States of Consciousness

States of Consciousness

Consciousness

  • Definition: Awareness of oneself and surroundings.
  • William Dement quote: "Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives."

What is Consciousness?

  • An individual’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and/or memories that are active at a given moment.
  • An Awareness of:
    • Internal sensations
    • External events
    • Self as a unique being
    • Thoughts and experiences
  • Consciousness is subjective and personal, occurring on a continuum, and changing all the time.

States of Consciousness

  • Waking Consciousness
    • Normal, clear, organized, and alert state of awareness.
  • Altered State of Consciousness
    • Distinct changes that occur in quality and pattern of mental activity as indicated by changing brain waves.
    • Examples:
      • Sleep
      • Hypnosis
      • Meditation
      • Fainting
      • Day Dreaming
      • Sensory Deprivation
      • Drug Use

Levels of Consciousness

  • Conscious
  • Subconscious
  • Unconscious

Circadian Rhythm

  • Cyclical changes in bodily functions and arousal levels that vary on a 24-hour schedule.
  • Special receptors in the eye and the hypothalamus (Suprachiasmatic nucleus) allow the body to respond to changes in varying levels of light and dark.
  • Melatonin secreted by the pineal gland increases with darkness and decreases with light.

Development of Sleep Patterns

  • Short cycles of sleep and waking gradually become the night-day cycle of an adult.
  • Midafternoon sleepiness is a natural part of the sleep cycles, even if most adults don’t take naps.

Circadian Problems

  • Jet Lag
  • Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.)
    • Winter months: sadness, lethargy, and drowsiness

Seasonal Affective Disorder Rates

  • Rates vary by latitude.
  • 1-2%
  • 6%
  • 10%
  • 10%

Indicators of Circadian Rhythm

  • Core body temperature is a good indicator of a person’s circadian rhythm.
  • Most people reach a low point 2 to 3 hours before their normal waking time.
  • Accidents like Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island occurred around 4 am.
  • Rapid travel to a different time zone, shift work, depression, and illness can throw sleep and waking patterns out of synchronization with the body’s core rhythm.
  • Mismatches of this kind are very disruptive (Hauri & Linde, 1990).

Effects of Sleep Loss

  • Less sleep leads to more accidents.
  • More sleep leads to fewer accidents.
  • Spring time change (hour of sleep lost) correlates with increased accidents.
  • Fall time change (hour of sleep gained) correlates with decreased accidents.

Theories on Sleep

  • Evolutionary Theory: Sleep increases the likelihood of survival.
    • Compared to other species/predators humans do not function as well in the dark
  • Restorative Theory: Sleep helps your body recover/rejuvenate from the energy it lost during the day
    • REM sleep – mental energy
    • N-REM sleep – physical energy

EEG - Electroencephalography

  • Measures brain waves.
Brain Wave Types
  • Beta (15-30 Hz): Awake, normal alert consciousness
  • Alpha (9-14 Hz): Relaxed, calm, meditation, creative visualization
  • Theta (4-8 Hz): Deep relaxation and meditation, problem-solving
  • Delta (1-3 Hz): Deep, dreamless sleep
Sleep Stages and Brain Waves
  • Awake, relaxed: Alpha waves
  • Stage 1 sleep: Small, irregular waves
  • Stage 2 sleep: Spindle (burst of activity)
  • Stage 3 sleep: Delta waves appear
  • Stage 4 sleep: Delta waves
  • REM sleep: Eye movement phase

Stages of Sleep

  • Stage 1:
    • Small, irregular waves produced in light sleep.
    • Experienced as one is falling to sleep and is a transition stage between wake and sleep.
    • Consists mostly of theta waves with brief periods of alpha waves.
    • Hypnic Jerk and Hypnagogic Images
  • Stage 2:
    • Deeper sleep; consists mostly of theta waves.
    • Characterized by sleep spindles and K Complexes
  • Stage 3:
    • Deeper sleep; Delta waves appear; very large and slow
  • Stage 4:
    • Deepest level of normal sleep; almost purely Delta waves

Two States of Sleep

  • Rapid Eye Movement (REM)
    • About 90 min into sleep cycle, about 25% of the total night's sleep.
    • Associated with dreaming; sleep is very light
    • Body is paralyzed while breathing, heart rate and brain wave activity quicken. (Paradoxical Sleep)
    • Memory Consolidation = Helps store memories and preserve neural pathways
    • No frontal lobe activity
  • Non-REM (NREM) Sleep
    • Occurs during stages 1 (first time only), 2, 3, and 4; no rapid eye movement occurs
    • Helps recover from physical exertion

Dual process hypothesis of sleep

  • REM
    • sharpens memory for important events from the previous day
    • Memory Consolidation
  • NREM
    • reduces the overall level of brain activation, allowing unimportant memories to be forgotten

Progression of Sleep Stages

  • NREM, Awake, REM

Sleep Stages

  • REM periods get longer as the night progresses.
  • Stage 4 occurs early in the night.

Sleep Across the Life Span

  • Marked drop in REM during infancy

Are You Sleep Deprived?

  • Quiz to self-assess sleep deprivation, developed by Cornell University psychologist James Maas.
  • If you answered "true" to three or more items, you probably are not getting enough sleep.
  • Maas recommends going to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual every night for the next week and continuing this practice by adding 15 more minutes each week until you wake without an alarm clock and feel alert all day.
    • (Quiz reprinted with permission from James B. Maas, Power sleep: The revolutionary program that prepares your mind and body for peak performance [New York: HarperCollins, 1999].)

Deprivation of REM Sleep

  • The cycle of waking-NREM-REM sleep is essential to the mental health of most mammals.
  • People deprived of REM Sleep often experience:
    • inability to pay attention and concentrate
    • irritability, poor memory, anxiety
    • motor coordination problems
  • REM rebound will occur once the normal sleep cycle is allowed to return (an excess of REM when REM deprived)

Specific Sleep Disorders

  • Sleep Apnea
  • Narcolepsy
  • Insomnia
  • Restless Leg Syndrome
  • Sleep walking/talking
  • Night Terrors
  • REM Behavior Disorder
  • Sleep paralysis

Nightmares and Night Terrors

  • Nightmares occur during REM sleep.
  • Night terrors occur during Stage 4.

Different Dream Theories

  • Dreams as unconscious wish fulfillment
  • Dreams as reflections of current concerns
  • Dreams as a collection of random brain activity

Wish Fulfillment Theory (Freud)

  • Dreams are created to fulfill unsatisfied needs
  • Freud felt that dreams provide insight into desires, motives, and conflicts of which we are unaware.
  • “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”
  • Dreams allow us to express these desires since we are often unable to express them in the waking state because they are often sexual or violent in nature
  • Since many of our dream's messages would produce anxiety they must be disguised in dream symbols
    • manifest (actual) content - the aspects of a dream we experience
    • latent (symbolic) content - the unconscious wishes and desires that are actually being expressed symbolically
  • Dream Interpretation

Information-Processing Theory (Cartwright)

  • Many brain areas that are active when we are awake remain active during dreaming with dreams being a conscious expression of the REM sleep processes that sort and store daily experiences.
  • Dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day
  • People dream in order to continue to process the day’s activities and solve current mental problems
  • Dreams reflect the ongoing conscious preoccupations of our current waking life (relationships, work, sex, health, etc.)
  • Cartwright felt that dreams are primarily “feeling statements”; the overall emotional tone of the dream is a major clue to its meaning

Activation Synthesis Hypothesis (Hobson & McCarley)

  • Provides a physiological function for dreams
  • Various parts of the brain (in particular the pons) continue to function and produce nerve impulses during REM sleep
  • As the cortex attempts to makes sense of these nerve impulses, dream content is triggered using random stimuli and memories, especially those easily accessible in the short-term memory.
  • In essence, dreams are stories that are created in order to make sense of random internal signals
  • The activation-synthesis hypothesis renders dreams meaningless and removes any need to understand or interpret them

Psychoactive Drugs and Altered States of Consciousness

  • Definition: A substance that crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and/or behavior.

Classifications of Drugs

  • Stimulants: Drugs which increase CNS activity
    • Examples: amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, nicotine, methamphetamine
    • Commonly used to increase excitement and alertness
  • Depressants: Drugs which decrease CNS activity
    • Examples: alcohol, barbiturates, tranquilizers
    • Commonly used to reduce anxiety, guilt, tension, and inhibitions, and/or to bring on NREM sleep
  • Hallucinogens: Drugs that change sensory perception and self-awareness
    • Examples: LSD, PCP, marijuana, mescaline (peyote), mushrooms
    • Commonly used to mimic psychotic symptoms and disrupt normal thought processes (such as produce hallucinations and alter the perception of time & space)
  • Opiates: Drugs that relieve pain, act like endorphins
    • Examples: opium, heroin, oxycontin, morphine, methadone
    • Commonly used to create feelings of euphoria

Drug Effects

  • Continuum of drug effects ranging from stimulation to depression.
  • Examples of drugs at different points along the continuum.

Guide to Selected Psychoactive Drugs

  • Table outlining the type, pleasurable effects, and adverse effects of various drugs including alcohol, heroin, caffeine, methamphetamine, cocaine, nicotine, ecstasy (MDMA), and marijuana.

Cocaine's Effect on Neurotransmitters

  • Cocaine blocks reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, intensifying their mood-altering effects and producing a euphoric rush.
  • When the cocaine level drops, the absence of these neurotransmitters produces a crash.

Influencing the Effects of Drugs

  • Physical Dependence
    • Drug dependence based on physiological needs
    • Drug use is based on tolerance and withdrawal symptoms
    • Drug Tolerance: Reduction in bodily response to a drug requiring the user to take larger doses before experiencing the same effect
    • Withdrawal Symptoms: Physical illness following the withdrawal of a drug
  • Psychological Dependence
    • Drug dependence based on psychological or emotional needs
    • Drug is necessary to maintain emotional comfort and well-being

Opponent Process Theory of Drug Use

  • The adverse withdrawal effects a person feels after using a drug prompts a person to compensate by taking more of the drug.

Factors Influencing Drug Effects

  1. Physical factors such as body weight, metabolism, initial state of emotional arousal, & physical tolerance for the drug
  2. Previous experience with the drug
  3. “Environmental setting” refers to the context in which a person takes the drug
  4. “Mental set” refers to expectations about the drugs effects, as well as reasons for taking the drug (think-drink effect)

Psychoactive Drugs - Cocaine

  • Visual representation of how cocaine blocks the reuptake of neurotransmitters.

Psychoactive Drugs - Guide

  • Table summarizing pleasurable and adverse effects of various drugs.

Caffeine

  • Most frequently used psychoactive drug in North America; present in colas, chocolate, coffee, tea
  • Causes tremors, sweating, talkativeness, tinnitus, suppresses fatigue or sleepiness, increases alertness
    • Caffeinism: Physiological dependence on caffeine. Insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, chills, racing heart, elevated body temperature

Levels of Analysis for Drug Use

  • The biopsychosocial approach enables researchers to investigate drug use from complementary perspectives.