Unit 4- State of Consciousness

Levels of Consciousness

• The conscious mind includes everything that we are aware of.
• The preconscious mind is the part of the mind that represents ordinary memory.
• The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness.

Stages of Sleep

• Usually sleepers pass through five stages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. These stages progress cyclically from 1 through REM then begin again with stage 1. A complete sleep cycle takes an average of 90 to 110 minutes.

Insomnia

• Insomnia is a persistent disorder that can make it hard to fall asleep, hard to stay asleep or both, despite the opportunity for adequate sleep.

Narcolepsy

• Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by overwhelming daytime drowsiness and sudden attacks of sleep.

Sleep Apnea

• Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing or instances of shallow or infrequent breathing during sleep.

Night Terrors

• Sleep terrors are episodes of screaming, intense fear and flailing while still asleep.

Freudian Dream Interpretation

• Freud distinguished between the manifest content of a dream (what the dreamer remembers) and the latent content, the symbolic meaning of the dream (i.e. the underlying wish).

Activation-synthesis Dream Theory

• The activation-synthesis theory suggest that dreams are the result of activity in the sleeping brain.

Information-processing Theory

• The theory is based on the idea that humans process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli.

Role Hypnosis Theory

• Role theory is when a person is not in an alternate state of consciousness, but rather is acting out the role of a hypnotized person.

State Hypnosis Theory

• The state theory of hypnosis maintains that hypnosis is a special altered state of consciousness

Dissociation Hypnosis Theory

• Dissociation theory is a theory of hypnosis. Hilgard defined dissociation as a division of consciousness, in which attention, effort, and planning are carried out without awareness

Stimulants

• Stimulants are psychoactive drugs that induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical functions or both.

Depressants

• A depressant, or central depressant, is a drug or endogenous compound that lowers neurotransmission levels.

Hallucinogens

• Hallucinogens are a class of drugs that cause hallucinations—profound distortions in a person's perceptions of reality.

Opiates

• Opiate describes any of the opioid analgesic alkaloids found as natural products in the opium poppy plant, Papaver somniferum.