States of Consciousness

1. States of Consciousness

2. Sleep

3. Consciousness Awareness of yourself and your environment • Being awake and aware • Are automatic behaviors conscious • Freud: what you are actively thinking about • Which of the following is consciousness • Sleeping -- Talking to your friend • Coma -- Having Fainted

4. Consciousness versus Automatic • What we are not aware of typically falls out of our definition of consciousness • Consciousness: when brain activity crosses a threshold of intensity • Chord=conscious, notes=unconscious • Consciousness lags behind brain activity. • Conscious processing is serial

5. States of Consciousness

6. Biological Rhythms • Biological Rhythms are physiological/biological patterns • Types • Circadian: once/day • Examples: sleep-wake cycle, others? • Ultradian: >once/day • Examples: sleep cycles, others? • Infradian: <once/day • Examples?

7. Sleep Rhythms • Circadian • Arousal peaks during the day, dips early after, and then drops before we go to bed • As we age we move from night owl to early birds • This progresses as we age • Starts around age 20 (bit earlier for women) • Light is a key determinate in our sleep rhythms

8. Hormones and Sleep • Light activates light-sensitive retinal proteinstriggers signals in the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus • The SUPER NUCLEUUUUUS causes the pineal gland to increase or decrease melatonin • Brain accumulates adenosine over the day and declines at night • Adenosine makes us sleepy • Artificial light delays sleep and shifts our cycle back

9. How We Fall Sleep • Hypothalamus controls body’s rhythm • Monitors light: when dark sends signals to get into sleep mode • Hormones (chemical messengers) • Melatonin: correlated with hypothalamus’s regulated schedules and light v. dark, helps signal us to sleep. • Used as a therapy for insomnia

10. Why We Sleep • Preserve • Evolutionarily advantageous to sleep when we can’t see • Protect us from predators • Animals that don’t need to hide and need to graze sleep less • Restore/Repair • Rebuild tissues and neurons • Grow • Consolidate memories

11. Sleep Debt • How much sleep do we need? • Adolescents: 8ish hours • Babies: 13-16 hrs! • Old people: 6ish hours! • Most adults will ideally sleep 9 hrs • If we don’t get itsleep debt

12. Effects of Sleep Debt • Decreases immune system functioning • Increase cortisol: weight, memory, learning • Accidents • Accidents increase after spring forward and decrease after fall back • Decreased productivity and performance • Increased likelihood for hypertension, irritability, lower cancer-fighting immune • Sleep affects people’s moods more than money! • Sleep is closely correlated with personal life satisfaction

13. Can we pay back sleep debt? • Bodies do keep track of sleep debt (2 weeks) • There is a difference between short term and long term sleep debt • One late night can be partially paid back with a late morning • Improvement only lasts for six hours! • Merely masks sleep debt • Long term accumulation can cause sudden sleepiness • Becomes a physiological habit

14. Sleep Stages • Occurs in a 90 minute ultradian cycle • Each cycle has two types of sleep • Types: REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement) • Five stages (1 stage of REM, 4 NREM) • To monitor stages we use EEG (electroencephalograph) • Electrodes measure brain waves • Compare electrical activity in different regions of the brain • Usually five regions are monitored

15. Sleep Waves

16. Wave Summaries • Alpha Waves • 7.5-14 Hz • Awake, relaxed • Meditation • Beta Waves • 14-40 Hz • Normal awakened alertness • Higher stress, but pretty common • Theta Waves • 4-7.5 Hz • Sleep (including REM) • Delta Waves • .5-4 Hz • Deep sleep • Regenerative sleep • Gamma Waves • >40 Hz • Very new! • Short bursts of insight/advanced processing

17. Stages One • Stage One • Transition between awake and asleep • Slowed breathing, irregular brain waves • Individual might not even claimed to have been asleep, they were “just resting their eyes” • Irregular Waves • Characteristics: hallucinations, hypnagogic sensations (falling, floating)

18. Stages Two • Stage Two • Characterized activity • Burst of brain activity: spindles • K-Complex, largest event in normal EEG activity • Clearly asleep, but can be woken • Sleep talking can occur

19. Stage Three and Four • Stage Three • Deep Sleep • Presence of delta waves (high amplitude, low frequency) • 5-50% at stage three • Entirely at stage four • Hard to wake up • End of stage four is when you see sleep walking and bed wetting

20. Stage Five (REM Sleep) • REM=Rapid Eye Movement • Brain waves appear almost as if you were awake • Paradoxical Sleep: mind awake, but can’t be aroused • Eyes move, pulse and breathing are faster, blood flow increases • Eyes dart under closed lids every 30 seconds • Temporary paralysis through the brainstem • Dreams occur • Sexual arousal occurs (and can last after REM) • Nightmares are an exception

22. Your Body Asleep • We process information outside of conscious awareness • Sound of a baby versus a train • Falling out of bed • Motor cortex is active • Brainstem blocks messages from the motor cortex • Fundamental paralyzed minus slight muscle twitches

23. Dreams • Occurs during REM sleep • Often emotional and storylike seeming to include almost hallucinations • Visual and auditory areas are more active in REM and inactive in other stages • Eye movement does not match dream content or watching dream • On average people spend 100 minutes in REM (20-25%) • Everyone dreams!

24. Lucid Dreams • Dreams where you are aware you are dreaming • Having some control over role in dream • More beta waves and parietal lobe activity

25. Why We Dream • Reason 1: Information Processing • Shift and sort through the day’s experiences • Delta sleep stabilizes memories and REM sleep helps cement them into learning • Correlation between grades and sleep • More stress, more sleep • What about dreams about nothing we have experienced?

26. Why We Dream • Reason 2: Physiological Function • REM activity (aka dreams) provides brain stimulation to support growth (remember your neurons!) • Growth hormone is secreted during delta sleep • Babies need much more REM sleep than other individuals • Problem: what about meaningful dreams?

27. Why We Dream • Reason 3: Activation-Synthesis • Minds way of making sense out of random neural firings • Problem: why does it make the stories that it does? Where does the content come from?

28. Why We Dream • Reason Four: Freud’s Wish Fulfillment • The Interpretation of Dreams • Manifest Content • Story line of dreams • Symbolic • Latent Content • What the symbols mean • Usually sexual • Problems • Lack scientific evidence

29. Why We Dream • Reason Five: Cognitive Development • Part of intellectual/brain development • Dreams move from slideshows in childhood to movie where dreamer is an actor • Dreams use our concepts, knowledge, and skills Good chart on page 289

30. Sleep Disorders • Insomnia: Can’t stay or fall asleep • Narcolepsy: Sudden, overwhelming sleeping • Sleep Apnea: Snoring to the extent one stops breathing • Night Terrors • Somnambulism: Sleep walking • Enuresis: Bed wetting

31. 1: Insomnia • Consistent problems staying or falling asleep • People tend to overestimate how long it takes them to fall asleep • Solutions • Sleeping pills/alcohol: aggravate the problem! • Relax before bedtime • Establish routine • Use dimmer light • Avoid caffeine and rich food (glass of milk can be okay because it provides serotonin) • Build a consistent schedule and avoid naps • Exercise regularly but not in the late evening • Aim for less sleep

32. 2: Narcolepsy • Periodic, overwhelming sleepiness for (usually) < 3 minutes • Can collapse into REM sleep • Affects about 1 in 2000 people • There seems to be a correlation with birth month and disorder • Genetic • Absence of the hypothalamic neural center that produces hypocretin

33. 3: Sleep Apnea • Temporary cessations of breathing during sleep with momentary awakenings • Affects mostly overweight men • Symptoms: tired and irritable during the day (spouse often has similar symptoms) • Affects about 1 in 20 • Solutions • CPAP Machine (mask with air pump to help keep airways open)

34. 4: Night Terrors • High arousal and terror mid-stage four sleep • Sufferer is usually a child and will have no recollection of the event • Usually outgrown • As we spend less time in stage four we see less of this, that’s why it is outgrown

35. 5: Somnambulism • Sleep walking • Stage four disorder • As we spend less time in stage four we see less of this, that’s why it is outgrown • Runs in families (much like sleep talking)

36. Hypnosis

37. Drugs