Chapter 4: State of Conciousness

**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.