States of Consciousness

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States of Consciousness
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Consciousness

• Awareness of yourself and the environment.
• The immediate awareness of mental activities and
  internal sensations, and of the external
  environment

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• Medical Awakenings Levels of Consciousness

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How do we adjust from a state of conscious
awareness into various states of unawareness and
unconsciousness?

• Some things occur naturally in the world that
  make us either more or less aware
• Some things we do purposefully that makes us
  either more or less aware

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• Biological Rhythms - natural life cycles that
  help to guide our levels of awareness and our
  behaviors

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Examples of Biological Rhythms

• Annual Cycles Seasonal changes affecting moods,
  appetite, sleep patters
• Twenty-Eight Day Cycle Female Menstrual Cycle
• Twenty-Four Hour Cycle Daily cycle of levels of
  alertness, hormones, body temperature, etc.
• Ninety-Minute Cycle Sleep Cycle

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Examples of Things We Do

• Diet
• Psychoactive Drugs
• Exercise and Health
• Stress
• Lifestyles
• Travel
• Work Schedules

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Levels of Consciousness
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• Sleep !!

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• Why Do We Sleep? Strengthening Memory
• The Science of Sleep Part I
• The Science of Sleep Part II

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Why do we sleep?

• Adaptive Theory of Sleep (Evolutionary
  Perspective)
• Unique sleep patterns of different animals
  evolved over time to promote survival and
  environmental adaptation.
• When and where we sleep, and for how long, is
  determined by your status in the hierarchy
• Lions sleep anytime, anywhere. Mice, short
  bursts of sleep in well protected nests.

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Why do we sleep?

• Restorative Theory of Sleep (Biological
  Perspective)
• Sleep promotes physiological processes that
  restore and rejuvenate the body and the mind
• It works on a biological clock schedule to ensure
  that we have the opportunity to sleep
• NREM (typically dreamless) bodily restoration
  and REM (dream) mind restoration

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Circadian Rhythms

• A cycle or rhythm that is roughly 24 hours long.
• Our biological clock is synchronized with the
  24-hour cycle of day and night, producing a
  general pattern of wakefulness and sleep.
• Circadian rhythms are hardwired and a natural
  part of the bodys daily routine.

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Circadian Rhythms

• The circadian rhythms related to wakefulness and
  sleep are controlled by the suprachiasmatic
  nucleus (SCN), which is a cluster of neurons in
  the hypothalamus

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The Sleep-Wake Cycle

• The SCN is connected to the visual system of the
  body.
• When there are decreased levels of light, the SCN
  triggers the pineal gland to release melatonin,
  which causes sleepiness and reduced activity
  level
• When there are increased levels of light,
  melatonin levels decrease and conscious awareness
  level increase

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Free-Running Circadian Rhythms

• Experiments in which all environmental time cues
  are removed no clocks, and light is
  artificially controlled
• The body creates its own sleep-wake cycle that is
  roughly one-hour off of normal sleep and wake
  times it works on a 25 hour day schedule

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Sleep

• There are two different types of sleep
• NREM Sleep quiet, typically dreamless sleep in
  which rapid eye movements are absent
• REM Sleep type of sleep during which rapid eye
  movements and dreaming occur and voluntary muscle
  activity is suppressed

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Stages of SleepThe Stages of Sleep

• When you are awake and alert, brain waves known
  as Beta Waves are generated in the brain
• After your head hits the pillow, you close your
  eyes, and your muscles begin to relax, the brain
  begins to generate Alpha Waves as you prepare for
  sleep
• After you begin to sleep, the brain generates
  Theta Waves
• The deepest parts of sleep are characterized by
  Delta Waves

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• Stage 1 NREM (Alpha to Theta)
• About 5 minutes
• As you transition from wakefulness to early sleep
  (drowsy stage), you may experience some type of
  hypnagogic hallucinations and/or myoclonic jerks
• You may hear a loud crash, hear someone call your
  name, feel a sensation of floating, smell
  something burning, see a variety of colors
• Involuntary muscle spasms

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• Stage 2 (Theta)
• The next 20 minutes
• Breathing becomes rhythmical
• Some small muscle twitches
• Brain activity begins to slow down, sleep talking
  may occur, and the appearances of sleep spindles
• Quick bursts of brain activity that last for a
  second or two creation of memories?

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Stages of Sleep

• Stages 3 and 4 (Delta)
• Next 35 Minutes
• Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing drop to
  their lowest levels
• Replenishing chemical supplies, growth hormones
  released, fortifying the immune system
• Stage 4 has more than 50 delta waves

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Stages of Sleep

• By the time a sleeper has reached Stage 4, they
  have been asleep for about 60 minutes total.
  After Stage 4 has been reached, the sleeper
  cycles back from Stage 3, through Stage 2, and
  close to Stage 1 in a matter of minutes and
  enters REM Sleep.

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• REM Sleep (Paradoxical Sleep)
• The brain becomes more active and generates
  small, fast brain waves
• Visual and motor neurons fire during this stage,
  but voluntary muscle movements are suppressed
  (paralysis)
• Heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration
  increase, muscles twitches, heightened sexual
  arousal
• The first REM stage lasts about 30 minutes the
  first sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes total

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• REM Rebound Sleep
• The less time we spend in REM sleep one night,
  the longer amount of time we will spend in REM
  sleep the next night

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Beyond the first 90 minutes

• Sleepers cycle between NREM and REM sleep
  throughout the night
• Each cycle lasts about 90 minutes
• Just before and after REM sleep, you typically
  change body positions
• As the night progresses, Stages 3 and 4 get
  shorter and REM sleep increases, up to 40 minutes
  at a time

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Sleep Disorders

• Sleep Disorders
• Insomnia
• Apnea
• Narcolepsy

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• Insomnia
• A condition in which a person regularly
  experiences an inability to fall asleep, to stay
  asleep, or to feel adequately rested by sleep.

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• Sleep Apnea
• A sleep disorder in which the person repeatedly
  stops breathing during sleep
• Carbon-dioxide builds up in the blood, causing a
  momentary awakening, during which the sleeper
  snorts or gulps for air

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• Narcolepsy
• A sleep disorder characterized by excessive
  daytime sleepiness and brief lapses into sleep
  throughout the day
• Though narcoleptics can fall asleep at any time,
  often times arousals trigger sleep laughter,
  anger, surprise, sex
• Narcoleptics instantly lose muscular control, and
  enter REM sleep. The dreams are often terrifying.

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• Sleepwalking (somnambulism)
• Usually within the first three hours of sleep, in
  Stage 4
• The sleeper typically has the ability to navigate
  around objects, albeit poorly coordinated and in
  a stiff, automatic manner

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• Night Terrors (in Stages 3/4)
• Night terrors are usually accompanied by a
  single, terrifying sensation that awaken the
  sleeper. Sleepers will usually fall back to
  sleep without memory of the night terror.
• Night terrors may also invoke waking
  hallucinations

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Dreams
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• What Are Dreams?

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• Dreams are a sequence of images, emotions, and
  thoughts passing through a sleeping persons
  mind. Notable for their hallucinatory imagery,
  discontinuities, and delusions

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• A lucid dream is the act of consciously
  perceiving and recognizing that one is dreaming,
  enabling a more cogent ("lucid") control over the
  content and quality of the experience.

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• Dreams are the result of random neural impulses
  put into a story format by the cortex in order to
  try and make sense of it.
• (Activation Synthesis Model)

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• Dreams are a purposeful way for the brain to try
  to organize and interpret the overwhelming amount
  of stimulation that it receives during the day.
• (Information Processing Theory)

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• Dreams are manifestations of unfulfilled
  desires". Dreams reflect our real passions,
  aggressions, emotions, etc. They are stored in
  the unconscious part of the brain and not dealt
  with in real life.
• Psychoanalytical Perspective

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• The manifest content of a dream is the literal
  storyline and events that occurred
• The latent content of a dream is the
  interpretation of the unconscious drives, wishes,
  and desires that created the dream

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Hypnosis

• Altered States of Consciousness

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Hypnosis

• A social interaction in which one person (the
  hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that
  certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or
  behaviors will spontaneously occur

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Posthypnotic Suggestion

• A suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to
  be carried out after the subject is no longer
  hypnotized

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Posthypnotic Amnesia

• A temporary memory loss supposed inability to
  recall what one experienced during hypnosis

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A Few Clarifications About Hypnosis

• Hypnosis is not a state of unconsciousness, nor
  is it complete mind control
• Most everyone can be hypnotized, unless you are
  resistant to the idea
• Hypnosis is a heightened state of awareness and
  relaxation, combined with a large degree of
  openness to suggestion

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A Few Clarifications About Hypnosis

• Age regression therapy (the ability to re-live
  childhood memories) is very limited in its
  effectiveness
• 25 of Americans believe in reincarnation, though
  hypnosis does not seem to accurately bring any
  past lives to the surface

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Can hypnosis force people to act against their
will?

• The person who is hypnotized is aware of
  everything the hypnotist says at all times while
  they are experiencing hypnosis.
• An authoritative person in a legitimate context
  can induce people, hypnotized or not, to perform
  some unlikely acts
• Directly proposed hypnotic suggestions cannot
  make you do anything against your morals,
  religion, or self-preservation.

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Can hypnosis alleviate pain?

• Dissociation is a split in consciousness, which
  allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur
  simultaneously with others
• IE. An unhypnotized patient will feel the pain
  of an ice bath in less than 25 seconds. A
  hypnotized patient will feel the cold, but not
  the pain, though their sensory systems will
  register the activity is present

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• Hypnotic Dissociation

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Meditation

• Altered States of Consciousness

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• Meditation" in the modern sense may involve
• focusing the mind on a single object (such as a
  religious statue, or one's breath, or a mantra)
• a mental "opening up" to the divine, invoking the
  guidance of a higher power
• attempting to clear the mind of discursive or
  conceptual thought
• reasoned analysis of religious teachings
• simple relaxation

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Drugs and Consciousness

• Altered States of Consciousness

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• Teen Drug Abuse
• Alcohol Abuse
• Treating Drug Addiction
• TLC Addiction Series

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Define Psychoactive Drugs

• Chemical substances that change moods,
  perceptions, behaviors, and consciousness

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Addiction refers to

• The ongoing abuse of drugs that leads to
  compulsive use of the substance.

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Tolerance refers to

• Higher doses of a drug are required to produce
  the original effects.

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Withdrawal refers to

• The unpleasant physical or psychological effects
  following discontinued used of a substance

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Drug Rebound Effect

• Withdrawal symptoms are often the opposite of the
  drugs action

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Do I Have A Drug Problem?

• Dependence is defined by exhibiting three of the
  following seven symptoms over a 12-month period
  of time

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• Developing tolerance
• Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when attempting
  to stop
• Using a substance for a longer period, or in
  greater quantities, than originally intended
• Making repeated attempts to stop or cut-back on
  drug usage

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• Devoting a great deal of time attempting to
  obtain or use a substance
• Giving up or reducing social, occupational, or
  recreational activities as a result of drug use
• Continuing to use a substance even after negative
  physical or psychological effects have occurred,
  or will continue to occur with usage

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Depressants

• Chemicals that slow down behavior or cognitive
  processes inhibit central nervous system
  activity relieve anxiety, lower inhibitions,
  lowers pain affects the brain areas responsible
  for arousal, wakefulness and alertness,
  coordination
• Including Alcohol, Barbiturates,
  Tranquilizers, Opiates (painkillers such as
  Heroin)

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• Depressants and the Brain
• Alcohol Addiction
• Treating Drug Addiction

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Stimulants

• Drugs that stimulate the nervous system and
  produce feelings of optimism and boundless
  energy, arouse behavior, and increase mental
  awareness
• Including Caffeine, Nicotine, Amphetamines
  (Speed, Ecstasy), Cocaine

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• IE. Cocaine
• Cocaine blocks the reuptake of dopamine
  (pleasure), norepinepherine (energy), and
  serotonin (arousal), so the feelings generated by
  those neurotransmitters intensifies as they
  linger in the synapse longer

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Psychedelics/Hallucinogens

• Drugs that distort visual and auditory perception
• Including LSD, Mescaline, Peyote, Marijuana

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• Why is marijuana considered a hallucinogen?
• It relaxes, disinhibits, and may cause a euphoric
  high like alcohol, but it may also amplify
  sensitivity to colors, sounds, tastes, and smells

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