CHAPTER 7
States of Consciousness
Theme: Understanding states of consciousness can promote self-awareness and enhance personal effectiveness.
Preview
A Visit to Several States (of Consciousness)
In New Zealand, a Maori tohunga (priest) performs a nightlong ritual to talk to the spirits who created the world in the mythical period the Aborigines call Dreamtime.
In Toronto, Canada, three businessmen head for a popular tavern after a stressful day.
In the American Southwest, a Navajo elder gives his congregation peyote tea, a sacrament in the Native American Church, as a drumbeat resounds in the darkness.
In Northern Ireland, a nun living in a convent spends an entire week in silent prayer and contemplation.
In Los Angeles, California, an aspiring actor consults a hypnotist for help in reducing her stage fright.
In Berkeley, California, an artist spends 2 hours in a flotation chamber, to clear her head before resuming work on a large painting.
At a park in Amsterdam, a group of street musicians smoke a joint and sing for spare change.
In Tucson, Arizona, your author pours himself another cup of coffee.
What do all these people have in common? Each person seeks to alter consciousness—in different ways, to different degrees, and for different reasons. As these examples suggest, consciousness can take many forms. In the discussion that follows, we will begin with the familiar realms of sleep and dreaming and then move to more exotic states of consciousness.
¡ Consciousness and altered states of awareness are core features of mental life.
¡ Sleep is necessary for survival. It occurs in four stages, from shallow to deep, and two basic states, REM sleep and non-REM sleep.
¡ Sleep loss and sleep disorders are serious health problems that should be corrected when they persist.
¡ REM sleep helps us form memories, and it contributes to general mental effectiveness.
¡ Dreams are at least as meaningful as waking thoughts.
Whether they have deeper, symbolic meaning is still debated.
¡ Hypnosis is useful but not “magical.”Hypnosis can change private experiences more readily than behaviors or habits.
¡ Psychoactive drugs, which alter consciousness, are highly prone to abuse.
¡ Collecting and interpreting your dreams can promote self-awareness.
¡ Drug abuse is related to personal maladjustment, the reinforcing qualities of drugs, peer group influences, and expectations about drug effects.
Gateways to Consciousness
What is an altered state of consciousness?
What are the effects of sleep loss or changes in sleep patterns?
Are there different stages of sleep?
How does dream sleep differ from dreamless sleep?
What are the causes of sleep disorders and unusual sleep events?
Do dreams have meaning?
How is hypnosis done, and what are its limitations?
How does sensory deprivation affect consciousness?
What are the effects of the more commonly used psychoactive drugs?
How are dreams used to promote personal understanding?
Why is drug abuse so widespread?
Key Questions
States of Consciousness— The Many Faces of Awareness
To be conscious means to be aware. Consciousness consists of all the sensations, perceptions, memories, and feelings you are aware of at any instant (Farthing, 1992).We spend most of our lives in waking consciousness, a state of clear, organized alertness.
In waking consciousness we perceive times, places, and events as real, meaningful, and familiar. But states of consciousness related to fatigue, delirium, hypnosis, drugs, and euphoria may differ markedly from “normal” awareness. Everyone experiences at least some altered states, such as sleep, dreaming, and daydreaming. In everyday life, changes in consciousness may also accompany long-distance running, listening to music, making love, or other circumstances.
Altered States of Consciousness
How are altered states distinguished from normal awareness?
During an altered state of consciousness (ASC), changes occur in the quality and pattern of mental activity. Typically there are distinct shifts in our perceptions, emotions, memories, time sense, thoughts, feelings of self-control, and suggestibility (Tart, 1986). Definitions aside, most people know when they have experienced an ASC.
Are there other causes of ASCs? In addition to the ones mentioned, we could add: sensory overload (for example, a rave, Mardi Gras crowd, or mosh pit), monotonous stimulation (such as “highway hypnotism” on long drives), unusual physical conditions (high fever, hyperventilation, dehydration, sleep loss, near-death experiences), restricted sensory input, and many other possibilities. In some instances, altered states have important cultural meanings. (See “Consciousness and Culture” for more information.)
An unconscious person will die without constant care.Yet, as crucial as consciousness is, we can’t really explain how it occurs.
Nevertheless, it is possible to identify various states of consciousness and to explore the role they play in our lives. Let’s begin with a guided tour of sleep and dreaming.
Consciousness Mental awareness of sensations, perceptions, memories, and feelings.
Waking consciousness A state of normal, alert awareness.
Altered state of consciousness A condition of awareness distinctly different in quality or pattern from waking consciousness.
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Sleep—A Nice Place to Visit
Each of us will spend some 25 years of life asleep. Contrary to common belief, you are not totally unresponsive during sleep.
For instance, you are more likely to awaken if you hear your own name spoken, instead of another’s. Likewise, a sleeping mother may ignore a jet thundering overhead, but wake at the slightest whimper of her child. It’s even possible to do simple tasks while asleep. In one experiment, people learned to avoid an electric shock by touching a switch each time a tone sounded. Eventually, they could do it without waking. (This is much like the basic survival skill of turning off your alarm clock without waking.)
Of course, sleep does impose limitations. Don’t expect to learn math, a foreign language, or other complex skills while asleep (Druckman & Bjork, 1994;Wood et al., 1992).
Because sleep is familiar, many people think they know all about it. Before reading more, test your knowledge with the Sleep Quiz you see here. Were you surprised by any of the answers?
Let’s see what we know about our “daily retreat from the world.”
The Need for Sleep
How strong is the need for sleep? Sleep is an innate biological rhythm that can never be entirely ignored (Lavie, 2001). Of course, sleep will give way temporarily, especially at times of great danger. As one comic put it, “The lion and the lamb shall lie down together, but the lamb will not be very sleepy.” However, there are limits to how long we can go without sleep.A rare disease that prevents sleep always ends the same way: The patient falls into a stupor, followed by coma, followed by death (Oliwenstein, 1993). (See œFig. 7.1.)
Consciousness and Culture
Throughout history, people have found ways to alter consciousness. A dramatic example is the sweat lodge ceremony of the Sioux Indians. During the ritual, several men sit in total darkness inside a small chamber heated by coals. Cedar smoke, bursts of steam, and sage fill the air. The men chant rhythmically. The heat builds. At last they can stand it no more. The door is thrown open. Cooling night breezes rush in. And then? The cycle begins again—often to be repeated four or five times more.
The ritual “sweats” of the Sioux are meant to cleanse the mind and body.When they are especially intense, they bring altered awareness and personal revelation.
People seek some altered states for pleasure, as is often true of drug intoxication. Yet as the Sioux illustrate, many cultures regard altered consciousness as a pathway to personal enlightenment. Indeed, all cultures and most religions recognize and accept some alterations of consciousness.
However, the meaning given to these states varies greatly— from signs of “madness” and “possession” by spirits, to lifeenhancing breakthroughs. Thus, cultural conditioning greatly affects what altered states we recognize, seek, consider normal, and attain (Heath, 2001; Metzner, 1998).
H U M A N D I V E R S I T Y
© Joel Gordon, 1991
In many cultures, rituals of healing, prayer, purification, or personal transformation are accompanied by altered states of consciousness.
Sleep Quiz
1. People can learn to sleep for just a few hours a night and still function well. T or F?
2. Everyone dreams every night. T or F?
3. The brain rests during sleep. T or F?
4. Resting during the day can replace lost sleep. T or F?
5. As people get older they sleep more. T or F?
6. Alcohol may help a person get to sleep, but it disturbs sleep later during the night. T or F?
7. If a person goes without sleep long enough, death will occur. T or F?
8. Dreams mostly occur during deep sleep. T or F?
9. A person prevented from dreaming would soon go crazy. T or F?
10. Sleepwalking occurs when a person acts out a dream. T or F?
ANSWERS
1. F 2. T 3. F 4. F 5. F 6. T 7. T 8. F 9. F 10. F
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 253
Imagine placing an animal on a moving treadmill over a pool of water. This wouldn’t be a good place to sleep! Even so, sleep will always win. Under these conditions, animals soon drift into repeated microsleeps. A microsleep is a brief shift in brain activity to the pattern normally recorded during sleep.
When you drive, remember that microsleeps can lead to macroaccidents.
Even if your eyes are open, you can fall asleep for a few seconds. Two out of every 100 highway crashes are caused by sleepiness (Lyznicki et al., 1998). By the way, if you are struggling to stay awake while driving, you should stop, quit fighting it, and take a short nap. Coffee helps too, but briefly giving in to sleep helps more (Horne & Reyner, 1996).
Sleep Deprivation
How long could a person go without sleep? With few exceptions, 4 days or more without sleep becomes hell for everyone. For example, a disc jockey named Peter Tripp once stayed awake for 200 hours to raise money for charity. After 100 hours, Tripp began to hallucinate: He saw cobwebs in his shoes and watched in terror as a tweed coat became a suit of “furry worms.” By the end of 200 hours, Tripp was unable to distinguish between his hallucinations and reality (Luce, 1965). Despite Tripp’s breakdown, longer sleepless periods are possible. The world record is held by Randy Gardner—who at age 17 went 268 hours (11 days) without sleep. Surprisingly, Randy needed only 14 hours of sleep to recover. It is not necessary to completely replace lost sleep. As Randy found, most symptoms of sleep deprivation
(sleep loss) are reversed by a single night’s rest.
What are the costs of sleep loss? Age and personality make a big difference. Although Peter Tripp’s behavior became quite bizarre, Randy Gardner was less impaired. However, make no mistake: Sleep is a necessity. At various times, Randy’s speech was slurred, and he couldn’t concentrate, remember clearly, or name common objects (Coren, 1996). Sleep loss also typically causes trembling hands, drooping eyelids, inattention, irritability, staring, increased pain sensitivity, and general discomfort (Naitoh et al., 1989).
Most people who have not slept for 2 or 3 days can still do interesting or complex mental tasks (Binks, Waters, & Hurry, 1999). But they have trouble paying attention, staying alert, and doing simple or boring routines. For a driver, pilot, or machine operator, this can spell disaster (Fairclough & Graham, 1999). If a task is monotonous (such as factory work or air traffic control), no amount of sleep loss is safe (Gillberg & Akerstedt, 1998). In fact, if you lose just 1 hour of sleep a night, it can affect your mood, memory, ability to pay attention, and even your health (Everson, 1998; Maas, 1999). (See “Teenage Sleep Zombies.”)
How can I tell how much sleep I really need? Pick a day when you feel well rested. Then sleep that night until you wake without an alarm clock. If you feel rested when you wake up, that’s your natural sleep need. If you’re sleeping fewer hours than you need, you’re building up a sleep debt (Maas, 1999).
Severe sleep loss can cause a temporary sleep-deprivation psychosis (loss of contact with reality) like Peter Tripp suffered.
Confusion, disorientation, delusions, and hallucinations are typical of this reaction. Fortunately, such “crazy” behavior is uncommon. Hallucinations and delusions rarely appear before 60 hours of wakefulness (Naitoh et al., 1989).
Biological rhythm Any repeating cycle of biological activity, such as sleep and waking cycles or changes in body temperature.
Microsleep A brief shift in brain-wave patterns to those of sleep.
Sleep deprivation Being prevented from getting desired or needed amounts of sleep.
Sleep-deprivation psychosis A major disruption of mental and emotional functioning brought about by sleep loss.
© Timothy Ross/The Image Works
œ Figure 7.1 Not all animals sleep, but like humans, those that do have powerful sleep needs. For example, dolphins must voluntarily breathe air, which means they face the choice of staying awake or drowning. The dolphin solves this problem by sleeping on just one side of its brain at a time! The other half of the brain, which remains awake, controls breathing (Jouvet, 1999).
Calvin and Hobbes © Watterson. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
254 CHAPTER 7
Sleep Patterns
Sleep was described as an innate biological rhythm. What does that mean? Daily sleep and waking periods create a variety of
sleep patterns. Rhythms of sleep and waking are so steady that they continue for many days, even when clocks and light-dark cycles are removed. However, under such conditions, humans eventually shift to a sleep-waking cycle that averages slightly more than 24 hours (24 hours and 10 minutes, to be exact) (Czeisler et al., 1999). This suggests that external time markers, especially light and dark, help tie our sleep rhythms to days that are exactly 24 hours long (œFig. 7.2). Otherwise, many of us would drift into our own unusual sleep cycles (Lavie, 2001).
What is the normal range of sleep? A few individuals can get by on only an hour or two of sleep a night—and feel perfectly fine.
However, this is rare. Only 8 percent of the population are short sleepers, averaging 5 hours of sleep or less per night. On the other end of the scale we find long sleepers, who doze 9 hours or more (and tend to be daytime worriers) (McCann & Stewin, 1988).
The majority of us sleep on a familiar 7- to 8-hour-per-night schedule. For a few people, however, it is quite normal to sleep as little as 5 hours per night or as much as 11. Urging everyone to sleep 8 hours would be like advising everyone to wear mediumsize shoes.
Do elderly people need more sleep? Sleep needs actually remain fairly constant as people age.However, older people rarely get the sleep they need. Total sleep time declines throughout life. Those older than 50 average only 6 hours of sleep a night.
In contrast, infants spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping, usually in 2- to 4-hour cycles.
As they mature, most children go through a “nap” stage and eventually settle into a steady cycle of sleeping once a day (œFig. 7.3). Some people, of course, maintain the afternoon “siesta” as an adult pattern. Perhaps we all should: Midafternoon sleepiness is a natural part of the sleep cycle. Brief, welltimed naps can help maintain alertness in people like truck drivers and hospital interns, who often must fight drowsiness (Batejat & Lagarde, 1999).
It is very tempting to try to reduce sleep time. Yet, people on
shortened cycles—for example, 3 hours of sleep to 6 hours awake—often can’t get to sleep when the cycle calls for it. The underlying sleep rhythm simply won’t cooperate. That’s why astronauts continue to sleep on their normal earth schedule while
Teenage Sleep Zombies
Did you ever have to fight to stay awake in a high school class? Hypersomnia (hi-per-SOM-nee-ah: excessive daytime sleepiness) is a common problem during adolescence. The reason? Rapid physical changes during puberty increase the need for sleep. However, sleep time tends to decease during the teen years. At a time when they need more sleep, many adolescents get less.
If teenagers are sleep deprived, why don’t they just sleep more? As children enter puberty, they begin to stay up later at night. However, they must get up early to attend school, regardless of when they went to bed. As a result, many teens are seriously sleep deprived during the week. Then, on the weekend, they sleep longer and get up late in the morning.
After sleeping extra amounts for 2 days, many teens have difficulty falling asleep Sunday night. On Monday, they have to get up early for school, and the sleep loss cycle begins again.
What can be done about teenage sleep deprivation?
Psychologists have persuaded some school districts to start classes later so that high school students can sleep longer.
Preliminary studies suggest that this schedule improves learning and reduces behavior problems. It looks like some of the “storm and stress” of adolescence may be ordinary grouchiness caused by sleep loss. (Sources: Fukuda & Ishihara, 2001; Laberge et al., 2001; Mitru,Millrood, & Mateika, 2002.)
T H E C L I N I C A L F I L E
Unscheduled, free-running rhythm
Time of Day
Midnight Noon Noon Week number Scheduled light-dark cycle
4 5 6
œ Figure 7.2 Sleep rhythms.Bars show periods of sleep during the fourth, fifth,and sixth weeks of an experiment with a human subject. During unscheduled periods, the subject was allowed to select times of sleep and lighting.The result was a sleep rhythm of about 25 hours. Notice how this free-running rhythm began to advance around the clock.When periods of darkness were scheduled (colored area), the rhythm quickly resynchronized with 24-hour days. (Adapted from Czeisler, 1981.)
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 255
in space. Adapting to longer than normal days is more promising.
Such days can be tailored to match natural sleep patterns, which have a ratio of 2 to 1 between time awake and time asleep (16 hours awake and 8 hours asleep). For instance, one study showed that 28-hour “days” work for some people. Overall, however, sleep is a “gentle tyrant.” Sleep patterns may be bent and stretched, but they rarely yield entirely to human whims (Akerstedt et al., 1993).
Stages of Sleep—The Nightly Roller-Coaster Ride
What causes sleep? Early sleep experts thought that something in the bloodstream must cause sleep. But Siamese twins, whose bodies are joined at birth, show that this is false. It’s not unusual for one twin to be asleep while the second is awake (œFig. 7.4). During waking hours, a sleep hormone (sleeppromoting chemical) collects in the brain and spinal cord, not
in the blood. If this substance is extracted from one animal and injected into another, the second animal will sleep deeply for many hours (Cravatt et al., 1995).Notice, however, that this explanation is incomplete. For example, why would a well-rested person have to fight to stay awake during a boring midday meeting?
Whether you are awake or asleep right now depends on the
balance between separate sleep and waking systems. Brain circuits and chemicals in one of the systems promote sleep. A network of brain cells in the other system responds to chemicals that inhibit sleep. The two systems see-saw back and forth, switching the brain between sleep and wakefulness (Lavie, 2001). Note that the brain does not “shut down” during sleep. Rather, the pattern of activity changes. The total amount of activity remains fairly constant (Steriade & McCarley, 1990).
Stages of Sleep
How does brain activity change when you fall asleep? Sleep activity can be measured with an
electroencephalograph (eh-LEK-tro-en-SEFuh- lo-graf), or EEG. The brain generates tiny electrical signals (brain waves) that can be amplified and recorded. When you are awake and alert, the EEG reveals a pattern of small fast waves called beta (œFig. 7.5). Immediately before sleep, the pattern shifts to larger and slower waves called alpha. (Alpha waves also occur when you are relaxed and allow your thoughts to drift.) As the eyes close, breathing becomes slow and regular, the pulse rate slows, and body temperature drops. Soon after, four separate sleep stages occur.
Sleep patterns The order and timing of daily sleep and waking periods.
Short sleeper A person averaging 5 hours of sleep or less per night.
Long sleeper A person who averages 9 hours of sleep or more per night.
Sleep hormone A sleep-promoting substance found in the brain and spinal cord.
Electroencephalograph (EEG) A device designed to detect, amplify, and record electrical activity in the brain.
Beta waves Small, fast brain waves associated with being awake and alert.
Alpha waves Large, slow brain wave...
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