unit 5

2/15/24

Consciousness: personal awareness of mental activities, internal sensations, and the external environment

  • subconsciousness: beneath the surface where processing occurs simultaneously on many parallel tracks

Altered states: sleep, drugs, and hypnosis

Circadian Rhythm: a psych rhythm that is roughly 24 hours long it is the cyclical daily fluctuations in biological and psychological processes

Biological influences on sleep

  • Suprachiasmatic: a cluster of neurons that are in the hypothalamus that governs the timing of the circadian rhythm

  • Melatonin: hormone manufactured by the pineal gland that produces sleepiness

Daydreams: nearly everybody has daydreams or waking fantasies every day, typically about the familiar details of our lives,

  • fantasy-prone personality: someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends a considerable time fantasizing

  • benefits of daydreams:

    • They can prepare us for future events

    • enhance our creativity

    • can feed our social development

    • feeds emotional development

    • feeds cognitive development

    • can be a substitute for impulsive behavior

EEG: a graphic record of brain activity produced by the electroencephalography

  • used in sleep studies

NREM: quiet typically dreamless sleep in which rapid eye movements are absent and it's divided into four stages

When we are awake we emit beta waves, beta brain waves are associated with alert wakefulness

Stage 1: light sleep breathing rate is slowing, brain waves are slowing,

  • exhibit alpha waves

  • hypnagogic hallucinations: vivid sensory phenomena that occur during the onset of sleep

  • lasts anywhere from a few seconds to about 10 minutes

    • feeling of falling and hearing your name

Stage 2: relax further, brain activity slowing down, easy to wake someone up, even though they are clearly asleep

  • lasts between 15 and 20 minutes

  • sleep/EEG spindles: short rapid rhythmic bursts of brain activity, only last about a second ot two

  • exhibit alpha waves

Stage 3/slow wave sleep: beginning of what is referred to as slow wave sleep, transitional, transition you to deep sleep - stage 4

  • stages 3 and 4 together last about 30 minutes

  • emits deltas waves: the larger slower brain waves of deep sleep

Stage 4: enter stage 4 after you have been asleep for about an hour, muscles relax, blood pressure drops, and pulse and respiration slow, deep restorative sleep

  • delta waves continue

  • stimulation of growth occurs

  • deep restorative sleep: the body repairs itself from the wear and tear of the day, when our body builds our immune system

  • where sleepwalking and night terrors typically occur

Go to stage 4 and go back through the lighter stages before entering REM sleep

REM: type of sleep during which rapid eye movements and dreaming usually occur voluntary muscle activity is suppressed, body is virtually paralyzed, heart rate rises, breathing is rapid and irregular, when eyes are moving rapidly behind the eyelids

  • vital for memory storage, retention memory organization, reorganization, and new learning

  • also called paradoxical sleep

  • occurs after you have been asleep for about an hour and a half

  • where dreams typically occur

as the night wears on you repeat the sleep cycle 4-6 times a night, based on an average of 8 hours, repeat the cycle about every 90 minutes, stage 4 gets progressively briefer and then disappears and REM periods get longer and may last as long as an hour

looking at life span we sleep about 22-24 years of our life

2/19/24

REM rebound: a phenomenon in which a person who is deprived of REM sleep greatly increases the amount of time spent in REM sleep at the first opportunity to sleep uninterrupted

Sleep deprivation:

  • Micro-sleeps: episodes of sleep that last a few seconds that occur during wakefulness

  • Disruptions in: mood, mental abilities, reaction time, perceptual skills, complex motor skills, impaired creativity, concentration, suppress the immune system, and might experience occasional misperceptions on monotonous tasks

Sleep disorders: sleep disturbances in the normal sleep pattern that interfere with daytime functioning and cause subjective distress

  • Insomnia: a condition in which a person regularly experiences an inability to fall asleep and stay asleep or to feel adequately rested by sleep

  • Sleep apnea: a sleep disorder in which the person repeatedly stops breathing during sleep, affects 1 in 25, often affects middle-aged over-weight male

    • c-pap machine

  • Narcolepsy: characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and brief lapses into sleep throughout the day, affects 1 in 2000, uncontrollable sleep attacks, when they fall asleep they go into REM sleep, may have a trigger

  • Parasomnias: category of sleep disorders characterized by arousal, or activation during sleep or sleep transitions

    • Sleepwalking: characterized by an episode of walking or performing other actions during stage 3 or 4 of NREM, also called somnambulism, typically occurs during stage 4

    • Night terrors: characterized by an episode of physiological arousal, intense fear or panic, freighting hallucinations, and no recall of the episode the next morning, usually occurs during stage 3 or 4 during NREM, typically only last a few seconds, sensations of being crushed or falling, they often imagine chocking, or a freighting figure is present like an animal or monster, most people outgrow them

    • REM sleep behavior disorder: where a sleeper acts out their dreams

    • Bruxism: teeth-grinding

Dreams: most people's dreams are vivid emotional and bizarre, dream about 2 hours each night, events generally occur in a jumbles sequence scenes change suddenly people appear and disappear, and physical laws such as gravity may be violated, usually dream about daily events, more likely to be awaken and remember our most emotional dreams

  • Nightmares: a frightening or unpleasant anxiety dream that occurs during REM sleep

  • Dream theories

    • Sigmund Freud: believed all dreams have meanings, there are 2 parts to dreams

      • Manifest content: the remembered storyline of the dream

      • Latent content: the underlying censored meaning of the dream, the dreamers unconscious wishes, thoughts, and urges

        • He always thought the latent content are sexual and aggressive in nature

    • The information processing theory: dreams help us sift, sort, and transfer into memory our daily experiences

    • The activation-synthesis model of dreaming: brain activity during sleep produces dream images (activation) which are combined by the brain into a dream story (synthesis)

    • The physiological function theory: dreams serve a physiological function by providing the sleeping brain with periodic stimulation, simpler version of activation-synthesis theory

2/20/24

Hypnosis

hypnosis: a cooperative social interaction in which the hypnotized person responds to the hypnotist's suggestions with changes in perception, memory, and behavior

  • people can experience blindness, deafness, and not experiencing pain

  • subjects can be induced to have hallucinations such as seeing a friend on the other side of the room, can be induced not to sense something

  • in hopes of having benefits when they are no longer hypnotized

reasons people do it:

  • post-hypnotic suggestion: a suggestion made during hypnosis that a person should carry out a specific instruction following the hypnotic session

    • popular examples: to stop smoking, to stop overeating

  • post-hypnotic amnesia: the inability to recall specific information because of a hypnotic suggestion

    • would have the person forget a specific number

  • hypermnesia: the supposed enhancement of a person's memory or past events through a hypnotic suggestion

    • used in crime scenes to make the witnesses remember more

dissociation: the splitting of consciousness into two or more simultaneous streams of mental activity,

theories of explanation of hypnosis

  • Ernest Hilgard

    • Neo-dissociation theory of hypnosis: Hilgard explains hypnotic effects as being due to the splitting of consciousness, into two simultaneous streams of mental activity only one of which the hypnotic participant is consciously aware of during hypnosis

    • hidden observer: Hilgard’s term for the hidden or dissociated stream of mental activity during hypnosis

  • Nicholas Spanos

    • Social cognitive theory of hypnosis: because hypnosis involves a voluntary social interaction between two people, the hypnotic subject is simply responding to the social demands they're motivated to be good subjects and to cooperate with the hypnotic suggestions, they are behaving in the way they think they should to be good subjects

Drug Altered Consciousness

these drugs are classified as psychoactive drugs

psychoactive drugs: drugs that alter consciousness perception, mood, and behavior

  • all drugs are considered psychoactive drugs

types of dependencies people may experience:

  • psychological dependence: believe that you need it to be able to cope with your life

  • physical dependence: a condition in which a person has physically adapted to a drug so that they must take the drug regularly to avoid withdrawal symptoms

    • without professional help, trying to get sober, parts of the body can shut down and they can die

As a person uses a drug they can develop a tolerance

  • tolerance: a condition in which increasing amounts of a physically addictive drug are needed to produce the original desired effect

A person who decides to stop using a drug may experience withdrawal symptoms

  • withdrawal: unpleasant physical reactions combined with intense drug cravings that occur when a person abstains from a drug, on which they are physically dependent

    • Drug-rebound effect: withdrawal symptoms that are the opposite of a physically addictive drug's actions

      • If a person is taking a stimulant then they will feel less energetic when the stop taking it

Drug abuse: recurrent drug use that results in the disruption of academic, social, or occupational functioning, or legal or psychological problems

First category:

  • Depressants: a category of psychoactive drugs that depress or inhibit brain activity

    • can find alcohol in beer, wine, and liquor

    • In sc and in most states a person is considered intoxicated if their blood alcohol is .08. Many factors factor into how much that number will be, depending on the type of alcohol, body type, height, weight, is it their first time

    • another type is barbituates

    • barbituates: reduce anxiety and produce sleepiness

      • common types: Seconal, nembutal, — prescription, quaaludes — illegal

      • they have a lot of side effects

    • another type, more common, is benzodiazepines: depressants drugs that relieve anxiety

      • have less side effects

      • valium, librium, Ativan, and Xanax

    • Both are also referred to as tranquilizers

2/21/24

Second category:

  • Stimulants: increase brain activity, arouse behavior, and increase mental alertness

    • most common: caffeine and nicotine

    • caffeine: found in coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate, and many over-the-counter medications

    • nicotine: found in tobacco products

    • another stimulant, used to be pop., increases and decreases: Amphetamines: also called speed or upper arouse the CNS and suppress appetite

    • pop. in 80s: Cocaine: derived from the coca tree,

    • Methamphetamine: more common—in quantity,

    • People experience stimulant-induced psychosis: schizophrenia-like symptoms, that can occur as the result of prolonged amphetamine, methamphetamine, or cocaine use

Third Category:

  • Opiates: chemically similar to morphine and have strong pain-reliving properties

    • examples: Oxycontin, Oxycodone, perkaset, perkadan, vicadin, methadone, hydrocodone

    • illegal— heroin: use once and addicted, described as being so euphoric that one continues to use

    • fentanyl

Fourth Category:

  • Hallucinogens: sometimes called psychedelic drugs create sensory and visual? distortions, alter mood, and affect judgment

    • LSD also called acid — used in 60s with the hippie movement, the experience that you have is often called a trip, when you are experiencing the trip, may have a sense of euphoria, sense of detachment, or to panic

    • Mescaline: comes from the peyote cactus, used in ceremonies of some groups,

    • Hallucinogenic mushrooms

    • marijuana: comes from the hemp plant more mild than LSD and Mescaline

    • ketamine: date-rape drug, used in veterinarian, better than LSD and PCP

    • also fits into stimulants ecstasy: also referred to as the love drug