Consciousness and Information Processing

Consciousness


individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensation, and environment.

Spontaneous consciousness


Daydreaming, drowsiness, dreaming

physiologically conscious


Hallucinations, orgasm, food/oxygen, starvation

Psychologically conscious


Sensory deprivation, hypnosis, meditation

Subconscious


Partially conscious

Unconscious

Cannot be directly observed with conscious mind

Biological rhythms

controlled by an internal clock

Circadian rhythm


24 hour cycle; sleep and body temperature

Sleep Theories


1. Protects

2. Recuperates (restores brain tissue)

3. Helps process memory

4. Growth

Sleep deprivation


Irritability, hallucinations, increase risk of stroke, impaired immune system

REM (Rapid Eye Movement)


Active while sleeping, vivid dreams

five stages of sleep

1-4 are NREM, 5 is REM.

Delayed sleep phase syndrome


Circadian rhythm is off

Insomnia


Cannot fall/stay asleep

narcolepsy


Sudden, uncontrollable sleep during normal waking periods

Sleep apnea


Breathing stops temporarily during sleep; CPAP

Night terrors


Appearance of terrified, seldom remembered, during NREM 4

Sleepwalking


Disruption and sleep pattern causes to walk/move

Dreams


Sequence of images, thoughts, emotions

Manifest content


Remembered storyline of a dream

Latent content


Underlying meaning of a dream

Sigmund Freud and dreams


Wish fulfillment, unacceptable feelings, repressed memories

Information processing theory


Dreams sort out/makes sense of memories

Activation synthesis theories


Dreams makes sense of random neural activity

REM rebound


Rem sleep increases, following rem sleep deprivation

Psychoactive drugs


Alter perception/mood, impact consciousness, breaks blood–brain barrier

Depressants


Reduce neural activity/slow body functions

Stimulants


Excite neural activity/speed up body functions

Hallucinogens


LSD trips, marijuana time distortion

Influences on drug use:

1. Biological

2. Physiological

3. Socio-cultural