Continuum of Consciousness - Controlled and Automatic Processes - Altered States of Consciousness - Psychoactive Drugs - Sleep and Dreams - Different Stages of Sleep (REM and N-REM) - 4 Major Questions About Sleep - Sleep Disorders - The Unconscious Mind - Unconsciousness

1. States of
Consciousness
Aiyana Cruz
Jedd De Luna
Reicelene Ignacio
Aurora Nivera
2JRN3

2. Consciousness
 Individual awareness of one‟s unique
thoughts, memories, feelings, sensatio
ns and environment
Continuum of Consciousness
 wide range of experiences from being
aware and alert to being unaware and
unresponsive

3. Continuum of Consciousness
1. Controlled Processes
 Full awareness, alertness, and
concentration
 Usually interferes with other ongoing
activities
2. Automatic Processes
 Little awareness and take minimal
attention
 Do not interfere with other ongoing
activities

4. Continuum of Consciousness
3. Daydreaming
 Low level of awareness
 Often occurs during automatic
processes
 Involves fantasizing/dreaming while
awake
 Occurs in situations that are boring or
require little attention

5. Continuum of Consciousness
4. The Unconscious
 “It contains all sorts of significant and
disturbing material which we need to
keep out of awareness because they
are too threatening to acknowledge
fully” – Sigmund Freud

6. Continuum of Consciousness
4. The Unconscious
 Process of Free Association - a
method of exploring a person's
unconscious by eliciting words and
thoughts that are associated with key
words provided by a psychoanalyst
 Dream Interpretation - the process of
assigning meaning to dreams

7. Continuum of Consciousness
5. Unconsciousness
 Total unawareness and loss of
responsiveness to one‟s environment
6. Altered States
 Awareness that differs from normal
consciousness
 Results from using any procedures:
meditation, hypnosis, or psychoactive
drugs

8. Altered States
A. Meditation
 The practice of focusing attention
 To enhance awareness and gain more
control of physical and mental processes
 Increased alpha & theta rhythm –
Feeling deeply relaxed and free from
being stressed
B. Hypnosis
 Trance-like state
 A procedure that opens people to the
power of suggestion

9. Altered States
C. Psychoactive Drugs
 “recreational drugs”
 A chemical substance that acts primarily
upon the central nervous system where it
alters brain function, resulting in
temporary changes in
perception, mood, consciousness and
behavior

10. Altered States
4 Types of Psychoactive Drugs
a. Stimulants: drugs that stimulate the
central nervous system.
b. Sedatives: drugs that slow down the
central nervous system
c. Narcotics: also called opiates; drugs
that can relieve pain
d. Hallucinogens: drugs that cause
sensory and perceptual distortions

11. Continuum of Consciousness
7. Sleep and Dreams
 Sleep – involves different levels of
consciousness and psychological
arousal, which occurs in 5 stages.
 Dreams – astonishing visual, auditory
and tactile images in sleep, which
occurs in the REM stage.

12. Sleep
Stages of Sleep
 Distinctive changes in the electrical
activity of the brain
 REM stands for Rapid Eye
Movement, because eyes move
rapidly back and forth behind closed
lids.
 NREM stands for Non-Rapid Eye
Movement

13. Stages of Sleep
*Alpha Stage
 Relaxed and drowsy stage
 Alpha Waves – low amplitude and
high frequency

14. Stages of Sleep
Two Major Categories of Sleep
A. Non-REM Sleep
 Approximately 80% of sleep time
Stage 1 (Theta Waves)
 Transition from wakefulness to sleep
 Lasts 1-7 minutes
 Gradually lose responsiveness to stimuli and
experience drifting thoughts and images
 Theta Waves - lower amplitude and lower
frequency than alpha waves
 *Hypnic Jerk – falling sensation

15. Stages of Sleep
Stage 2 (Spindles)
 Muscle tension, heart
rate, respiration, and body temperature
gradually decrease
 Difficult to be awakened
 Sleep Spindles – brief high frequency
bursts of brain activity

16. Stages of Sleep
Stage 3 (Delta & Theta Waves)
 Approximately 30-45 minutes
 Delta Waves - very high amplitude and
very low frequency (slowest & largest
waves)
 20-50% of brain-wave pattern

17. Stages of Sleep
Stage 4 (Delta Waves)
 Delta Waves - very high amplitude and
very low frequency (slowest & largest
waves)
 Deepest stage of sleep
 Heart rate, respiration, body temperature
and blood flow reduced
 Secretion of Growth Hormone (controls
levels of metabolism, physical growth and
brain development)

18. Stages of Sleep
B. REM Sleep
 Remaining 20% of sleep time
Stage 5
 Brain waves have fast frequency and low
amplitude
 Brain waves are very similar to beta waves (when
awake & alert)
 Heart rate and blood pressure 2x as high than
Non-REM
 Highly associated with Dreaming
 Pardoxical Sleep – both asleep and highly
aroused
*Awake and Alert

21. Sleep
 Sleep Architecture - represents the
cyclical pattern of sleep as it shifts
between the different stages

22. Dreams
 Impulses and desires of the id are
suppressed by the superego.
 Because the guards are down during
sleep, the unconscious has the
opportunity to act out and express the
hidden desires of the id.
 However, the desires of the id can, at
times, be so disturbing and even
psychologically harmful that a "censor"
comes into play and translates the id's

25. 4 Major Questions About Sleep
1. How much sleep?
 There is a gradual change in the total time
spent sleeping.
A. Infancy & Childhood
 Newborn – Approximately 17 hours (50%
in REM)
 Toddler – Approximately 10 hours (25-
30% in REM)
 Time spent in sleep and in REM gradually
declines

26. 4 Major Questions About Sleep
1. How much sleep?
B. Adolescence & Adulthood
 Maintain same amount of sleep time
 Approximately 7.5 hours a day (same
amount of REM sleep, 20% or less)
 However, adolescents need more sleep
(about 10 hours) to aid body changes in
puberty stage
C. Old Age
 Total sleep time drops to about 6.5 hours
a day, but same amount of REM sleep

28. 4 Major Questions About Sleep
2. Why do I sleep?
 1/3 of each day in sleep
A. Repair Theory
 Day-time activities deplete key factors in
brain or body that are repaired in sleep
 Sleep is a restorative process

29. 4 Major Questions About Sleep
2. Why do I sleep?
B. Adaptive Theory
 Sleep evolved to prevent early humans
and animals from wasting energy and
exposing themselves to nocturnal
predators
 Humans have little night vision so sleep
is evolved to avoid becoming prey

30. 4 Major Questions About Sleep
3. What if I miss sleep?
 Physiological functions (e.g. heart
rate, blood pressure, hormones
secretion) are not significantly
disrupted
 Affects immune system
 Interfere with performance and cause
moodiness

31. 4 Major Questions About
Sleep
4. What causes sleep?
 „Master Switch‟ found in VPN
(Ventrolateral Preoptic Nucleus)
 Sleep and awake involve a complex
interaction between circadian
rhythms, brain areas, sleep-inducing
chemicals, and body temperature

32. 4 Major Questions About
Sleep
4. What causes sleep?
 VPN – nucleus in hypothalamus that acts
as master switch for sleep
o On – VPN secretes GABA
(neurotransmitter that turns off areas
that keeps the brain awake)
• Reticular Formation – one of areas
turned off. A column of cells that
stretches the length of the brain
stem, arouses and alerts the forebrain
(receive and process info. from
senses)
o Off – Certain brain areas become active

33. Rythms of Sleeping and
Waking
Biological Clocks
 Internal timing devices that regulates
physiological responses for different
periods of time.
Circadian Rhythms
 physical, mental and behavioral changes
that follow a roughly 24-hour
cycle, responding primarily to light and
darkness in an organism‟s environment

34. Rythms of Sleeping and
Waking
Circadian Rhythms
 regulates sleep-wake cycle, hormone
release, body temperature and other
important bodily functions
 controlled by the Master Clock that
consists of a group of nerve cells in the
brain called the suprachiasmatic
nucleus, or SCN
 Suprachiasmatic Nucleus – regulates
secretion of melatonin

36. Sleep Disorders
 Somnambulism/Sleep Walking –
sitting, walking or performing complex
behavior while sleeping.
 Night Terrors – extreme fear, agitation or
screaming while asleep. A state of panic
experienced when sound asleep.
 Restless Leg Syndrome –
uncomfortable sensations in legs causing
movement and loss of sleep
 Nocturnal Leg Cramps – painful cramps
in calf or foot muscles

37. Sleep Disorders
 Circadian Rhythms Disorders –
disturbances of sleep-wake cycle such as
jet lag and work shifts.
Jet Lag – experienced by travelers whose
internal clock is not synced with the
external clock time in their new
location, which results in
fatigue, disorientation, lack of
concentration and reduced cognitive
skills

38. Sleep Disorders
 Hypersomnia – Excessive day time
sleepiness
 Enuresis – urinating while asleep in bed
 Insomnia – inability to get to sleep, stay
asleep or get good quality sleep.
 Sleep Apnea – consist of loud snoring
and stopped breathing.
 Nacrolepsy – consist of sudden onset of
REM sleep during otherwise waking
hours.

39. References
Ciccarelli, S. & White, J. (2012). Psychology (3rd.
Ed.). Upper Sadle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Cherry, K. (2013). What is Consciousness.
About.com. Retrieved, July 1, 2013, from:
http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsci
ousness/f/consciousness.htm
Dietrich, A. (2007). Introduction to
Consciousness. New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan
Dream Moods. (2012). Dream Theorists:
Sigmund Freud. Dreammoods.com.
Retrieved, July 20, 2013, from:
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformatio

40. References
McLeod, S. (2009). Unconscious Mind.
SimplyPsychology. Retrieved, July
1, 2013, from:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-
mind.html
Peters, B. (2011). What is sleep architecture?.
About.com. Retrieved, July 18, 2013, from:
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/doihaveasl
eepdisorder/a/What-Is-Sleep-Architecture.htm
Plotnik, R. (1998). Introduction to Psychology (5th
Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing
Company.
National Sleep Foundation. (2013). How much
sleep do we really need?.
NationalSleepFoundation.org. Retrieved, July