Altered States of Consciousness

1. Altered States of Consciousness Chapter 7

2. Consciousness • 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.

3. Introduction • 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.

4. 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.

5. Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz • Sleep is a state of altered consciousness, characterized by certain patterns of brain activity.

6. 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

7. Stages of sleep • As you begin to fall asleep, your body temperature declines, your pulse rate drops, and your breathing grows slow and even.

8. Stages of sleep • Turn to page 159

10. How Sleep Cycles Progress • 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, REM 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM…

11. Stages of sleep • 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

12. Stages of sleep • Stage 2 • Brain waves - high frequency bursts occur • Eyes roll slowly from side to side

13. Stages of sleep • Stage 3 • Some delta waves begin

14. 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

15. Night Terrors • 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

16. Sleep walking/ talking- random electrical impulses hit parts of the brain that controls bad movement and speech, occurs during stage 4

17. Stages of sleep • 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

18. REM • 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

19. 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

20. REM Sleep • 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

21. REM • 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

22. How much sleep? • 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.

23. How long should you stay awake? Peter Trip’s Story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNRdvusmQs

24. Dreams • 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

25. Content of 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%

26. Nightmares • 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

27. Freud & Dream Interpretation • 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 calledlatentcontent • 2) the storyline you remember is called the manifest content • Dream of hats lately? = represented genitalia

28. Dream Interpretation • Nathaniel Kleitman, 1950s • Pioneer of REM sleep • “Dreaming may serve no function” • Unimportant bi-product of stimulating certain brain cells during sleep

29. McCarley & Hobson (Cognitive Theorists) • 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

30. Theories on Dreaming • 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.

31. Dream Theory • 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

32. More 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.

33. 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.

34. Hypnosis • 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/

35. 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

36. Meditation • 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

37. Hallucinations • 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

38. Drugs & the Effects 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

39. 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