CF

Psychology: Consciousness & Altered States

Consciousness

  • Consciousness: Awareness of and responsiveness to surroundings and mental processes.

  • Levels: Unconscious (unaware, inaccessible), Preconscious (easily recalled, not currently thinking about), Self-conscious (aware of one's own actions and being observed).

  • Survival Advantages: Sentience (subjective awareness for seeking positive/avoiding negative experiences), evolutionary aids for safety and resource finding.

  • Animal Consciousness: Evidenced by self-awareness (e.g., dog sniff test, crow behavior).

Attention

  • Attention span: Sustaining focus over time.

  • Selective attention: Intentional focus on a stimulus while filtering others.

  • Cocktail Party Effect: Ability to focus on one's own name amid other conversations.

  • Multitasking: Shifting between tasks, can slow processing, improve short-term emotions, but lowers long-term retention.

  • Inattentional blindness: Failure to detect unexpected, visible objects.

  • Change blindness: Failure to notice obvious environmental variations.

Sleep and Dreams

Sleep

  • Circadian Rhythm: The body's natural 24-hour cycle regulating functions (wakefulness, hormones, temperature).

  • Early Birds vs. Night Owls: Due to circadian rhythms, influenced by genetics, environment, peers.

  • Stages of Sleep:

    • Awake: Beta waves (alert), Alpha waves (drowsy).

    • Stage 1: Lightest sleep, Theta waves, Myoclonic twitch, floating/falling sensations.

    • Stage 2: Deeper sleep, EEG slows, Sleep spindles, K-complexes.

    • Stages 3 and 4 (Deep Sleep): Slow Delta waves, difficult to wake.

    • REM (Rapid Eye Movement): Active brain, dreaming, still body (sleep paralysis, atonia), paradoxical sleep (brain alert).

  • Tracking Sleep: Wearable technology, Polysomnography, Actigraphy.

  • Sleep Problems: Insomnia, Sleep apnea, Night terrors, Narcolepsy, Somnambulism.

  • Improve Sleep: Lifestyle changes (yoga, exercise, music, avoid electronics), interventions (noise machines, weighted blankets, melatonin), sharing beds (synchronized sleep).

Dreams

  • Types: Typically illogical, emotional, uncontrollable. Lucid dreaming (awareness and control within the dream).

  • Freud and Symbolism: Manifest content: what’s actually happening in the dream (superficial dream content), Latent content (underlying meaning).

  • Brain Activity Theories:

    • Activation-synthesis theory: Dreams are random neural signals the brain tries to make sense of. Interpretation is meaningless.

    • Self-organization theory: Dreams are a byproduct of the brain weaving neuronal signals into a narrative; consolidates memories, solving problems.

  • Functions: Information processing (dreams facilitate information processing and help add to memories/organize memories), memory organization, emotion/mood regulation (REM sleep helps process emotional/traumatic experiences, helps with problem solving).

Altered Consciousness

  • Altered consciousness: Any state outside typical full wakefulness, awareness, and alertness.

  • 5 Categories and their Sources:

    • Disease: Coma, epilepsy, psychotic disorders, vegetative states

    • Pharmacological Experiences: Drugs, fungi, plants

    • Physical Experiences: Breathing/respiration, diet, extreme temperatures, sexual activity, starvation

    • Psychological Experiences: Biofeedback, hypnosis, meditation, relaxation, rhythm-induced trance, sensory deprivation or overload

    • Spontaneous: Daydreaming, drowsiness, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep, near death experiences

  • Daydreaming: Spontaneous loss in thought, aids problem-solving, can worsen cognitive performance.

  • Flow: Full immersion in an experience, everything else seems unimportant; correlated with positive traits.

    • correlated with conscientiousness, intrinsic motivation, emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness.

  • Mindfulness: Present-centered awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations; increases positive emotions, lowers stress.

    • increases positive emotions, lowers stress, helps people feel more aware, focused, relaxed, and well-rested.

    • Encouraging mindfulness:

      • Focus on bodily sensations starting at the feet and working up

      • Stretching/exercises like yoga/Pilates

      • Deep Breathing

      • Mediation

  • Meditation: Deliberate practice of focused attention to promote awareness.

    • Mindfulness

    • Focus on a specific activity, object, sound, or thought

    • Impact integrity of telomeres

    • More positive emotions in longer-term interventions

    • Effective across cultures

  • Hypnosis: State of high susceptibility to suggestion.

    • Pair with cognitive behavioral therapy: lose more weight

    • Is not a cure-all; some people are easier to hypnotize than others (can be misused)

Drugs and Consciousness

  • Psychoactive drug: Chemical altering consciousness, mood, or perception.

  • Types:

    • Depressants (“downers”): Mellowing/calming, slow heart rate, facilitate sleep, relieve pain (e.g., alcohol).

    • Stimulants: Boost energy, elevate mood, suppress appetite (e.g., coffee).

    • Opioids: Pain management, mimic endorphins.

    • Hallucinogens (Psychedelics): Promote hallucinations, alter consciousness (e.g., Marijuana, DMT/Ayahuasca).

    • Marijuana:

      • Legal for medicinal purposes in most states, growing number of states allowing recreational use.

      • Effective pain treatment, can reduce opioid use for pain.

      • Can impair encoding, storage, and retrieval components of memory.

    • Alcohol:

      • Hampers coordination, slows neural processing/reaction times, disrupts memory, reduces self-awareness, and lowers self-control.

      • More negative behaviors compared to marijuana.

    • DMT/Ayahuasca:

      • Used for rituals and ceremonies for psychedelic/therapeutic effects.

      • Potential use as antidepressant.

    • Coffee and Your Brain:

      • Improves attention, alertness, and reaction time.

      • Higher stress-induced heart rates/blood pressure.

      • Addictive.

  • Problematic Drug Use:

    • Overdoses: Misuse or mixing drugs.

    • Safety ratio: Fatal dose compared to typical dose.

      • the idea that a drugs level of effectiveness and a drugs level of dosage are inherently linked is crucial in understanding the risks associated with problematic drug use.

    • Tolerance: Need for increased dosage for similar effect.

      • ex. need more caffeine over time for same effect

    • Withdrawal: Symptoms upon drug absence, indicates dependence.

    • Addiction: Continued use despite negative consequences, diminished reward response but increased craving.

      • not dependance

  • Reasons for Drug Use: Systemic influences (social norms), other problems (struggling schools, lack of supervision), individual differences (sensation-seeking, impulsivity, depression).