Transcript Altered States

Altered States of Conscious
Consciousness
• Waking Consciousness
– Alert
– Aware
– Think, feel, sense and act
• Altered States
– Alertness drops
– Awareness lessens
EEG Waves of Wakefulness
• Awake, but
non-attentive large, regular
alpha waves
• Awake and
attentive - low
amplitude, fast,
irregular beta
waves
Awake, nonattentive
1 second
Alpha waves
Awake, attentive
Beta waves
1 second
Altered States Of Consciousness
• Altered States
– Intentional/Deliberate
• Drug Usage
• Hypnosis
• Meditation
• Alternative States
– Natural and
Spontaneous
– Occur without intent
• Sleep
• Dreaming
• Daydreaming
Functions of Sleep
• Restoration theory - body wears out during
the day and sleep is necessary to put it back
in shape
• Preservation and protection theory - sleep
emerged in evolution to preserve energy
and protect during the time of day when
there is little value and considerable danger
Sleep
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Necessary for physical and emotional well-being
Needed for muscle restoration
Needed for memory consolidation
Average amount of sleep depends on the person but
8 hours for most
EXAMPLES OF TOTAL DAILY SLEEP TIME
IN MAMMALS
Mammal
Total Daily Sleep Time (in hours)
Giraffe
1.9
Roe deer
3.09
Asiatic elephant
3.1
Pilot whale
5.3
Man
8.0
Baboon
9.4
Domestic cat
12.5
Laboratory rat raffe
13.0
Lion
13.5
Eastern chipmunk
15.8
Little brown bat
19.9
Causes of Sleep
• Pineal Gland
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Triggered by the Reticular Activating System
Associated to seratonin triggering sleep hormone
Releases Melatonin that causes sleep
Light affects melatonin release
Circadian Rhythm
• Natural body clock
• 25 Hour Clock
• Jet lag is caused by the rhythm being off from the
standard schedule
• Monday morning blues are caused by staying up late
and changing your circadian rhythm
Types of Sleep
• NREM
– 1-4
– Light to Deep sleep
• REM
• We cycle through the stages 4-5 times a
night
• Cycles lasts 90 minutes and changes as
the nights goes along
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
• Electrodes placed
on the scalp provide
a gross record of the
electrical activity of
the brain
• EEG recordings are
a rough index of
psychological states
Sleep Stages
• STAGE 1 – Alpha Waves- Hypnogogic sleep Jerk awake
– Alpha activity decreases, activation is scarce, and the EEG consists mostly
of low voltage, mixed frequency activity, much of it at 3-7 Hz. REMs are
absent, but slow rolling eye movements appear. The EMG is mod. to low.
• STAGE 2- 50% of sleep – Theta Waves
– Against a continuing background of low voltage, mixed frequency activity,
bursts of distinctive 12-14 Hz sinusoidal waves called "sleep spindles"
appear in the EEG. Eye movements are rare, and the EMG is low to
moderate.
• STAGE 3 – Theta and Delta Waves
– High amplitude (>75 mV), slow (0.5-2 Hz) waves called "delta
waves" appear in the EEG; EOG and EMG continue as before
– blood pressure drops; breathing slower; energy regained; and
hormones are released for growth and development in both 3
and 4 (25% of sleep)
Sleep Stages
• STAGE 4- Delta Waves
– There is a quantitative increase in delta
waves so that they come to dominate the
EEG tracing.
– Stage becomes shorter as the night goes on
– Deep Sleep
– Often difficult to wake
– Night Terrors and sleepwalking
REM Sleep
• First occurs about 90 minutes after falling asleep and
increases over later part of night
• Necessary for providing energy to brain and body; brain is
active and dreams occur as eyes dart back and forth
• Bodies become immobile and relaxed; muscles shut down
– Paradoxical Sleep
• Breathing and heart rate may become irregular; important to
daytime performance and may contribute to memory
consolidation
• Most dreams and nightmares occur in REM
• 25% of sleep
• REM periods get longer as the night goes on
• REM sleep decreases as we age
REM Rebound
• When regular REM sleep is denied due to
drugs/alcohol or staying up causes
excessive REM the next night
• Often irregular or excessive dreaming
Tips for good sleep
• Avoid caffeine (coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate)
and nicotine (cigarettes, tobacco products) close to
bedtime.
• Avoid alcohol as it can lead to disrupted sleep.
• Exercise regularly, but complete your workout at
least 3 hours before bedtime.
• Establish a regular relaxing, not alerting, bedtime
routine (e.g. taking a bath or relaxing in a hot tub).
• Create a sleep-conducive environment that is dark,
quiet and preferably cool and comfortable.
Sleep Problems
• Somnambulism - sleepwalking
• Nightmares - frightening dreams that wake a
sleeper from REM
• Night terrors - sudden arousal from sleep and
intense fear accompanied by physiological
reactions (e.g., rapid heart rate, perspiration)
that occur during slow-wave sleep
Sleep Disorders
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Insomnia
Sleep Apnea
Narcolepsy
Cataplexy
Bruxism
– Teeth grinding
• Myoclonus
– Leg kicking
• SIDS
• Incubus Nightmare
Insomnia
• 1/3 of Americans suffer each night from insomnia
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stress or excitement
Distorted circadian rhythm
Use of stimulants
Depression
Anxiety
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concentrating on something else
Better sleep schedule
Avoiding stimulants
Relaxation training
• Often leads individuals down the sleeping pill path
– Drug dependency insomnia
Sleep Apnea
• Sleep apnea is a breathing disorder characterized by brief interruptions
of breathing during sleep.
• It owes its name to a Greek word, apnea, meaning “want of breath.”
• There are two types of sleep apnea: central and obstructive.
– Central sleep apnea, which is less common, occurs when the brain fails
to send the appropriate signals to the breathing muscles to initiate
respirations.
– Obstructive sleep apnea is far more common and occurs when air cannot
flow into or out of the person’s nose or mouth although efforts to
breathe continue.
• Breathing pauses are almost always accompanied by snoring between
apnea episodes, although not everyone who snores has this condition.
• The frequent interruptions of deep, restorative sleep often leads to
excessive daytime sleepiness and may be associated with an early
morning headache.
Narcolepsy
• Uncontrollable sleepiness
• Suddenly fall asleep inappropriately
• Recent discoveries indicate that people with
narcolepsy lack a chemical in the brain
called hypocretin, which normally
stimulates arousal and helps regulate sleep.
• Often treated with stimulants
Cataplexy
• Daytime REM-like paralysis
• Uncontrollable paralysis often associated
with excitement/intense emotion
• May be in conjunction with narcolepsy
Consciousness and Its Variations
• Dreams and Mental Activity During Sleep
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The Brain During REM Sleep
REM and Memory Consolidation
What Do We Dream About?
Why Don’t We Remember Our Dreams?
Nightmares
Lucid Dreams
The Significance of Dreams
• Sigmund Freud: Dreams as Fulfilled Wishes
• The Activation-Synthesis Model of Dreaming
• Some Observations About the Meaning of Dreams
Dreams and REM Sleep
• Everyone dreams several times a night
– true dream - vivid, detailed dreams consisting of
sensory and motor sensations experienced during
REM
– sleep thought - lacks vivid sensory and motor
sensations, is more similar to daytime thinking,
and occurs during slow-wave sleep
Dreams and REM Sleep
• What are true dreams for?
• Although research has yet to answer this question, a
prevalent view today is that dreams don’t serve any
purpose at all, but are side effects of REM
– to exercise groups of neurons during sleep
– some are in perceptual and motor areas
• REM occurs in other mammals and to a much greater
extent in fetuses and infants than adults
• REM sleep may help consolidate memories
Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis
• Allan Hobson and Robert
McCarley
• The brain is activated during
sleep and then generates and
integrates (synthesizes its own
sensory and motor information
• Explains how external sounds
enter our dreams
• We are trying to make sense of
all the sensory data hitting us
and thoughts from the day and
combining them
Psychodynamic Dream Theory
• Freud and Jung
– Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
• Wish fulfillment of repressed thoughts
– Dreams allow us a safe place to see our wishes and desires fulfilled
without societal retribution or ego damage
• Dream symbols
– Manifest symbols
• Obvious symbols that are acceptable to our superego
– Latent
• Hidden symbols represent others or things that are not acceptable and must
remain hidden to protect the ego from guilt
– Condensation
• Single character may represent several people – like authority figures
– Displacement – redirect to a safe outlet
• Angry at parents – wrecks car in dream
– Symbolization
– Secondary elaboration- adding logical sequence to dream and add detail
Lucid Dreaming
• Stephen Le Berge
– Stanford Sleep Center
• To become aware that you are dreaming
• Potential to control and direct your dreams
to solve problems or make sleep more
pleasant
Hypnosis and Meditation
• Hypnosis
– Narrowed awareness and increased openness to suggestion
– Came from Franz Mesmer
• Cure disease by passing magnets over the body and used the power of
suggestion
– Inducing Hypnosis
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Focus attention on words
Relax and tired
Let go – accept suggestions
Use their vivid imagination
– Effects of Hypnosis
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Sensory and Perceptual Changes
Posthypnotic Suggestions
Habit Control
Memory
Pain Relief
Meditation
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There are various types of meditation
prayer is probably the best known,
TM (Transcendental Meditation)
Zen meditation
Buddhist meditation
Taoist meditation
Biofeedback
Commonalities
• All these practices have one thing in common
• they all focus on quieting the busy mind
• The intention is not to remove stimulation but rather to
direct your concentration to one healing element
• one sound – Transcendental Meditation
– Ohm - Mantra
• one image – Mandela
• one's breath - Zen
• Biofeedback - previously seemed an impossible degree of
control over a variety of physiologic events.
• When the mind is "filled" with the feeling of calm and peace,
it cannot take off on its own and worry, stress out, or get
depressed.
Benefits of Meditation
• Brings about a healthy state of relaxation by
causing a generalized reduction in multiple
physiological and biochemical markers
• decreased heart rate
• decreased respiration rate
• decreased plasma cortisol (a major stress
hormone)
• decreased pulse rate
• increased EEG (electroencephalogram) alpha, a
brain wave associated with relaxation.
Psychoactive Drugs
• Psychoactive Drugs
– Common Properties of Psychoactive Drugs
• Biological Effects of Drugs
• Psychological and Environmental Influences
– Why Do People Abuse Drugs?
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To alter their current state of reality (consciousness)
To be someone else
To change how you feel
To forget
To relax
To party
Psychoactive Drugs
• Drugs can cause two types of dependency
– Physical
• Need the drug to feel physically better
• Withdrawals can occur which are unpleasant
– Shakes, fever, vomiting, cold sweats, pain and cramps
• Tolerance – needing more of the drug to achieve the same results (high)
• Physical dependence can be broken in a short period depending on the drug
– Psychological
• Need for the drug to maintain emotional or psychological well-being
• Rewarding qualities of the drug reinforce its usage
• Most psychologists like to define addiction as any compulsive habit pattern
used to make the feel emotionally better or allows them to cope
• Psychological addiction can take a lifetime to break
Types of Usage
• Drugs usage can be classified in 5 way
– Experimental
• Onetime curiosity
– Social-recreational
• Occasional for pleasure or recreation
– Situational
• To stay up, to relieve boredom, or to grieve a loss
– Intensive
• Daily use
– Compulsive
• Intense use and extreme dependency
• The Depressants
– Alcohol, Barbiturates, and Inhalants
• The Opiates
– Poppies, Demerol, Heroin and Morphine
• The Stimulants
– Caffeine, Nicotine, Amphetamines, and
Cocaine
• Psychedelic Drugs
– Mescaline, LSD, Peyote, PCP and Marijuana
Effects of Alcohol
• In low doses,
alcohol produces:
• a relaxing effect
• reduces tension
• lowers inhibitions
• impairs concentration
• slows reflexes
• impairs reaction time
• reduces coordination
• In medium doses,
alcohol produces:
• slur speech
• cause drowsiness
• alter emotions
• In high doses,
alcohol produces:
• vomiting
• breathing difficulties
• unconsciousness
• coma
Alcohol
• Chronic drinking can lead to dependence and
addiction to alcohol and to additional neurological
problems.
• Typical symptoms of withholding alcohol from
someone who is addicted to it are shaking
(tremors), sleep problems and nausea.
• More severe withdrawal symptoms include
hallucinations and even seizures.
Marijuana
• Whether marijuana can produce addiction is controversial.
• Also controversial is whether marijuana causes long-term
mental abnormalities.
• It is interesting to note that there are NO documented cases
of a fatal overdose produced by marijuana.
• However, because there is a high level of tar and other
chemicals in marijuana, smoking it is similar to smoking
cigarettes.
• The lungs get a big dose of chemicals that increase the
chances of lung problems and cancer later in life.
Effects of Marijuana
• In low to medium doses,
marijuana causes:
• relaxation
• reduced coordination
• reduced blood pressure
• sleepiness
• disruption in attention
• an altered sense of time and
space...a good reason not to
drive or operate machinery
while under the influence.
• In high doses,
marijuana can cause:
• hallucinations
• delusions
• impaired memory
• disorientation.
LSD
• The behavioral effects that LSD can produce include:
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Feelings of "strangeness"
Vivid colors
Hallucinations
Confusion, panic, psychosis, anxiety
Emotional reactions like fear, happiness or sadness
Distortion of the senses and of time and space
"Flashback" reactions - these are the effects of LSD that occur
even after the user has not taken LSD for months or even years.
• Increases in heart rate and blood pressure
• Chills
• Muscle weakness
Heroin
• Short Term Effects
• Analgesia (reduced pain)
• Brief euphoria (the "rush" or
feeling of well-being)
• Nausea
• Sedation, drowsiness
• Reduced anxiety
• Hypothermia
• Reduced respiration; breathing
difficulties
• Reduced coughing
• Death due to overdose - often
the exact purity and content of
the drug is not known to the
user. An overdose can cause
respiration problems and coma
• Long Term Effects
• Tolerance: more and more drug
is needed to produce the
euphoria and other effects on
behavior.
• Addiction:
• psychological and
physiological need for
heroin. People are
driven to get more
heroin and feel bad if
they do not get it.
• People begin to crave
heroin 4 to 6 hours after
their last injection.
Heroin
Withdrawal
• About 8-12 hours after their last heroin dose,
addicts' eyes tear, they yawn and feel anxious and
irritable.
• Excessive sweating, fever, stomach and muscle
cramps, diarrhea and chills can follow several hours
later.
• These withdrawal symptoms can continue for 1 to 3
days after the last dose and can last 7 to 10 days. In
some cases, full recovery can take even longer.
Methadone
• Methadone is a drug that blocks the effects
of heroin and has been used for several
decades to treat heroin addiction.
• Methadone can be swallowed (rather than
injected) and it blocks heroin withdrawal
symptoms and does not have euphoric or
sedative effects.
Effects of Cocaine
• A dose of between 25 to•
150 mg of cocaine is
taken when it is inhaled.
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Within a few seconds to
a few minutes after it is
taken, cocaine can
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• excitement
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• reduced hunger
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• a feeling of strength
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After this "high" which lasts about one hour,
users of cocaine may "crash" into a period of
depression.
Crash causes cocaine users to seek more
cocaine to get out of this depression and results
in addiction.
Withdrawal from cocaine can cause the addict
to feel depressed, anxious, and paranoid.
Various doses of cocaine can also produce
neurological and behavioral problems like:
dizziness
headache
movement problems
anxiety
insomnia
depression
hallucinations