Chapter 7: Altered States of Consciousness

Section 1: Sleep and Dreams

(Read Exploring Psychology)

  1. Sleep is vital to mental health
  2. If a person is deprived of sleep, they will develop psychological (and physical) symptoms
  3. Sleep is a state of altered consciousness, characterized by certain patterns of brain activity and inactivity
  4. Consciousness is a state of awareness.
  5. Can range from alertness to nonalertness
  6. The study of sleep has been aided by the development of the electroencephalograph (EEG0
  7. Why do we sleep?
  8. No one knows, possible reasons
  9. Characterized by unresponsiveness to the environment and limited physical mobility
  10. Maybe to restore our batteries
  11. Brain is recovering from exhaustion and stress
  12. Primitive hibernation
  13. We sleep to conserve energy
  14. An adaptive practice
  15. Kept humans out of harm’s way at night when we would have been most vulnerable
  16. To clear out minds
  17. Gets rid of useless information
  18. We sleep to dream
  19. Stages of sleep

Stage / Bodily Activity / Depth Of Sleep / Thought Process / Miscellaneous
0
Awake / Slows down, decreased muscle tension / Borderline wakefulness / Relaxation, mind wanders, awareness dulls / Heart rate, pulse, temperature and blood pressure slightly diminished.
1 / Eyes roll slowly on falling asleep, eyes quiescent in later stage 1 periods. Body movements slowed. / Light sleep, easily awakened, might deny being asleep if awakened. / Drifting thoughts and floating sensation. / Temperature, heart rate, pulse decline further. Regular breathing. May have hypnogogic hallucinations on falling asleep.
2 / Eyes quiet. Few body movements. Snoring is common. / Light to moderate sleep. Relatively easy to awaken. Eyes will not see if open. / Some thought fragments, memory processes diminished, may
describe vague dream if awakened / Decreased heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, temperature and metabolic rate, regular breathing with increased airway resistance.
3 / Occasional movement, eyes quiescent. / Deep Sleep, takes louder sounds to be awakened. / Rarely able to remember thoughts. A few vaguely formed dreams. Possible memory consolidation. / Metabolic rate, pulse, heart rate, blood pressure and temperature decrease further. Increased secretion of growth hormones.
4 / Occasional movement, eyes quiet. / Deepest sleep, very difficult to awaken. / Virtually oblivious, very poor recall of thoughts if awoken possibly involved in memory consolidation. / Continued decline in heart rate, temperature and metabolic rates. Increased secretion of growth hormone. (possibly to restore bodily tissues)
REM / Large muscles paralyzed. Fingers toes and facial muscles twitch. Erections, snoring uncommon. / Variable. If sound is incorporated into dream, then harder to awake. / 80 percent dreaming, good vivid dream recall, especially later in the evening. Possibly involved in unconscious conflict resolution. / Heart rate 5 percent greater than above stages. Pulse, temperature and metabolic rates increase. Irregular breathing one-half extra breath per minute.
  1. Stage 1
  2. Pulse slows and muscles relax
  3. Breathing becomes uneven and brain waves grow irregular
  4. “Just drifting” time
  5. Lasts 10 minutes or so
  6. Stage 2
  7. Eyes roll from side to side
  8. Lasts 30 minutes
  9. Stage 3
  10. Short periods of large delta waves
  11. Stage 4
  12. Deepest sleep of all
  13. Difficult of wake during this stage
  14. Disoriented if woken up
  15. Talking out loud, sleep walking and bet wetting can occur here, leaving no memory
  16. Important to physical and psychological well-being
  17. While muscles are more relaxed than before, eye begin to move rapidly – REM sleep
  18. REM sleep – time during which pulse and breathing become irregular, adrenal and sexual hormone levels rise, face and fingers twitch, large muscles in legs and arms are paralyzed
  19. Brain waves resemble those of someone who is fully awake
  20. Active Sleep
  21. Dreaming takes place
  22. Falling out of bed, hitting the ground, alarm clock inclusion examples
  23. People spend 75% of their sleep in stages 1 through 4
  1. How much sleep do we need?
  2. Humans spend 1/3 of their life sleeping
  3. Newborns – 16 hours, half in REM
  4. 16 year olds – 10 to 11 hours
  5. College – 8 hours
  6. 70 or older – 5 hours
  7. Adults 25% in REM
  1. Sleep Disorders
  2. Insomnia
  3. Insomnia is a prolonged and usually abnormal inability to obtain adequate sleep
  4. Causes – anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug overuse
  5. Sleep Apnea
  6. Sleep apnea causes frequent interruptions of breathing during sleep
  7. Snoring that leads to a stop of breathing, leads to a complete blockage of the breathing passage, choking the person. Ends when low levels of oxygen or high levels of carbon dioxide trigger the breathing reflex to start again
  8. Occurs in 1 in 100 people, usually older
  9. Narcolepsy
  10. Narcolepsy is characterized by a permanent and overwhelming feeling of sleepiness and fatigue
  11. Unusual sleep and dream patterns
  12. Hallucinations
  13. Feeling temporarily paralyzed
  14. Sleep attacks, falling to sleep anywhere, at any time
  15. Nightmares and Night Terrors
  16. Nightmares – frightening dreams, during the dream phase of REM sleep
  17. May frighten the sleeper, waking up with a vivid memory of a movielike dream
  18. Night Terrors – occur during Stage IV sleep (within an hour of sleep)
  19. Can last 5 to 20 minutes, involving screaming, sweating, confusion and rapid heart rate
  20. Sudden awakening or a persistent fear at night
  21. If woken up by the terror, the subject will not be “awake” and could continue with the terror
  22. Most will not remember the night terror at all
  23. Sleepwalking and Sleep Talking (Somniloquy)
  24. A disorder in which a person is partly, but not completely, awake during the night
  25. People may walk or perform other tasks and have no memory of it
  26. Sleepwalking mostly associated with children
  27. It is NOT dangerous to wake sleepwalkers
  28. Sleep talking can occur in REM or nonREM sleep
  29. Long sentences or just a couple of words
  30. You can engage a sleep talker in conversations occasionally
  31. Sleep Motor Starts
  32. A sudden, often violent, jerk of the entire body that occurs upon falling asleep
  33. Teeth Grinding (BRUXISM)
  34. Grinding teeth during sleep is a very common occurrence and little evidence suggests that teeth grinding is associated with any significant medical or psychological problems.
  35. Dreams
  36. Any mental activity that takes place during sleep is dreaming
  37. Everyone dreams
  38. First dreams are usually vague thoughts left over from the day’s activities
  39. As night goes on, dreams become longer, more vivid and dramatic
  40. Especially dreams taking place in REM sleep
  41. Last dream is usually the longest and the one people remember
  42. If you miss REM sleep, subsequent sleep will contain increased REM sleep
  43. Suggests that REM sleep is necessary
  44. Content of Dreams
  45. We often incorporate our everyday activities into our dreams
  46. Most occur in commonplace settings: home, car, streets
  47. Most involve either strenuous activities or passive events
  48. Most involve unpleasant emotions
  49. Dreams are in real time, not in a split second
  50. Dream Interpretation
  51. Freud believed that no matter how simple or mundane a dream, they contain clues to thoughts the dreamer is afraid to acknowledge in their waking hours
  52. Some say that dreams serve no function
  53. That it’s a by-product of stimulating brain cells during sleep
  54. Another says that dreaming allows people the chance to review and address some of the problems they faced during the day
  55. Another says dreams are the brain’s way of removing certain unneeded memories
  56. Daydreams
  57. Requires a low level of awareness and involves fantasizing but directed thinking while we are awake
  58. Serves purposes such as reminding us of or preparing us for events in our future
  59. May improve our creativity by generating thought processes
  60. Or to help us control our emotions

Section 2: Hypnosis, Biofeedback and Meditation

(Read Exploring Psychology)

  1. Hypnosis
  2. Hypnosis is a form of altered consciousness in which people become highly suggestible to changes in behavior and thought
  3. People can be made conscious of things that they are normally unaware of and unaware of things they normally notice
  4. May recall forgotten memories in detail
  5. Feel no pain from a pin prick
  6. Does not put people to sleep
  7. The trance makes people more receptive and responsive to internal and external stimuli
  8. Able to focus attention on minute details and ignore all other inputs
  9. They are conscious and aware
  10. Can be convinced to do things that they normally wouldn’t do (Note your book’s text here!!)
  11. BUT the hypnotist cannot make you do or say something that you normally wouldn’t do or say unless you want to
  12. The mind rejects undesired suggestions automatically
  13. Your will, morality and ethics will not allow it to happen
  14. Anyone can resist hypnosis by refusing to open their minds, you must be willing to be hypnotized
  15. Theories of Hypnosis
  16. A simple result of suggestibility
  17. Reveals that people have potential abilities that they do not use
  18. Uses of Hypnosis
  19. Posthypnotic suggestion – when a hypnotist suggests things for their participants to remember or forget when the trance is over
  20. Memory can be aided or enhanced through this type to hypnosis
  21. Helping people change unwanted behavior such as overeating and smoking
  22. To reduce pain
  23. Reduces the patients anxiety and encourages relaxation
  24. Combination of hypnosis and therapy can help people work through their problems
  25. Biofeedback
  26. Biofeedback – technique in which one learns to control their internal physiological processes with the help of feedback
  27. A light goes off when your heart rate goes above 80, you learn to keep your heart rate below 80 to keep the light off
  28. Can be used to teach people to control a variety of physiological responses such as
  29. Brain waves
  30. Heart rate
  31. Blood pressure
  32. Skin temperature
  33. Sweat gland activity
  34. Uses machines to give feedback on subtle, moment to moment changes in the body
  35. Meditation
  36. Meditation – focusing one’s attention on an image or thought with the goal of clearing the mind and producing relaxation, or inner peace
  37. Transcendental meditation – mental repetition of a mantra or phrase
  38. Sitting with eyes closed and meditating for 15 to 20 minutes twice a day
  39. Mindfulness meditation – from the Buddhist tradition, focusing on the present moment
  40. Moving one’s focus throughout the body while paying attention to areas that cause pain
  41. Breath meditation – concentrating on one’s respiration, inhaling and exhaling
  42. Most people would benefit from this type of relaxation
  43. Lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate

Section 3: Drugs and Consciousness

  1. Psychoactive drugs – drugs that interact with the central nervous system to alter a person’s mood, perception and behavior
  2. Examples: caffeine, depressants (alcohol), marijuana and LSD
  1. How drugs work
  2. Carried by the blood and taken to tissues throughout the body
  3. Taken into the body from the outside
  4. Attach themselves to the ends of nerve cells (neurons) and send out their own chemical message
  5. Alcohol molecules tell nerve cells not to fire
  6. More and more cause a person to become slower and leads to unconsciousness
  7. LSD causes circuits in the brain to start firing together instead of separately causes hallucinations
  8. Marijuana
  9. In some cultures, is legally and morally more acceptable than alcohol
  10. Illegal for sale, possession and use is illegal in most states, but not legal by national law (becomes a constitutional issue over state vs. federal law)
  11. A subculture drug before late 1970’s and 80’s
  12. Active ingredient is THC (tetrahydrocannabinol)
  13. Made by drying the plant
  14. Hashish is the gummy powder made from the resin from the top of the female plant
  15. Usually smoked, but can be cooked with food and eaten
  16. Effects vary from person to person
  17. Depend on the setting its taken in, the mood the person is in and the users past experience
  18. Psychological Pleasant and Unpleasant Effects
  19. Sensory experiences are greatly augmented
  20. Music sounds fuller
  21. Colors look brighter
  22. Smells are stronger
  23. Food is more intense in flavor
  24. Users feel elated
  25. Ordinary events take on extraordinary significance
  26. Psychologically addictive and dependent
  27. Instill or heighten unpleasant experiences
  28. Those frightened, unhappy or depressed will have those emotions blown out of proportion
  29. Can bring on psychological disturbances in those unstable before using the drug
  30. Physical Effects
  31. Can cause lung disorders
  32. More damaging than cigarette use
  33. Holding in the smoke can hinder lung function
  34. Disrupts memory formation, making it difficult to carry out mental and physical tasks
  35. Can lead to long term dependence
  36. Lower IQ scores
  37. Hallucinations
  38. Hallucinations – perceptions that have no direct external cause (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that don’t exist)
  39. Caused by hypnosis, meditation, certain drugs, drug withdraw, psychological breakdown and sensory deprivation
  40. Can occur under normal conditions
  41. During dreaming
  42. When deprived of sleep
  43. High emotions
  44. Concentration
  45. Fatigue
  46. Daydreams
  47. Very much alike from one person to the next
  48. May be due to the way the drug affects the brain
  49. The part that responds to incoming stimuli is disorganized and the central nervous system is aroused
  50. More likely to involve color
  51. Hallucinogens
  52. Hallucinogens – drugs whose main effect is to produce hallucinations
  53. Found in plants grown throughout the world
  54. Used since the earliest recorded human history
  55. Create lost of contact with reality
  56. Create a false body image, loss of self, create dreamlike fantasies and hallucinations
  57. Examples
  58. LSD – most studied and most potent (LSD-25)
  59. One of the most powerful drugs known to man
  60. Synthetic
  61. Synthesized by Dr. Albert Hofmann in Switzerland in 1938
  62. Searching for medicinal properties of a fungus, contained lysergic acid
  63. Synthesized 24 prior lysergic acids before hand
  64. Noticed the hallucinogenic properties 5 years later while studying it
  65. Made himself a guinea pig
  66. A dose of a few millionths (that’s .000001) of a gram produces a noticeable effect
  67. 100 to 300 micrograms produces a “trip”
  68. Lasts 6 to 14 hours
  69. Distributed on strips of paper (tabs, blotters) or on sugar cubes
  70. Experiences
  71. Intense and rapidly changing perceptions
  72. The expectations, mood, beliefs and circumstances under which they take “acid” affect the experience
  73. Can be terrifying
  74. Perceptual hallucinations
  75. Progressive hallucination that evolve over time
  76. Senses intermingle: hearing visual stimuli and seeing sounds
  77. Dissociation with one’s self
  78. Distortions of time
  79. Single stimuli can become the focus for hours
  80. Impairs thinking
  81. Panic reactions abound
  82. Flashbacks
  83. “Remembering” the trip without the overt presence of the drug, stimuli from the senses present without physical stimuli
  84. Possible chromosome damage
  85. Counterculture of the 1960’s
  86. Dr. Timothy Leary
  87. For spiritual growth
  88. Turn on, tune in, drop out
  89. Professor at UC Berkley and Harvard
  90. Opiates
  91. Also known as narcotics
  92. Include opium, morphine and heroin
  93. Produce analgesia – pain reduction, euphoria – pleasurable state somewhere between wake and sleep, and constipation
  94. Leads to physical addiction
  95. Can lead to death from respiratory failure
  96. Alcohol
  97. Most widely used and abused mind-altering substance
  98. A disease? Or an addiction
  99. Encouraged throughout our society and traditions
  100. Up to debate
  101. Effects
  102. Immediate – loosening of inhibition
  103. More likely to engage in behaviors and actions one normally wouldn’t take part in (sexual, other drugs)
  104. A depressant that inhibits brain functioning
  105. Acting without social restraint or self-control
  106. Depends on the amount drank, frequency of drinking and body weight
  107. The more consumed in a quicker time period, the less function a person has increases
  108. Slurred speech
  109. Blurred vision
  110. Impaired judgment and memory
  111. Blackouts
  112. Long Term Effects
  113. Permanent brain damage
  114. Liver damage
  115. Change in personality

Progressive Effects of Alcohol

Blood Alcohol
Concentration / Changes in Feelings
and Personality / Physical and Mental
Impairments
0.01 — 0.06 / Relaxation
Sense of Well-being
Loss of Inhibition
Lowered Alertness
Joyous / Thought
Judgment
Coordination
Concentration
0.06 — 0.10 / Blunted Feelings
Disinhibition
Extroversion
Impaired Sexual Pleasure / Reflexes Impaired
Reasoning
Depth Perception
Distance Acuity
Peripheral Vision
Glare Recovery
0.11 — 0.20 / Over-Expression
Emotional Swings
Angry or Sad
Boisterous / Reaction Time
Gross Motor Control
Staggering
Slurred Speech
0.21 — 0.29 / Stupor
Lose Understanding
Impaired Sensations / Severe Motor Impairment
Loss of Consciousness
Memory Blackout
0.30 — 0.39 / Severe Depression
Unconsciousness
Death Possible / Bladder Function
Breathing
Heart Rate
=> 0.40 / Unconsciousness
Death / Breathing
Heart Rate
  1. Drug Abuse and Treatment
  2. Drug abusers are those who regularly use illegal drugs or excessively use legal drugs
  3. Reasons for drug abuse
  4. Avoid boredom
  5. To fit in socially
  6. To gain self-confidence
  7. To forget about problems or cope with pain
  8. To relax or feel good
  9. Risks
  10. Death or injury due to overdose or accident
  11. Health damage
  12. Legal consequences
  13. Destructive behavior
  14. Loss of control
  15. Addiction