Bell Ringer12.07.2011

How often do you remember your dreams?

How many hours of sleep do you get (on average) per night?

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Unit 5: States of Consciousness

AP Psychology

Ms. Desgrosellier

Key Ideas:

Levels of consciousness

Sleep and dreaming

Sleep disorders

Hypnosis

Meditation

Psychoactive drugs – depressants, narcotics, stimulants, hallucinogens

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

preconscious: the level of consciousness that is outside of awareness but contains feelings and memories that you can easily bring into conscious awareness.

e.g. What did you have for dinner last night?

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

nonconscious: the level of consciousness devoted to processes completely inaccessible to conscious awareness.

e.g. blood flow, filtering of blood by kidneys, secretion of hormones, distance of objects, recognizing patterns, etc.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

unconscious: sometimes called the subconscious, the level of consciousness that includes often unacceptable feelings, wishes, and thoughts not directly available to conscious awareness.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This is according to psychoanalysts and psychodynamic psychologists.

It operates whenever you feel or act without being aware of what’s influencing you, whether it’s a stimulus from the current situation or from your past.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Unconsciousness is characterized by loss of responsiveness to the environment resulting from disease, trauma, or anesthesia.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness enables you to analyze, compare, and interpret experiences, and allows you to integrate what you already know, what you perceive in the present, and what you anticipate.

Consciousness can be altered by sleep, hypnosis, meditation, and drugs.

SLEEP & DREAMS

Your biological clock is controlled by your hypothalamus.

It systematically regulates your body temperate, blood pressure, pulse, blood sugar levels, hormonal levels, and activity levels over the course of about a day.

Without environmental cues, the body runs on a 25-hour cycle.

SLEEP & DREAMS

Circadian rhythms: cycles of change that recur approximately every 24 hours.

The forebrain, the reticular formation, and the thalamus are involved in the changes in wakefulness, arousal, and attention.

Why do we sleep?

Two restorative functions:

one involved in protein synthesis throughout the body

consolidation: maintaining plasticity of neural connections essential for storing and retrieving memories, which enables your to put together new material from the day before with old material.

SLEEP & DREAMS

Sleep deprivation makes you drowsy, unable to concentrate, and impairs your memory and immune system.

Newborns = needs 16 to 18 hours

Adults = 7 to 8 hours

SLEEP & DREAMS

sleep: a complex combination of states of consciousness, each with its own level of consciousness, awareness, responsiveness, and physiological arousal.

EEGs (electroencephalogram) can measure the changes in brain waves.

1.5.2011DO NOW:

Choose one of levels of consciousness and briefly describe it:

preconscious

nonconscious

unconscious

consciousness

SLEEP & DREAMS

Stage 1 sleep – quick sleep stage with gradual loss of responsiveness to outside, drifting thoughts, and images. EEGs show theta waves.

Stage 2 sleep – about 50% of sleep time. EEGs show high-frequency sleep spindles and K complexes.

SLEEP & DREAMS

Stage 3 sleep – deep sleep stage. EEGs show some high-amplitude, low-frequency delta waves.

Stage 4 sleep – deepest sleep stage. EEGs show mostly delta waves. Slowed heart rate and respiration, lowered temperature and lowered blood flow to the brain. Growth hormone is secreted.

SLEEP & DREAMS

SLEEP & DREAMS

SLEEP & DREAMS

SLEEP & DREAMS

REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement sleep) – sleep stage when eyes dart about. About 80% dreaming, 5 to 6 times each night (about 20% of sleep time).

Called paradoxical sleep because EEGs are similar to stage 1 and wakefulness, but we are in deep sleep with skeletal muscles paralyzed.

SLEEP & DREAMS

SLEEP & DREAMS

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

STAGE 4

REM SLEEP

SLEEP & DREAMS

Nightmares: frightening dreams that occur during REM sleep.

Lucid dreaming: the ability to be aware of and direct one’s dreams, has been used to help people make recurrent nightmares less frightening.

Interpretation of Dreams

According to Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst, dreams were “The royal road to the unconscious,” a safety valve for unconscious desires and fears disguised in dreams.

Interpretation of Dreams

Manifest content: according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream.

Latent content: according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.

Interpretation of Dreams

Activation-synthesis theory: during REM sleep the brainstem stimulates the forebrain with random neural activity, which we interpret as a dream

Interpretation of Dreams

Cognitive information processing theory: dreams are the interplay of brain waves and psychological functioning of interpretive parts of the mind.

daydreaming: state with focus on inner, private realities, which can generate creative ideas.

Bell Ringer12.08.2011

Briefly describe the 5 stages of sleep and the key characteristics of each.

Sleep Disorders

insomnia: the inability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep.

narcolepsy: sudden and uncontrollable lapse into sleep (usually REM).

Sleep apnea: temporary cessations of breathing that awaken the sufferer repeatedly during the night.

Sleep Disorders

Night terrors: in children, characterized by bloodcurdling screams and intense fear during stage 4 sleep.

sleepwalking: usually in children during stage 4 sleep.

Hypnosis

hypnosis: state with deep relaxation and heightened suggestibility.

Under hypnosis, subjects can change aspects of reality and let those changes influence their behavior.

Hypnosis

Hypnotized individuals may feel as if their bodies are floating or sinking; see, feel, hear, smell, or taste things that aren’t there; lose sense of touch or pain; be made to feel like they are passing back in time; act as if they are out of their own control; and respond to suggestions by others.

Subjects can have trouble differentiating between this make-believe and reality.

Hypnosis

Three theories on hypnotism:

Hypnotism involves highly focused awareness and intensified imagination.

Hypnotism is a social phenomenon in which highly motivated subjects enter a hypnotized “role.”

Hypnosis

dissociation: a division of consciousness.

Part of consciousness responds to suggestions, while the “hidden observer” provides evidence for dissociation of consciousness.

Evidence: hypnotized subjects who indicate that a part of them is experiencing more pain with hands submerged in ice water than the hypnotized subjects acknowledge.

Hypnosis

After hypnosis, the individual may follow a posthypnotic suggestion and may have a thought or feeling without conscious knowledge of its hypnotically suggested source.

They may also experience posthypnotic amnesia, forgetting selected events by suggestion.

Hypnosis

One of the most practical applications is pain control, and hypnosis is used in surgery, childbirth, and dentistry.

Meditation

Meditation: a set of techniques used to focus concentration away from thoughts and feelings in order to create calmness, tranquility, and inner peace.

EEGs of meditators show alpha waves characteristic of relaxed wakefulness.

Meditation

Physiological changes, like lowered blood pressure, slowed heart and breathing rates, and warming of hands are common during meditation, and indicate action of the parasympathetic nervous system, which we normally cannot consciously control.

Meditators often report an increased feeling of well-being.

Meditation

Psychologists disagree as to whether or not meditation is an altered state of consciousness.

A Buddhist monk has his vital signs measured as he prepares to enter an advanced state of meditation in Normandy, France. During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room

Bell Ringer12.09.2011

Briefly describe hypnosis and meditation IN YOUR OWN WORDS!

Write down your reading assignment (due Monday, 12/19):

Modules 31-33, pgs. 430 - 467

Drugs

Psychoactive drugs: chemicals that can bass through the blood-brain barrier into the brain to alter perception, thinking, behavior, and mood.

Drugs

They produce a wide range of effects from mild relaxation or increased alertness to vivid hallucinations.

The effect a person expects from a drug partly determines the actual effect on the person.

Different effects can be experienced depending on one’s mood and social situation.

Drugs

Psychoactive drugs stimulate or inhibit different regions of the brain by interacting with neurotransmitter systems.

Drugs

Psychological dependence: when a person has intense desire to achieve the drugged state in spite of adverse effects.

If a person uses a drug repeatedly, the intensity of produced effects by the same dose may decrease, causing the person to take larger doses.

Drugs

Tolerance: the decreasing responsivity to a drug.

This partly depends on environmental stimuli associated with taking the drug.

Drugs

Physiological dependence (addiction): blood chemistry changes from taking a drug necessitate taking the drug again to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal symptoms: typically intense craving for drug and effects opposite to those the drug usually induces.

Drugs

There are hundreds of psychoactive drugs, but they can be classified into four broad categories:

Depressants (Barbituates)

Narcotics (Opiates)

Stimulants

Hallucinogens

Bell Ringer12.12.2011

Sit with your groups from Friday and complete your poster TODAY.

Write down your reading assignment (due Monday, 12/19):

Modules 31-33, pgs. 430 - 467

PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS JIGSAW

Directions: With your group, read the following articles on psychoactive drugs. Then create a poster and presentation (approximately 5-10 minutes long) about your psychoactive drug. Answer the following questions below:

1. What are the main effects of the drug?

2. What are some common versions of the drug?

3. What neurotransmitters are affected?

4. What are some health risks associated with the drug?

5. What are the withdrawal/addiction problems for this drug?

1.11.2011DO NOW

Sit with your group from yesterday and finish your poster.

Prepare for your presentation (10 minutes to do so).

REMINDERS: Dream log project due Friday.

Exam 5 on Thursday!

PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS JIGSAW

EVERYONE in your group should be participating.

On the back of your poster, write down what everyone’s role was (e.g. found important info, made poster, presented, etc.)

PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS JIGSAW

When listening to presentations, make sure you are filling out your graphic organizer.

Don’t forget to include your own information so you can use this as a study tool!

1.12.2011DO NOW

Briefly describe a psychoactive drug (except the one you presented yesterday).

Include its common versions, neurotransmitters effected, and main effects when taken.

1.13.2011DO NOW

Prepare to start your unit 5 exam immediately.

Have 1 psych dollar out for an extra credit raffle.

Dream log project DUE TOMORROW

Reading notes (p. 430 – 467, Mod. 31-33 DUE Friday, Jan. 21st).