GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY	Chapter 5
Consciousness, Sleep & Dream

 

Consciousness:  Awareness of sensations (from external stimuli), thoughts and feelings (internal experience).  Consciousness can range from the extreme low of being in a coma to the high of skydiving, taking an exam or being in immediate danger.

Altering Consciousness:  Methods of altering consciousness include:

• Sleeping & Dreaming
• Hypnosis
• Meditation
• Drugs - Ranging from caffeine & nicotine to cocaine & LSD

Factors Affecting Consciousness:

• Circadian Rhythms -- The internal timeclock of the body.  Uses sunlight/darkness as a cue.  Light deprivation research indicates CRs operate naturally on a 25 (not 24) hour day.  Many things including jet travel & changes in work shift can adversely affect our internal time clock.
• Sleep Deprivation -- Persons deprived of sleep will show generally decreased awareness to both external stimuli and internal processes.
• Danger & Other Environmental Situation -- Perceived danger results in activation of the Sympathetic NS and therefore heightened awareness.  Compare your level of awareness when (a) sitting at home watching TV to (b) walking alone at night through a crime-ridden area.  It's no wonder drive-way robberies are so successful for the robber -- most people feel relatively safe once they're home, show lowered consciousness, let their guards down, giving the robber the element of surprise.
• Drugs - Whether prescription or non-prescription, legal or illegal, intended effect or unfortunate side effect, many commonly used drugs alter a person's awareness to both environment and self.

 

The Stages of Sleep

The development of the EEG brought advanced understanding of the complex sleep process.  The EEG measures the amount and type of brain wave activity.  Brain waves vary in terms of frequency and amplitude. Brain waves like the beta wave are of high frequency (many waves in a one second interval), but low amplitude (short in height).  Brain waves like the delta wave are of low frequency, but high amplitude.  A brief summary outline of sleep stages and corresponding brain waves is presented below:

 

Sleep Level	Type of Brain Wave
Waking Consciousness	Beta Wave
Hypnagogic State	Alpha Wave
Stage 1 - Light Sleep	Theta Wave
Stage 2 - Light Sleep	K-Complex & Sleep Spindles
Stage 3 - Deep Sleep	Delta Wave
Stage 4 - Deep Sleep	Delta Wave
REM Sleep - Dream Sleep	REM Wave

 

 

   

The Stages of Sleep, Continued

Waking Consciousness  (Beta Wave, hi frequency / low amplitude):  Active awareness to surroundings and mental processes.

Hypnagogic State  (Alpha Wave, still hi frequency / low amplitude):  Transitional state from waking consciousness to light sleep.  Lowered awareness, drowsiness, relaxed, daydreaming type of consciousness.  Heart rate, breathing begin to slow, muscles begin to relax.  Myoclonia (strong muscle flinch often paired with sensation of falling) often occurs during this level of consciousness.

Stage 1 - Light Sleep  (Theta Wave, mod frequency / moderate amplitude):  First actual stage of sleep.  Respiration fairly regular.  Small chance of dream activity.  Fairly easily awakened. 

Stage 2 - Light Sleep  (K-Complex - moderate frequency / moderate amplitude; Sleep Spindles - short bursts of increased frequency):  Similar to Stage 1 but slightly deeper sleep.

Stage 3 - Deep Sleep  (Delta Wave, low frequency / high amplitude):  Sound sleep period typically occurring 45 minutes to one hour into sleep cycle.

Stage 4 - Deep Sleep  (Delta Wave, very low frequency / high amplitude):  Farthest point from waking consciousness.  Very difficult to awaken.  Little if any mental or dream activity as brain is all but shut down. Heart rate, breathing are slow and even.  Body temp decrease.  Slight muscle tenseness.

REM Sleep - Dream Sleep  (REM Wave, fairly high frequency / low amplitude):  Typically occurring about 90 minutes into sleep cycle, brain activity picks up considerably as brain appears to be awakening.  Paradoxically, the body is definitely asleep and awareness to external world is very low.  Memory and visual cortexes become activated yet part of the brain (in the area of the pons) keeps consciousness low and blocks impulses going out of the brain that would normally activate muscle movement.  Most people get an average of 2 hours of REM per night typically divided into 4-6 segments and occurring roughly every 90 minutes.  Each successive REM periods tend to get longer and as a result, the majority of REM is concentrated toward the end of the sleep cycle.  Other physiological sighs of REM include rapid movement of the eyeballs, irregular heart rate & breathing, slight muscle twitches, evidence of sexual arousal (for both men and women).  REM sleep is also known as dream sleep as an estimated 80+% of dreams, especially active dreams, appear to occur during REM.

REM sleep appears to be a critically important phase of sleep because (1) persons deprived of REM but allowed to get non-REM sleep usually feel as if they have had little or no sleep at all, and (2) the REM rebound phenomena in which persons deprived of REM sleep for a period of time will, when allowed to return to normal sleep cycle, show an automatic increase in REM until the amount deprived is made up (also called "sleep debt").

 

Sleep Deprivation
Persons who have gone with out sleep for a significant period of time will likely experience three general conditions including (1) fatigue / loss of energy, (2) irritability/moodiness, and (3) impaired thinking and judgment.  Persons deprived of sleep generally show impaired judgment.  This is interesting in light of the fact that many jobs that require good judgment (emergency room doctors, careflight helicopter pilots, combat soldiers) also involve conditions of sleep deprivation as an inherent part of the job.  Statistics show that drivers who fall asleep at the wheel than by those who drink and drive cause many more highway fatalities each year.

 

 

 

Sleep Disorders

Insomnia:  The inability to get to sleep or to maintain a sleep state.  May be caused by many factors including stress, anxiety, depression, caffeine consumption, side-effects of both prescription and non-prescription medications.

Hypersomnia:  The inability to wake up or to maintain a waking state.  May be caused by many factors including depression, stress, side effects of both prescription and non-prescription medications.

Narcolepsy:  A neurological condition in which sufferers fall from full waking consciousness to a significant sleep state (often REM) without any warning.  Causes major life disruption as sufferer may fall asleep while driving resulting in loss of driving privilege.

Sleep Apnea:  A condition in which sufferers stop breathing in their sleep.  When the brain detects the lack of oxygen, the person gasps for air and as a result, awakens.  This gasping/awakening sequence may occur a hundred or more times per night resulting in almost total disruption of the sleep cycle.  Consequently, sufferers show effects of severe sleep deprivation (noted above) in their daily lives.  Condition tends to be found mostly in males, tends to run in families, and is most frequently seen in men who are overweight     and persons who snore chronically.  Treated with a CPAP machine, which forces a continual air flow during sleep and as a result, generally stops the gasping/awakening response allowing undisturbed sleep.

Somnambulism:  Sleep walking.  Mysteriously, almost always occurs in level 4 of deep sleep.  Tends to run in families.  Seen more often in children.  Can be, but usually is not, dangerous in adults.

Night Terrors:  Different than a common nightmare.  Sufferers begin screaming in terror and thrashing about during sleep, and appear to be in a trance.  Extremely difficult to awaken person during an episode.  Occurs in level 4 of deep sleep.  Seen more often in children.  Can be severe and chronic in adults.

SIDS:  Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  Infants simply stop breathing during sleep most likely resulting in death.  Possibly related to sleep apnea.  Infants who may be at risk, especially low-birth-weight babies, may require a respiratory monitor equipped with an alarm to alert the caregiver in the event of respiratory failure.

 

Dreams

Dreams:  Theory and Research
Contrary to common belief, there is little agreement in the discipline of psychology about the nature of Dreams.  In the early years of psychology, dreams were viewed more as a psychologically driven
phenomena, resulting from deep unconscious drives, desires, wishes, conflicts, fears and anxieties.  More recent dream theory and research points to a conclusion that dreams are a more biologically driven phenomena, resulting from the neuro-chemical-electrical processes occurring in the brain during sleep -- especially REM sleep.

Calvin Hall's Theory (1966):  Dreams are an extension of our daily lives.  What ever causes stress in our daily lives will affect the contents of our dreams.  Dreams are psychological experiences.

Hobson & McCarley's Activation Synthesis Model (1977):  Dreams are simply a biological biproduct of sleep.  They result from areas of the visual and memory cortexes being biologically activated during REM sleep (thus "activation").  Dreams have nothing to do with stressors, psychological wishes, yearnings, or conflicts.  Dreams have no inherent meaning.  They are only fragments of memory.  Dreams only have meaning when, after we awaken, we assemble these fragments together and create the story and meaning of the dream     (thus "synthesis").  Therefore, the "Activation-Synthesis" Model.

 

Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory (1900):  Dreams are psychologically driven phenomena resulting from wishes and yearnings, or conflicts and fears in the unconscious mind.  Dreams are the most direct pipeline to the unconscious mind.  Virtually all dreams are driven by a wish-fulfillment theme (related to unconscious desires for sensual, sexual pleasures).  And yet, most dreams show some element of conflict.  That is, the wish theme of a dream is rarely played out without some form of blocking of the desire.  Thus a person who dreams her parents are shot and killed in a robbery likely does not wish them dead -- to the contrary, wished they would live forever in order to take care of her infantile needs.  The murders are simply the element of conflict blocking the underlying, childish wish of the dream.  According to Freud, there are two levels of content to a dream including (1) manifest content, which is the obvious, surface level content of    the dream -- the events of the dream, and (2) latent content, which is the underlying, hidden or symbolic meaning of the dream.  Also of note is that Freud believed many objects and actions of dreams to be symbolic and related to latent content.  For example, long, cylindrical objects (knives, trains, planes, canes, flag poles, etc...) were symbolic of male genitalia -- or are "phallic symbols."  Hollow objects in which things can be placed (caves, tunnels, bottles, boxes, pockets, etc...) were symbolic of female genitalia.  Actions in dreams involving moving fast, ascending, or crossing things (climbing a ladder, walking down a long hall, flying, driving a car fast, riding a horse, riding an elevator, etc...) were symbolic of sexual intercourse in terms of latent content.  Although controversial, Freud's dream theory set the standard against which all following theories have been compared.

Rosalind Cartwright’s Problem Solving Approach:  Cartwright believes that in dreams, we might have a better chance of solving certain tough life problems that we can’t solve in our conscious waking lives.  She hypothesizes that in our conscious waking mind, we’re so inhibited by the limiting, constricting rules of logic and reality that some difficult problems may be almost impossible to solve there.  But dreams are not limited by the same limiting rules of reality as conscious waking thought, so it may be possible to solve a problem while in a dream that one might not be able to solve while awake according to Cartwright.

Crick & Mitchison's Model (1983):  Dreams are biologically driven phenomena.  Dreams result from the brain attempting to flush out useless, unimportant chemical memory connections made while processing huge amounts of information during waking states.  Calvin Hall's Theory (1966):  Dreams are an extension of our daily lives.  What ever causes stress in our daily lives will affect the contents of our dreams.  Dreams are psychological experiences.