Unit Test Material Week 7 PDF

# Different Levels of Consciousness So far, we have discussed only one of the levels of consciousness—the level at which people are aware of something and are aware of their awareness. But many psychologists speak of other levels of consciousness. These include the preconscious level, the unconscio...

# Different Levels of Consciousness So far, we have discussed only one of the levels of consciousness—the level at which people are aware of something and are aware of their awareness. But many psychologists speak of other levels of consciousness. These include the preconscious level, the unconscious level, and the nonconscious level. At these levels of consciousness, awareness is considerably more limited. ## The Preconscious Level What if someone asked you what you wore to school yesterday? Or what you did after school? Although you were not consciously thinking about any of this information before you were asked about it, you will probably be able to come up with the answers. Preconscious ideas are not in your awareness now, but you could recall them. You can make these preconscious bits of information conscious by directing your inner awareness, or attention, to them. ## The Unconscious Level Sigmund Freud theorized that people have an unconscious mind. Information stored in the unconscious (sometimes called the subconscious) is unavailable to awareness under most circumstances. In other words, this information is hidden from the conscious mind. ## The Nonconscious Level Many of our basic biological functions exist on a nonconscious level. For example, even if you tried, you could not sense your fingernails growing or your hair growing. You know that you are breathing in and out, but you cannot actually feel the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen. You blink when you step from the dark into the light, but you cannot feel your pupils growing smaller. It may be just as well that these events are non-conscious. After all, how much can a person hope to keep in mind at once? ### Altered States of Consciousness The word consciousness sometimes refers to the waking state—the state in which a person is awake. There are also altered states of consciousness, in which a person's sense of self or sense of the world changes. When you doze off, you are no longer conscious of what is going on around you even though, when awakened, you may claim you haven't missed a thing. Sleep is one altered state of consciousness. Other altered states of consciousness can occur through meditation, biofeedback, and hypnosis. The rest of this chapter explores, among other topics, these altered states of consciousness, including the effects of drugs on consciousness. ## Freud’s Levels of Consciousness | Level | Description | | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | Conscious Level | Perceptions, thoughts | | Preconscious Level | Memories, stored knowledge | | Unconscious Level | Selfish needs, immoral urges, fears, violent motives | To Freud, consciousness is like an iceberg. Many memories, impulses, and feelings exist below the level of conscious awareness. ## The Stages of Sleep Sleep researchers have discovered that we sleep in stages. Sleep stages are defined in terms of brain-wave patterns, which can be measured by an electroencephalograph (EEG). Brain waves are cyclical, and they vary on the basis of whether we are awake, relaxed, or sleeping. Four different brain-wave patterns include the following: beta waves, alpha waves, theta waves, and delta waves. ### Stage 1 Stage 1 is the stage of lightest sleep. As we enter stage 1 sleep, our brain waves slow down from the alpha rhythm to the slower pattern of theta waves. This transition may be accompanied by brief images that resemble vivid photographs. Because stage 1 sleep is light, if we are awakened during this stage, we will probably recall these images and feel as if we have not slept at all. ### Stage 2, 3, and 4 If we are not awakened, we remain in stage 1 sleep no more than 30 to 40 minutes. Then we move into sleep stages 2, 3, and 4. During stages 3 and 4, sleep is deep, and the brain produces delta waves—the slowest of the four patterns. Stage 4 is the stage of deepest sleep; it is the one during which someone would have the greatest difficulty waking us up. ### REM Sleep After perhaps half an hour of stage 4 sleep, we begin a relatively quick journey back to stage 3 to stage 2 to stage 1. About 90 minutes will have passed since we fell asleep. Now something strange happens. Suddenly, we breathe more irregularly, blood pressure rises, and the heart beats faster. Brain waves become similar to those of stage 1 sleep. Yet this is another stage of sleep—the stage called rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM sleep, because beneath our closed lids, our eyes are moving rapidly. The preceding four stages are known as non-rapid-eye-movement, or NREM, sleep because our eyes do not move as much during them. During a typical eight-hour night of sleep, most people go through these stages about five times, each of which constitutes one sleep cycle. As the night goes on, periods of REM sleep become longer. ## Hypnosis Hypnosis is a form of altered consciousness in which people become highly suggestible to changes in behavior and thought. By allowing the hypnotist to guide and direct them, people can be made conscious of things they are usually unaware of and unaware of things they usually notice. Participants may recall in vivid detail incidents they had forgotten or feel no pain when pricked with a needle. It happens in this way: At all times, certain sensations and thoughts are filtered out of our awareness. For example, as you read this sentence, you were probably not aware of the position of your feet until your attention was called to it. By mentioning the position of your feet, your attention shifted to your feet—an area of your body that seconds before was outside your consciousness. Hypnosis shifts our perceptions in the same way. Hypnosis does not put the participant to sleep. Rather, during a hypnotic trance participants remain awake but become highly receptive to certain internal and external stimuli. They are able to focus attention on one tiny aspect of reality and ignore all others. To induce a trance the hypnotist slowly persuades a participant to relax and to lose interest in other external distractions. This may take a few minutes or much longer depending on the purpose of the hypnosis, the method of induction used by the hypnotist, and the participant’s past experiences with hypnosis. In an environment of trust, a participant with a rich imagination can become susceptible to the hypnotist’s suggestions. Psychologists using hypnosis stress that the relationship between hypnotist and participant should involve cooperation, not domination. The participant is not under the hypnotist’s control but can be convinced to do things he or she would not normally do. The person is simply cooperating with the hypnotist. Together they try to solve a problem or to learn more about how the participant’s mind works. Anyone can resist hypnosis by refusing to open his or her mind to the hypnotist. Furthermore, people under hypnosis cannot be induced to do things against their will. Mutual trust is important for hypnosis to be successful. ## Uses of Hypnosis While hypnosis is often seen as a part of an entertainment act, it has serious uses in medical and therapeutic settings. Hypnosis may be used to reduce pain. Hypnotic analgesia refers to a reduction of pain reported by patients after they had undergone hypnosis. Hypnotists can suggest things for their participants to remember or forget when the trance is over. This is known as posthypnotic suggestion. For example, the hypnotist can suppress memory by suggesting that after the person is awakened, she will be unable to hear the word psychology. When she comes out of the trance, the participant may report that some people around her are speaking strangely. They seem to leave out some words occasionally, especially when they are talking about topics involving the taboo word psychology. The participant is not aware that part of her consciousness has been instructed to block out that word. Memory can also be aided or enhanced through posthypnotic suggestion. Posthypnotic suggestion has been found to be particularly helpful in changing unwanted behaviors, such as smoking or overeating. Olympic athletes use self-hypnosis to achieve peak performance. Many coaches and trainers recognize the importance of mental rehearsal prior to competition. Steps that athletes use include relaxing; setting specific, measurable short-term goals; visualizing the peak performance; and designing a plan of action that the athlete mentally rehearses when preparing to compete. Therapists use hypnosis to help clients reveal their problems or gain insight into their lives. For example, hypnotherapists use hypnosis to allow their patients to think of their problems in a new way. Hypnosis, though, is not for all patients. Some fear the loss of control associated with hypnosis. Therapists often combine hypnosis with other therapies to help patients work through their problems. ## Biofeedback and Meditation <start_of_image> Biofeedback is a technique in which a person learns to control his or her internal physiological processes with the help of feedback. For example, you can be hooked up to a biofeedback machine so that a light goes on every time your heart rate goes over 80. You could then learn to keep your heart rate below 80 by trying to keep the light off. Biofeedback has been used to teach people to control a wide variety of physiological responses, including brain waves, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and sweat-gland activity. The basic principle of biofeedback is simple. Feedback makes learning possible. Biofeedback involves using machines to tell people about very subtle, moment-to-moment changes in the body. When people are connected to the machines, they can experiment with different thoughts and feelings while they watch how each affects their bodies. In time, people can learn to change their physiological processes. Some of the best-documented biofeedback cures involve special training in muscular control. Tension headaches often seem to result from constriction of the frontalis muscle in the forehead. Thomas Budzynski and others used biofeedback to teach people to relax this specific muscle. The practice went on for several weeks, while other people were given similar treatments without biofeedback. Only the biofeedback group improved significantly. Biofeedback used without drugs seems to help many people. ## Meditation When a person focuses his or her attention on an image or thought with the goal of clearing the mind and producing relaxation, or an inner peace, that person is meditating. Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. There are three major approaches to meditation. * Transcendental meditation involves the mental repetition of a mantra, usually a Sanskrit phrase. The participant sits with eyes closed and meditates for 15 to 20 minutes twice a day. * Mindfulness meditation was developed from a Buddhist tradition. This form of meditation focuses on the present moment. For example, the participant may move his or her focus through the body from the tips of the toes to the top of the head, while paying particular attention to areas that cause pain. * Breath meditation is a concentration on one’s respiration—the process of inhaling and exhaling. Researchers generally agree that most people can benefit from the sort of systematic relaxation that meditation provides. Meditation may help people lower blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate. The issue is not clear-cut, however. The people who benefit from meditation continue to practice it. Thus, the reported benefits may come from a biased, self-selected sample of successful practitioners. Other data suggest that while meditating, some people may actually be sleeping. If so, the reported benefits of meditation may result simply from relaxation.