9 States Of Consciousness

States of Consciousness Chapter 7 265-307

Consciousness 

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Awareness of ourselves and our environment As we have seen the brain excels at parallel processing information, such as sensory input. Our conscious mind however, processes in sequence (basically one thing at a time) Learning skills is a way train ourselves to do something so well we

Daydreams Fantasy     

A kind of mental play – daydreams and fantasies can be useful Relieve tension Increase creativity Illuminate solutions to problems Lesson boredom

However if daydreaming stops you from accomplishing the things you need to do they can become a negative thing.

Biological Rhythms  

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Over various time periods the body changes and so with it our minds… Annual cycles – Ducks migrating, bears hibernating, people often become depressed with seasonal affective disorder. Twenty-eight-day Cycles – female menstrual cycle 24hr cycles – all mammals and birds sleep on a 24 hr cycle, rising falling growth hormone secretions/alertness 90 min cycles – the sleep cycle

Circadian Rhythm 

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Circadian Rhythm is the 24 biological clock most mammals including humans are on. Body temperature rises as morning approaches, peaks during the day, falls off in early afternoon, drops again before sleep.

Circadian Rhythm

Sleep Stages 

There is a biological rhythm to our sleep, it usually goes in 90 min cycles.

Stages of Sleep  

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Awake relaxed = Alpha waves Sleep – periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness. You cannot tell when you go to sleep but you can tell when you awake from it. Stage 1 (about 5 min) strong hallucinations may occur, sensations of falling or floating

Stages of Sleep 

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Stage 2 (20 min) clearly asleep, harder to wake up, can often mumble nonsense Stage 3 (2-5 min) a transitional stage of sleep to get you to stage 4. Stage 4 sleep (30 min) you are very hard to awaken, your brain produces long slow delta waves on the EEG, at the end of this stage sometime children can sleepwalk or wet their bed.

REM Sleep 

Lasts about 10 min. Brain waves look almost like you are awake, shallow breathing, eye movement, visual and auditory areas of the brain are active. As the night goes on REM sleep takes up more and more of the 90 min sleep cycle, by morning about 100 min of sleep has been REM sleep.

Other sleep facts 

Even though you are asleep you still can process information, you move around on the bed but don’t fall out, if you sleep with babies in the bed you will not roll over them (unless you are intoxicated or on drugs). The roar of an ambulance might not wake you up but your babies crying will.

Why do we Sleep? 

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Sleep patterns vary, adults need less than children, some people are ok with 6 hrs per night some have to have 9. Sleep patterns have been detected to be similar in identical twins. Your body keeps track of “sleep debt” for about two weeks. Thus if you don’t sleep well for a number of nights, just one night of good sleep might not be enough to make up for it.

Sleep Deprivation Effects 

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Not getting enough sleep not only makes you sleepy but also gives you a general sense of malaise (unwell/sick). Diminished productivity, tendency to make mistakes, irritability. More accident prone. Impaired creativity, hormonal activity that mimics aging, is conductive to obesity, hypertension Affects the immune system, makes it easier to become sick.

Are you Sleep Deprived?    

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See page 278 Why Sleep? Sleep protects Sleep helps us recuperate, restore body tissue. The brain repairs itself, reorganizes itself, consolidates memories May have some role in the growth process as the pituitary gland releases growth hormones during sleep.

Sleep Disorders 

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Insomnia – recurring problems in falling or staying asleep. Narcolepsy – Uncontrollable sleep attacks Sleep Apnea – people who stop breathing in their sleep and who wake up snorting for breath Night terrors – Stage 4 sleep near waking of terror.

Natural ways to help you sleep  

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Relax before bedtime Avoid caffeine and chocolate, have a glass of milk (rich in serotonin materials) Sleep on a regular schedule Exercise regularly but not right before bed

Dreams 

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Lucid Dreams – dreams where you know you are dreaming in them. We spend on average 6 years of our life dreaming. 8 out of 10 dreams for both men and women have negative emotions in them. Manifest Content – according to Freud, the remembered storyline of a dream. Often incorporates previous days events Sensory stimuli from our environment might be incorporated into our dream. We usually forget whatever was going on during the 5 min just before we fall asleep.

Freud 

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1900 published The Interpretation of Dreams Argued that dreams provide a psychic safety valve for otherwise unacceptable feelings Believe manifest content was symbolic of unconscious drives and wishes that would be threatening if expressed directly. He called the underlying real meanings of dreams

Why do we dream? 

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Freud’s theories were un-provable, as symbolic content can be interpreted anyway you want. Modern theories think that dreaming is a way of information processing that helps us store memories. Scientists know that REM sleep helps facilitate memory and if its interrupted it hurts it. Scientists have studied rats and were able to determine they were going visually through a maze that they had learned

Physiological reasons 

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The brain needs to keep up neural pathways by using them. Some scientists think that dreams stimulate the brain while you sleep so it doesn’t lose its capacity to retain memories or skills. Infants who’s pathways are developing spend significantly more time in REM sleep. Some scientists think that neural activity is random and dreams are the brain’s attempt to organize the random

Hypnosis 

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Hypnosis – a social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur. Scientists have been puzzled at what exactly hypnosis is. Some say it is an altered state of consciousness, others say it’s a hoax.

Hypnosis Facts 

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Those who study hypnosis agree that its power lies not in the hypnotist but in the subject’s openness to suggestion. One of the tests to see if you are susceptible to suggestion is to have someone stand up straight and close their eyes, now calmly tell them that they are swaying back and forth over and over. Those who end up swaying a little after a while are usually the same people who are best able to be hypnotized.

Hypnosis 

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Many people simply define hypnosis as the ability to turn attention inward and imagine. The trick to hypnotizing someone is to have the subject believe you or expect what you say will come true. So when a hypnotist asks you to strain your eyes and look at a point far away and then suggests that your eyes are “getting sleepy” it probably is because they are, but now you believe the hypnotist, so the next small thing he asks of you, you will be more susceptible to do. Post-hypnotic suggestion – is a suggestion

Hypnosis 

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Hypnosis has been found to help heal some ailments like asthma, headaches, warts, stress related skin disorders, but no more so than positive suggestion was shown to do to people who were not hypnotized. Hypnosis has been able to reduce pain effectively. About 10% of the population is able to go though major surgery without pain under hypnosis, around 50% can gain at least slight pain relief from hypnosis. This may be a form of dissociation a splitting of consciousness so that putting your hand in ice water feels very cold, but it is separated from the emotional stress and suffering that defines

Hypnosis 

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Because most behaviors people can experience through hypnosis they can also experience while not being hypnotized Many people look at the power of role play and the power of perception over reality to explain hypnotic actions, that people are not “faking” hypnotic effects but just doing what’s expected of them.

Divided Consciousness 

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Hypnosis does have some evidence that it is more than just suggestibility however. People under hypnosis generate distinctive brain activity, posthypnotic suggestions will often activate even when no one is watching. Hypnosis experts sometimes believe that a divided consciousness has occurred, a kind of autopilot response that occurs while the conscious state becomes a “hidden observer.” In one example a hypnotized person placed her hand in an ice bath and exhibited no signs of pain, but when asked to push a button to tell if

Drugs and Consciousness 

There are three main classification for psychoactive drugs.

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Depressants Stimulants Hallucinogens

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Addiction

Tolerance Diminishing effect of using a psychoactive drug requiring using more of the drug to get the same effect or eventually to even normally function. Physical dependence – When the absence of a drug causes a physical withdrawal symptoms. Psychological

Depressants 

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Depressants reduce mental activity and slow body functions. Most common depressants are Alcohol, Barbiturates, and Opiates (pain killer drugs like morphine) The main danger from depressants is slowing the body down so much you go into cardiac arrest – your

Dangers of Liquor 

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1. Long term effects – liver failure, cancer of stomach, throat, and brain damage, reproductive organ damage. 2. Act different, feel invincible, low inhibitions 3. Memory loss 4. Hangovers 5. Possible depression

Stimulants 

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Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions. Most popular: Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines (speed), cocaine, crack Stimulants often suppress appetite and many have been used as diet pills but have

The most common of all stimulants Caffeine is also an addictive drug w physical withdrawal symptoms.

Crack 

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Refined cocaine that is very powerful and inhaled instead of snorted. Creates a feeling of euphoria and invincibility or extreme paranoia Is many time more addictive and easy to overdose and cause cardiac

Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens affect certain Neurotransmitters such as Serotonin and cause hallucinations. Sensation and perception are altered and you can see or hear things that in fact don’t exist or cross the sensory spectrum, (like seeing sound or hearing color). Hallucinogens are dangerous because it is A collection of LSD. LSD is a liquid that difficult to predict the can be added to anything and it only takes experience of the A very small amount to cause hallucinations

Marijuana   

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Active ingredient is THC Relaxes, disinhibits, creates a “high” Amplifies sensitivity to colors, sounds, tastes, and smells Can amplify feelings of anxiety and depression

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Can be therapeutic for pain relief and increases appetite which has made it a drug of choice for cancer patients and attempts at legalization for such patients have been made. Immediate negative effects include affecting motor and rational judgment similar to alcohol, it also affects short term memory, and lung damage from smoke.

The Real Problem with Drugs Drugs in general are dangerous even deadly with each use as they change body chemistry in unpredictable ways and affect your judgement. However, psychoactive drugs all have in common this inescapable issue: The immediate positive or pleasurable effects that they give the user are countered by a withdrawal or negative emotions when the drug is absent. The negative effects are always longer lasting and grow due to tolerance. So in the end constant drug use

Influences on Drug Use 

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Biological influences – there is evidence that some people are genetically more susceptible to addiction, specifically alcoholism than others. Cultural influences – Peer culture is the number one predictor of drug use. Psychological influences – People often “self medicate” use drugs to escape a trauma, or feelings of meaninglessness. These influences guide many prevention and recovery programs. For example in order for many people to quit drugs they need to find a new group of friends who don’t use or they

Near Death Experiences 

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Many times people who come close to death experience an altered state of consciousness often similar to drug induced hallucinations. NDE bring up a philosophical question of whether the body and mind are separate entities or the same. Dualists believe that the mind and body are distinct entities. Monists believe that they are