States of Unconscious

Sleep

-sleep is a state of consciousness
-we are less aware of our surroundings

• conscious
• subconscious
• unconscious

Why do we daydream?

• can help us prepare for future events
• they can nourish our social development
• can substitute for impulsive behavior

Fantasy Prone Personalities: someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing.

Biological Rhythms:
-Annual cycles: seasonal variations
-28 day cycles: menstrual cycle
-24 hour cycle: our circadian rhythm
-90 minute cycle: sleep cycles

Circadian Rhythm:
-24 hour biological clock
-body temperature and awareness changes throughout the day.

Sleep Stages:
-5 identified
-takes about 90-100 minutes to pass through 5 stages
-brain's waves will change according to the sleep stage
-first 4 known as NREM
-5th is known as REM sleep

Dreams: a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind.

Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a dream.

Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream.

Why do we dream?

Freud's Wishful-Fulfillment Theory:
-dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts.
-ideas and thoughts tat are hidden in our unconscious

Information-Processing Theory:
-dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day
-REM sleep does increase after stressful events.

Activation-Synthesis Theory:
-during the night, out brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.

Hypnosis: 

•Altered state of consciousness?

•Posthypnotic suggestion

•Posthypnotic amnesia

Dissociation Theory:

•Theory by Ernest Hilgard.

•We voluntarily divide our consciousness up.

•Ice Water Experiment.

•We have a hidden observer, a level of us that is always aware.

 

Role Theory:

•Hypnosis is NOT an altered state of consciousness.

•Different people have various state of hypnotic suggestibility.

•A social phenomenon where people want to believe.

•Work better on people with richer fantasy lives.

   

State Theory:

•Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness.

•Dramatic health benefits

•It works for pain best.