Chapter 4: State of Conciousness

dualism and monism

dualism and monism

The historical discussion about consciousness centers on the competing philosophical theories of

thought and matter

Dualists believe humans (and the universe in general) consist of two materials:

mere exposure effect

occurs when we prefer stimuli we have seen before over novel stimuli, even if we do not consciously remember seeing the old stimuli.

blind sight

Another fascinating phenomenon that demonstrates levels of consciousness is

Conscious level

The information about yourself and your environment you are currently aware of.

Nonconscious level

Body processes controlled by your mind that we are not usually (or ever) aware of.

Preconscious level

Information about yourself or your environment that you are not currently thinking about (not in your conscious level) but you could be.

Subconscious level

Information that we are not consciously aware of but we know must exist due to behavior.

Unconscious level

Psychoanalytic psychologists believe some events and feelings are unacceptable to our conscious mind and are repressed into the unconscious mind.

sleep cycle

is our typical pattern of sleep.

sleep onset

The period when we are falling asleep is called

REM—rapid eye movement.

As we reach stage 1, our brain produces a period of intense activity, our eyes dart back and forth, and many of our muscles may twitch repeatedly.

paradoxical sleep

since our brain waves appear as active and intense as they do when we are awake.

Insomnia

is far and away the most common sleep disorder, affecting up to 10 percent of the population.

Narcolepsy

occurs far more rarely than insomnia, occurring in less than 0.001 percent of the population.

Narcoleptics

suffer from periods of intense sleepiness and may fall asleep at unpredictable and inappropriate times.

Sleep apnea

may be almost as common as insomnia and, in some ways, might be more serious.

Apnea

causes a person to stop breathing for short periods of time during the night.

Dreams

are the series of storylike images we experience as we sleep.

Sigmund Freud

considered dreams an important tool in his therapy.

Manifest content

is the literal content of our dreams.

Latent content

which is the unconscious meaning of the manifest content.

activation-synthesis theory

of dreaming looks at dreams first as biological phenomena.

Split-brain patients

sometimes make up elaborate explanations for behaviors caused by their operation.

information-processing theory

of dreaming falls somewhere in between the Freudian and activation-synthesis theories.

Blood-brain barrier

the brain is protected from harmful chemicals in the bloodstream by thicker walls surrounding the brain’s blood vessels.

Agonists

The drugs that mimic neurotransmitters.

Antagonist

The drugs that block neurotransmitters.

Stimulants

speed up body processes, including autonomic nervous system functions such as heart and respiration rate.

Depressants

slow down the same body systems that stimulants speed up.

Hallucinogens

(also sometimes called psychedelics) do not necessarily speed up or slow down the body.

Reverse tolerance

is a phenomenon in which a person needs to consume more of a substance to achieve the same effect as before.

Opiates

such as morphine, heroin, methadone, and codeine are all similar in chemical structure to opium, a drug derived from the poppy plant.