Altered States of Consciousness

Chapter 7

You are looking around the room and your awareness is

drifting to that attractive classmate sitting across the room.

You are reading these words

Everything you think and feel is part of your conscious experience

Consciousness: A state of awareness, including a person’s feelings, sensations, ideas, and perceptions.

Consciousness

The subject that has had a great deal of

research in recent years is the study of altered states of consciousness.

Altered state of consciousness involves a change in mental processes, not just feeling more or less alert.

Introduction

Since at least the 1960’s,

psychologists have been studying altered states of consciousness by having people sleep, meditate, undergo hypnosis, take drugs during laboratory, researchers can observe changes in behavior and measure changes in breathing, pulse rate, body temperature, and brain activity.

Introduction

Sleep is a state of altered

consciousness, characterized by certain patterns of brain activity.

Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sleep is a major part of human and animal behavior but it is

difficult to study because a researcher cannot ask a sleeping person to report on the experience without first waking the person.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)- Machine that records the electrical activity of the brain

By observing sleeping subjects and by recording their brain and body responses, researchers have discovered 2 different types of sleep patterns: Quiet sleep Active sleep

Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

As you begin to fall asleep, your

body temperature declines, your pulse rate drops, and your breathing grows slow and even.

Stages of sleep

Turn to page 159

Stages of sleep

1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, REM 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM…

How Sleep Cycles Progress

Stage 1

Your pulse rate slows more Muscles relax, but breathing becomes

uneven and your brain waves grow irregular

If awakened during stage 1, you would report that your were “just drifting.”

Lasts 10 minutes Theta waves

Stages of sleep

Stage 2

Brain waves - high frequency bursts occur Eyes roll slowly from side to side

Stages of sleep

Stage 3

Some delta waves begin

Stages of sleep

Stage 4

Deepest sleep of all, delta waves Difficult to awaken in this stage State of oblivion, you feel disoriented if

wakened in this stage Talking out loud, sleepwalking, night

terrors, and bed-wetting occur in this stage, leave no trace of memory

Stages of sleep

Intense screaming and panic NREM, stage 4 Usually during 1st few hours of sleep Drastic body movements Most likely to occur in children, child is

inconsolable

Night Terrors

Sleep walking/ talking- random electrical

impulses hit parts of the brain that controls bad movement and speech, occurs during stage 4

On average, a person spends 75- 80% of sleep time in

Stages 1-4 ( known as NREM or non-REM)

The Last stage of sleep is REM = “Rapid Eye Movement”

and your muscles are even more relaxed than before

REM sleep: The period of sleep during which the eyes dart back and forth (rapid eye movement) and dreams and nightmares occurs, limb muscles are temporarily paralyzed takes about 90 minutes before you hit this stage for 1st time

Stages of sleep

Pulse rate and breathing become

irregular Levels of adrenal and sexual hormones

in your blood rise, as if you were in the middle of an intensely emotional or physically demanding activity

Face and fingers twitch Brain waves closely resemble those of

a person who is fully awake = EEG similar to wakefulness

REM

Called “active sleep” Lasts for about 10 minutes Throughout the night, periods of

REM sleep increase Dreams and nightmares occurs At no point does your brain ever

become inactive

REM

REM often referred to as Paradoxical Sleep

Why? What is a contradictory about REM sleep? Eye move about rapidly, BUT limb muscles

paralyzed Deep, essential stage of sleep, BUT EEG

readings resemble Alpha (awake) waves not deep(delta) sleep waves

REM Sleep

Researchers have found that after,

people that have been deprived of REM sleep, subsequently increase the amount of time they spend in REM sleep. Thus is appears that a certain amount of dreaming each night is necessary = REM Rebound

REM

Newborns

16-18 hours Half of it in REM

16 year olds 10-11 hours of sleep

Grad school 8 hours

Men & Women 70 years and older May need only 5 hours of sleep

Amount of sleep a person needs may vary, it does appear that everyone sleeps and that both types of sleep are important to normal functioning.

How much sleep?

How long should you

stay awake?

Peter Trip’s Story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNRdvusmQs

Everyone dreams although most people only recall only a few, if any of their dreams

As night wears on, dreams become longer and more vivid and dramatic, especially during REM because we spend more time in REM

Last dream is likely to be the longest and the one people remember when they wake up

Dreams

Large percentage of dreams are negative

or unpleasant Anxiety, anger, sadness

We incorporate everyday activities into our dreams Can manipulate the content of a person’s dreams

Light water spray 42% Light 23% Tone 9%

Content of Dreams

Small portions of our dreams REM Usually occur in second half of night’s sleep Frightening quality, vivid images common to awaken in the middle of them Have more if in REM Rebound Intensity of brain activity

Nightmares

Sigmund Freud 1st to argue that dreams are an

important part of our emotional lives & a window into our ID, unconscious mind

Believed that no matter how simple, dreams contain clues of desires the dreamer is afraid to acknowledge or express in waking hours

All dreams have two layers: 1) hidden underlying meaning called latent

content 2) the storyline you remember is called the

manifest content Dream of hats lately? = represented genitalia

Freud & Dream Interpretation

Nathaniel Kleitman, 1950s

Pioneer of REM sleep

“Dreaming may serve no function”

Unimportant bi-product of stimulating certain brain cells during sleep

Dream Interpretation

Activation-Synthesis Theory Hobson & McCarley, 1977 This theory suggests that the physiological processes of

the brain cause dreams. Circuits in the brain stem are activated during

REM sleep = the pons generates bursts of action potentials to the forebrain

Our brain uses stored memories, experiences, concerns, emotions and expectations to create stories to make sense of the electrical impulses discharged in the brain

Feeling paralyzed in a dream simply means that brain cells that inhibit muscle activity were randomly stimulated

McCarley & Hobson (Cognitive Theorists)

Calvin Hall Dreams serve as ‘conceptions’ of

elements of our personal lives. The ultimate goal dream

interpretation is not to understand the dream, however, but to understand the dreamer.

Theories on Dreaming

Information-Processing Theory- People sleep in order to process information

that has been acquired during the day. Sleep allows the brain to prepare for the

next day Some research also suggests that sleep

helps cement the things we have learned during the day into long-term memory.

Babies need more REM than adults = they have lots more new information to process

Dream Theory

Evolutionary Theory of Sleep (Adaptive

Theory of Sleep) Periods of activity and inactivity evolved as a

means of conserving energy. Unique waking-sleep cycle maximize our

chances of survival (for all animals including humans)

Species sleep during periods of time when wakefulness would be the most hazardous.

More Dream Theory

Evolutionary Theory Evidence: Animals that have few natural predators, such

as bears and lions, often sleep between 12 to 15 hours each day. On the other hand, animals that have many natural predators have only short periods of sleep, usually getting no more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep each day.

Dream Theory

Hypnosis: Is a form of altered consciousness

in which people become highly suggestible and do not use their critical thinking skills.

Subjects may recall in vivid detail incidents they had forgotten or feel no pain when pricked with a needle

Subjects are not asleep http://www.hypnotherapyacademy.com/?gclid=

CMGck6im8boCFe1FMgodXRsAzg http://www.hypnosis.edu/training/

Hypnosis

Trance like state

Highly receptive and responsive to certain internal and external stimuli

Able to focus on 1 tiny aspect of reality and ignore the rest

Hypnotist Induces a trance by slowly persuading a subject

to relax and to lose interest in external distractions

Hypnosis

Set of techniques used to focus concentration

away from thoughts and feelings in order to create calmness, tranquility, and inner peace

There are several different mediation styles, all have proven health benefits, like improvements in cardiovascular system and decline in stress levels

Bring your blanket, towels and/or pillow we are meditating next class

Meditation

Hallucinations: Perceptions that have no

direct external cause, seeing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that do not exist

Can produce hallucinations: Hypnosis, meditation, drugs, withdraw from

drugs

People hallucinate while dreaming and when deprived of REM sleep

Hallucinations

There are 4 major classes: 1. Depressants – reduce activity of CNS, induce

relaxation Sedatives, barbiturates, tranquilizers, alcohol

Prescribed to induce sleep prevent seizures, relieve anxiety

Valium, Xanax, “roofies”, quaaludes 2. Narcotics – depress the CNS and respiratory

system, relieve pain, feelings of euphoria Opiates= heroin, morphine, opium, methadone, Demerol Taken to induce feelings of euphoria, relieve pain, induce

sleep Highly addictive, act like endorphins that our brain

produces

Drugs & the Effects

Drugs & the Effects

3. Stimulants – reduce activity in inhibitory centers of the CNS, increase neurotransmitter system

* caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines (ecstasy & Ritalin)

* used to treat hyperactivity and narcolepsy

4. Hallucinogens – alter moods, distort perceptions, evoke sensory images in absence of stimuli input

* Psychedelic drugs = LSD, PCP, marijuana, Peyote, mushrooms