Chapter 7
Altered States of
Consciousness
Sleep and Dreams
• Consciousness
• State of awareness, including a person’s feelings, sensations,
ideas and perceptions
Sleep and Dreams
• Stages of sleep
• Early stages
• Pulse slows, muscles relax, breathing uneven, and brain waves grow
irregular
• Thirty minutes into sleep, drift to deeper sleep, and large-amplitude
delta waves begin to sweep your brain every second or so
• Later stages
• Deepest sleep of all, difficult to waken a sleeper at this stage
• Large regular delta waves, talking out loud, sleepwalking, and bed
wetting may occur at this stage
• REM (rapid eye movement) sleep: active type of sleep characterized by
eye movement
Sleep Disorders
• Sleep apnea
• A person has trouble breathing while asleep
• Insomnia
• Failure to get enough sleep at night in order to feel rested the next day
• Narcolepsy
• Condition where a person suddenly falls asleep or feels very sleepy during the day
• Nightmares and night terrors
• Nightmares: unpleasant dreams
• Night terrors: sleep disruption that occur during stage IV of sleep, involving
screaming, panic or confusion
• Sleepwalking and sleep talking
Dreams
• Dreams become longer and more vivid and dramatic,
during REM sleep.
• Content of dreams.
• Negative dreams considered nightmares.
• Dream interpretation.
• Freud believed no matter how simple or mundane, dreams may contain
clues to thoughts the dreamer is afraid to acknowledge in his or her waking
hours.
• Daydreams.
• Requires low level of awareness and involves fantasizing or dreaming while
we are awake.
Hypnosis
• What is Hypnosis? • Uses of Hypnosis
• A state of consciousness • Posthypnotic suggestion
• Suggestion made during
resulting from a narrowed hypnosis that influences the
focus of attention and participant’s behavior afterward
characterized by • Used to change unwanted
heightened suggestibility behaviors such as smoking or
overeating
• Theories of Hypnosis • Hypnotic analgesia
• Conflicting views of • Refers to a reduction of pain
Barber, and Hilgard reported by patients after they
underwent hypnosis
Biofeedback
• What is biofeedback?
• Process of learning to control bodily states with the help of specialized
machines
• The basic principle of biofeedback:
• Feedback makes learning possible
• How has it been used?
• Teach people to control a wide variety of physiological responses
• Machines tell people about very subtle, moment-to-moment changes in the
body
• Brain waves (EEG), heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and
sweat-gland activity
Meditation
• What is meditation?
• Focusing of attention to clear one’s mind and produce relaxation
• Three major approaches:
• Transcendental meditation
• Sit with eyes closed and meditate for 15 to 20 minutes twice a day
• Mindfulness meditation (Buddhist tradition)
• Focus on present moment such as paying particular attention to parts of
your body that cause pain
• Breath meditation
• Concentration on one’s respiration (process of inhaling and exhaling)
Meditation Cont’
• Benefits of Meditation
• Provides systematic relaxation
• Helps lower blood pressure, heart rates, and
respiration rates
Drugs
• Psychoactive drugs
• Depressants
• Alcohol
– Relaxant;Impair memory and judgment
• Tranquilizers
• Barbiturates, benzodiazepines (valium,Xanax)
– Relieve anxiety;Relax muscles;Induce sleep
• Opiates
• Morphine, heroin
– Decrease pain;Decrease attention to the real world
• Stimulants
• Caffeine, amphetamines, cocaine
– Increase energy, alertness
Drugs Cont’
• Mixed stimulant-depressants
• Nicotine
– Stimulate brain activity, but most smokers say cigarettes relax them
• Distortion of experience
• Marijuana (THC)
– Intensifies sensory experiences; Distorts perception of time; Can
relieve glaucoma, nausea:sometimes impairs learning and memory
• Hallucinogens
• LSD,mescaline
– Cause hallucinations, sensory distortions, and occasionally panic
References
• Kasschau, Richard Ph.D (2001). Understanding
Psychology. Ohio: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.