependence can develop

Factors Influencing Drug Effects

- Perception of effects differ

- Method of use

- Ingested

- Inhaled

- Smoked

- Injected

- The more quicly the drug enters bloodstream

- The more intense the effect

- The more addictive the experience of the drug

-  Tolerance

-  Progressive decrease in a person's responsiveness to a drug

-  Results from continued use

-  Expectations

- Psychological effects

- Abrams & Wilson (1983)

-  Alcoholic or nonalcoholic drink
-  Shown an erotic movie clip
-  Results

-  Context

- Environmental factors

-  Rituals which set the context for drug use

- Adapt to and expects environmental cues associated with drug use

-  Cues initiate physiological responses
- Heroin overdoses in experienced users