Chapter 5

States of Consciousness

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 Introduction
— Consciousness: Awareness of the sensations, thoughts,
and feelings we experience at a given moment
— Everyday fluctuates
— In the past considered not scientific
— Now different approaches
— Measure brain-wave patterns under conditions and consciousness
ranging from sleep to waking to hypnotic trances
— How humans experience consciousness is an open
question
— Quantitative increase in stimulation vs. specific way of
stimulating neural pathways?
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 Introduction
— Consciousness:
— Waking consciousness
— Awake and aware of our thoughts, emotions, and
perceptions
— Altered states of consciousness
— When we are sleeping, use drugs, under the influence
of hypnosis, deliberately alter the states of
consciousness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jReX7qKU2yc

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 Sleep and Dreams

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 Sleep
While the exact Immune system
reason for sleep is not functioning
known, there is
evidence that sleep is
necessary for physical Cognitive functioning
and mental (problem solving,
restoration. creativity, and
memory)

• Sleep; natural state with reduction in voluntary body

movements and decreased awareness of the
surrounding-spend 1/3 of our lives
• Cleans chemicals-adenosine
• All mammals and birds sleep
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 Why we sleep?

— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-
8b99rGpkM&t=74s

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 Figure 2 - Brain-Wave Patterns

— The brain waves get slower in each successive step (NREM)

— But, they are fast during REM and similar to relaxed
wakefulness
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 Stages of Sleep: Based on brain wave
activity-Non-REM sleep
— Frequency; speed of waves
— Amplitude; the height and the depth of the up and
down cycles.
— 1st stage: high-frequency, low-amplitude; stage of
transition lasts only for few seconds
— Still images may appear
— 2nd stage: higher amplitude; daydreaming, drowsy,
meditating
— More regular patterns
— Makes up the half of sleep in 20’s
— Sleep spindles: periodic bursts of EEG activity; believed to
help maintain a state of sleep
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 Stages of Sleep: Based on brain wave
activity-Non-REM sleep
• 3rd stage: lower frequency and higher amplitude;
breathing, hearth rate and blood pressure drops
— People least responsive to outside stimulation
— Most likely to occur in the first half of the sleep
— Then REM sleep-Each cycle lasts about 90 minutes

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 REM Sleep: The Paradox of
Sleep
— Second half is dominated with 1st and 2nd stages
— 4-5 Sleep cycles through the night

— Rapid eye movement sleep: Sleep occupying 20% of

an adult’s sleeping time-gradually gets longer
— Increased heart rate and blood pressure
— Breathing rate
— Erections
— Eye movements
— The experience of dreaming-Mostly in REM
— Major muscles of the body appear to be paralyzed
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 REM Sleep: The Paradox of Sleep
— Rapid eye movement sleep (REM):
— Believed to play a vital role in human
functioning
— Rebound effect - REM-deprived
sleepers more time in REM sleep than
they normally would
— Although they slept as usual (8 hours)
— Important in learning and memory
— Allows us to rethink and restore
information and emotional experiences

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 Why do We Sleep?
• Permitted our ancestors to conserve energy at night,
Evolutionary theory when food was relatively hard to find
• Better able to look for food when the sun is up

• Restores and replenishes our brains and bodies.

Restoration for • Neurons to conserve energy
• REM sleep diminishes monoamines, be more responsive the
brain and body next day
• Reverse learning

Brain growth and • The release of growth hormones in

development children is associated with deep sleep

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 Why do We Sleep?
— With enough sleep, less activation in the amygdala
(emotion processing center) in response to emotional
pictures

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 Why do We Sleep, and How Much
Sleep is Necessary?
— Unable to establish
how much sleep is
absolutely required
— Most between 7–8
hours per night
— Varies among
individuals: women
fall asleep more
quickly, sleep longer
and more deeply than
men
— Age differences

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Dreams tend to be subjective to person having them
— Common elements in dreams.
— Everyday events such as going to the supermarket,
working at the office, and preparing a meal.
— Students dream about going to class; professors dream
about lecturing.

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Nightmares – frightening dreams
— Fairly common
— Study; students reported at least one nightmare
ever a 2-weeks period
— Exam dreams represent basic anxiety having to do with
evaluation
— Why do we dream about anxiety-provoking
events?
— Maybe they help us cope with our fears

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Common elements frequently occurring dreams;
mostly unpleasant themes

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Unconscious wish fulfillment theory: by Sigmund
Freud
— Dreams represent unconscious wishes that dreamers desire
to see fulfilled
— Latent content of dreams: Disguised meanings of dreams,
hidden by more obvious subjects
— Manifest content of dreams: its apparent story line
— One should go deeper than the manifest content to
understand its true meaning; common symbols have
universal meanings
— E.g., flying symbolizes a wish for sexual intercourse

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Criticized; reflect daily worries and incorporate the
environmental influences
— Unconscious wish fulfillment theory: PET scan
research
— The limbic and paralimbic regions particularly active
during REM sleep
— Associated with emotion and motivation
— May suggest that functional in wish fulfillment
— Associative areas of prefrontal cortex controlling
logical analysis and attention rather inactive during
REM sleep
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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Dreams-for-survival theory: information critical
for our daily survival:
— Reconsidered and reprocessed during sleep
— Based in the evolutionary perspective
— Ancestors had small brains to process all the
information; Dreaming provided a mechanism that
permitted the processing of info 24 hours of the day
— Dreams seen are consistent with everyday living;
Represent key concerns of our daily experiences

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Dreams-for-survival theory: Dreams permit
information that is critical for our daily survival:
— Evidence; certain dreams permit people to focus on or
consolidate memories; especially related to motor tasks
— E.g., rats dream about mazes they learned
— Study; participants learned a visual memory task late in
the day
— They went to bed and awakened at certain times
— Results; When awakened at times that did not disturb
dreaming, they performed better on the memory task
— When awakened during REM sleep, performance declined

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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams
— Activation-synthesis theory: Brain produces random
electrical energy during REM sleep that:
— Stimulates memories stored in the brain
— As a result of changes in the production of particular neurotransmitters
— Refined by the activation in formation modulation (AIM)
theory.
— Dreams are initiated in the brain’s pons, which sends random signals to
the cortex
— Areas of the cortex that are involved in waking behaviors are related to
the content of dreams
— Not reject unconscious wishes theory.
— scenario produced is not random but is related to the fears,
emotions, and concerns of the dreamer.
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 The Function and Meaning of Dreams

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 Sleep Disturbances: Slumbering
Problems
— Sleep misperception; people with such problems may
be mistaken
— Sleep State Misperception; condition in which person
underestimates amount of sleep on a regular basis
— Believe in not getting enough sleep but no indication of
physiological or medical evidence to support it
— Positive Sleep State Misperception; when individuals
overestimate their sleep.
— Deprived of sleep, suffer from attention problems and
afternoon sleepiness, but does not connect them

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 Sleep Disturbances: Slumbering
Problems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-8b99rGpkM
Insomnia

Sleep Apnea

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Night Terrors

Narcolepsy

Sleep Talking

Sleep Walking

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 Circadian Rhythms: Life Cycles
— Biological processes that occur regularly on
approximately a 24-hour cycle
— Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) - Controls circadian
rhythms
— Seasonal affective disorder - Severe depression which
increases during the winter and decreases during the
rest of the year

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 Suprachi

Circadian Cycles: The asmatic

nucleus
(SCN)

Biological Clock Circadia

n
rhythm
Circadian
Circadian rhythms cycles

• Fundamental adaptation to 24
hours solar cycle of light and dark

• Found in other organisms

• SCN in humans release specific neurotransmitters
controlling our body temperature, metabolism, blood
pressure, hormone level, hunger
• E.g., epinephrine-lowest at midnight
• Working at night may make people prone to accidents
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 Circadian
Rhythms: Life
Cycles
— Moods also follow regular patterns; contents of
Twitter
— Across globe among different cultures, happier during
the morning, less so during the day, and feel better
during evening
— Moods are happier on weekends and holidays
— Positive emotions increase from late December to late
June as the days get longer and negative emotions as
days get shorter
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 Circadian Rhythms: Life Cycles
— Fridays (orange dots), Saturdays (red dots), and
Sundays (dark blue dots) are happier than week days

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 Daydreams: Dreams Without Sleep
— Fantasies that people construct while awake
— Part of waking consciousness; under people’s control
— Content related to immediate environmental events as compared
to dreams
— But our awareness of the environment declines
— Time spent in daydreaming varies from individual to
individual
— Some scientists see a link between daydreaming and
dreams during sleep
— The contents show many parallels, and the brain areas and
processes involved in daydreaming and dreams during sleep are
related

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 Sleeping better
— Exercise during the day (at least six hours before bedtime)
and avoid naps.
— Choose a regular bedtime and stick to it.
— Regulate your internal mechanism
— Avoid drinks with caffeine after lunch.
— Drink a glass of warm milk at bedtime.
— Contains trytopan, which helps to fall asleep
— Avoid sleeping pills.
— Disrupts normal sleep cycle
— Try not to sleep.
— Go to bed when you are tired; associate your bed with sleep
— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kACis_dJE
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