Module 4

C O N S C I O U S N E S S, S L E E P A N D D R E A M S

Have you ever wondered why we need to sleep? Or for that matter, what do dreams really mean?
For us to be able to find answers to these questions, we must first understand what consciousness is.
Consciousness is the complex process of keeping track of, and evaluating our environment, and then
filtering that information through our minds. Consciousness enables us to engage in telephone
conversations while watching TV and is also the storehouse of imagery and fantasies.

NEWS ARTICLE #1

The advertisement read: "We are looking for a hardy subject to live alone in an underground cave
for four months. We'll provide board, room, and a monthly allowance. It will be necessary to take
physiological measurements, measure brain waves, and collect blood samples."

Twenty people answered this ad, but researchers selected Stefania because she seemed to have
inner strength, motivation, and stamina to complete the entire four months. On the chosen day, Stefania
crawled 30 feet underground with her favorite books into a 20-by 12-foot Plexiglas module, which had
been sealed off from sunlight, radio, television, and other time cues.

During her first month underground, Stefania's concentration seemed to come and go. She
appeared depressed, and she snapped at researchers when they asked her to do routine measurements.
She had strange dreams, for example, that her computer monitor had turned into a TV that was talking
to her. After several months, however, she became more comfortable with her underground isolation.
She followed a regular routine of taking her body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure and typing
the results onto a computer monitor, her only link with the outside world.

Without clocks, radio, television, or the sun, Stefania found it difficult to keep track of time,
which seemed to have slowed down. When told she could leave her underground cave because her 130
days were up, she felt certain she had been underground only about 60 days. Her time underground
allowed researchers to closely monitor her sleeping and waking behaviors in the absence of all light and
time cues.

Adapted from Newsweek, June 5, 1989

Objectives:

At the end of this module, it is assumed that you will be able to:
1. Define consciousness and altered states of consciousness
2. Distinguish the different theories concerning the function of sleep and dreams; and,
3. Discuss the role of sleep and dreams in humans.

Introduction:

Consciousness refers to different levels of awareness of one's thoughts and feelings. It may include
creating images in one's mind, following one's thought processes, or having unique emotional experiences,
all of which are part of consciousness.
Continuum of consciousness

One way for you to know that you are conscious is that you are aware of your own thoughts and
existence. However, this awareness is actually a continuum. The continuum of consciousness refers to a
wide range of experiences, from being acutely aware and alert to being totally unaware and unresponsive.
The continuum of consciousness ranges from controlled processes to unconsciousness.

Different States

Controlled Processes
activities that require full awareness, alertness and concentration to reach some goal.
The focused attention required in carrying out controlled processes usually interferes with
the execution of other ongoing activities. (Ex. Using a cellphone increases the chances of
having a collision by 25%)

Automatic Processes
activities that require little awareness take minimal attention, and do not interfere
with other ongoing activities. (Ex. Eating while reading)

Daydreaming
is an activity that requires a low level of awareness, often occurs during automatic
processes, and involves fantasizing or dreaming while awake.

Altered States
results from any number of procedures such as meditation, psychoactive drugs
hypnosis, or sleep deprivation, to produce an awareness that differs from normal
consciousness.

Sleep and dreams

sleep consists of five different stages that involve different levels of aware ness,
consciousness, and responsive ness, as well as different levels of physiological arousal. The
deepest state of sleep borders on unconsciousness.
Dreaming is a unique state of consciousness in which we are asleep but experience a
variety of astonishing visual, auditory, and tactile images, often connected in strange ways
and often in color. People blind from birth have only auditory and tactile dreams.

Unconscious
according to Freud's theory, when we are faced with very threatening wishes or
desires, especially if they are sexual or aggressive, we automatically defend our self-esteem
by placing these psychologically threatening thoughts into a mental place called the
unconscious, from which these thoughts cannot be voluntarily recalled.
The cognitive unconscious consists of mental and emotional processes that we are
unaware of but that bias and influence our conscious feelings, thoughts and behavior.

The World of Sleep

Stages of sleep refer to distinctive changes in electrical activity of the brain and accompanying
physiological responses of the body that occur as you pass through different phases of sleep

Alpha Stage - before entering sleep, you briefly pass through a relaxed and drowsy state.
 Stage 1- the lightest stage of sleep, a transition from wakefulness to sleep and lasts 1-7
minutes. In it, you gradually lose responsiveness to stimuli and experience drifting thoughts
and images.

Stage 2 - marks the beginning of what we know as sleep.

Stage 3 and 4 - about 30-45 minutes after drifting into sleep, you pass through stage 3 and
then enter stage 4 which is often considered as the deepest sleep because it is the most
difficult from which to be awakened. During stage 4, heart rate, respiration, temperature,
and blood flow to the brain are reduced, and there is marked secretion of GH (growth
hormone), which controls metabolism, physical growth, and brain development.

REM sleep - makes up 20% of sleep time. It stands for 'rapid eye movement' because your
eyes move rapidly back and forth behind closed lids. During REM, your body is
physiologically aroused, but all your voluntary muscles are paralyzed, called paradoxical
sleep. REM sleep is highly associated with dreaming,

Why do we sleep?

We usually spend one-third of each day asleep. The most obvious question is, why do we sleep? We
will look into two theories that try to answer this question:

Repair Theory - suggests that activities during the day deplete key factors in our brain or body that
are replenished or repaired by sleep. The repair theory says that sleep is primarily a restorative
process.

Adaptive Theory - suggests that sleep evolved because it prevented early humans and animals from
wasting energy and exposing themselves to the dangers of nocturnal predators.

What if I miss sleep?

Let's say that you feel that 24 hours a day is not enough to accomplish all the things you plan to do.
Or, you decided that since you will miss out on a lot of happenings if you sleep for 6 to 8 hours a night, you
would shorten it to 2 hours. What then will be the effect of this sleep deprivation? There are two major
effects of sleep deprivation:

• Effects on the body - sleep deprivation, even for 11 days, has minimal effects on a person's heart
rate, blood pressure, and hormone secretions. However, sleep deprivation does affect our immune
system, which is the body's defense against viruses, infections, and other toxic agents. Researchers
conclude that for most people, sleep deprivation could mean vulnerability to some viral or bacterial
infection.

• Effects on the nervous system - sleep deprivation has consistently been shown to interfere with tasks
that require vigilance and concentration. People who are sleep-deprived report an intense desire to
sleep, which can interfere with attending classes or driving. Sleep deprivation causes irritability and
unhappiness. Thus, depending on its extent, sleep deprivation can interfere with performance and
cause moodiness.
The World of Dreams

What do dreams mean? Let's try this short exercise before we explain what dreams are and their meanings:

Let's take a dream and see how we can interpret it.

I am in an elevator sitting by myself against a wall. I A girl comes in, and I say, "come and sit by
me," and I I she sits by me. (I don't even know her). I lean over and I I try to kiss her, and she says, "No,
don't do that." I say, I | "How come?" and she says something about her acne, 1 i and I say it doesn't
matter and she laughs and we end I I up kissing and stuff in the elevator. Then these parents I I get on,
and the elevator is real shaky, and I think that I I the elevator will crash or get stuck.

Then I wake up.

Adapted from Plotnik (1999).

Dream Interpretation

▪ Freud and Dreams

Freud's theory of dreams says that we have a 'censor' that protects us from realizing
threatening and unconscious desires or wishes, especially those involving sex and aggression. To
protect us from having threatening thoughts, the 'censor' transforms our secret, guilt-ridden,
and anxiety - provoking desires into harmless symbols that appear in our dreams and do not
disturb our sleep or conscious thoughts.

▪ Extensions of waking life

Many therapists believe that dreams are extensions of waking life. The theory that dreams
are extensions of waking life means that our dreams reflect the same thoughts, fears, concerns,
problems and emotions present when awake.

▪ Activation-Synthesis Theory

According to J. Alan Hobson and Robert McCarley dreaming represents the random and
meaningless activity of nerve cells in the brain. According to this theory, an area in the brain,
called the 'pons,' sends millions of random nerve impulses to the cortex. In turn, the cortex tries
to make sense of these random signals by creating feelings, imagined movements, perceptions,
changing scenes, and meaningless images that we define as dreams.

However, Hobson has somewhat revised this theory later on. He acknowledged that dreams may
have deep personal significance. He now believes that the images and feelings that our cortex imposes on
millions of incoming neural signals reflect our past memories, bodily states, strong hopes and fears, and
our own personal view of the world.

Whichever theory you believe in does not disregard the fact that dreams are important. In studies
on sleep deprivation, whenever subjects are deprived of REM sleep, they compensate by dreaming longer
the next day. So back to our sample dream, can you interpret the dream using the three theories?
What do people dream about?

Typical dreams have the following characteristics;

▪ they have several characters

▪ they involve motions such as running and walking
▪ they are more likely to take place indoors than out
▪ they are filled with visual sensations but rarely include sensations of taste, smell or pain
▪ they seem bizarre because they disregard physical laws by flying or falling without injury
▪ they may be recurrent - example: dreams of being threatened, being pursued, or trying to
hide
▪ they frequently involve emotions of anxiety or fear than joy or happiness
▪ they rarely involve sexual encounters and are almost never about sexual intercourse
▪ rarely can we dream about something we intend to
▪ they are usually in color in sighted people and are auditory or tactile in blind people

SORRY, FREUD, DREAMS AREN'T CONFLICT RESOLVERS

by Nicholas Wade

New measurements taken from sleeping people explain, at least in part, why dreams tend to have such bizarre
but vivid storylines. The findings deal a blow to the Freudian interpretation of dreams but leave open the possibility
that some useful personal meaning can be extracted from them. The main purpose of dreams, however, the authors of
the new study believe, is to test whether the brain has had enough sleep, and if so, to wake it up.
The new results show that in sleep, the frontal lobes of the brain are shut down. In the absence of activity in
these lobes, which integrate other information and make sense of the outside world, the sleeping brain's images are
driven by its emotional centers. The content of these dreams may be vivid and gripping but lacks coherence.
The new results are consistent with the theory that memories are consolidated during sleep. From the pattern
of activity that was recorded, "it seems that memories already in the system are being read out and filed in terms of
their emotional salience, which is an extremely interesting idea," said Dr. J. Alan Hobson of the Harvard Medical School.
The new measurements were made by applying a technique known as PET scanning to sleeping subjects.
Biologists focused on two forms of sleep, known as 'slow- wave sleep' and REM sleep.' REM sleep, so named because of
rapid eyeball movements that occur then, takes place about four times during the night and is the phase from which the
most vivid dreams are recalled. During REM sleep, the primary visual cortex is shut down, along with other input areas
that relay information from the senses. The primary visual cortex is the area in the back of the head where information
from the eyes first reaches the cortex. The sleeping brain is thus cut off from its usual stream of information from the
outside world. Also offline during REM sleep are the brain's frontal lobes. These include many of the higher centers of
thought and action, including working memory, the planning and executive function, and the centers that integrate data
from other regions of the brain. Much of the rest of the brain, including the centers that handle emotions and laying
down of long-term memories, are highly active during REM sleep.

Source: New York Times News Service, appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune, January 7, 1998.

References:

Pinel, John P. Biopsychology, 3rd ed. Allyn & Bacon, 1997.

Plotnik, Rod. Introduction to Psychology, 5th ed. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999.

Sdorow, Lester M. Psychology 3rd ed. Radison: Brown and Rechmark, 1990.

Sternberg, Robert J. Introduction to Psychology. Philadelphia: Harcourt Brace, 1997.