6A - Sleep as a physiological construct

Consciousness

Psychological construct regarding the level of awareness over own thoughts, feelings, perceptions and existence

Psychological construct

Agreed upon understanding of unmeasurable physiological phenomena

Types of Consciousness

Normal waking consciousness, Altered state of consciousness

Normal waking consciousness

Awake and aware

Altered state of consciousness

Quality of experience and levels of awareness are different to NWC

Consciousness continuum

Representation of progression of states of consciousness from least to most aware

Sleep

Naturally occurring altered state of consciousness involving loss of awareness and disengagement of external and internal stimuli

Characteristics of sleep

Cognitive distortions and reduced control of behaviour, thoughts and understanding of passage of time.

Types of sleep

REM and NREM

Sleep episode

Full duration of time spent a sleep made up of multiple repeated REM and NREM cycles

Sleep cycle

A 90 minute period that repeats through a sleep episode and progresses through stages of REM and NREM sleep

REM sleep

Characterised by rapid eye movement, high levels of brain activity and low levels of physical activity

NREM sleep

Lack of rapid eye movement, divided into three stages

NREM stage 1

Transition from awake to light sleep, losing awareness of themselves and surroundings while still being aware of faint sounds.

NREM stage 2

Relatively light sleep where the majority of time sleeping is spent.

NREM stage 3

Deep sleep which is difficult to be awoken from and if so leads to being drowsy and disoriented. Sleep walking and talking occur mostly here