Variations in Consciousness
I.	Basics
A.	Definition: subjective awareness of both internal and external stimuli (what’s going on around us)
B.	Levels of Consciousness
1.	Consciousness
2.	Preconsciousness
3.	Freudian unconscious mind: holds unacceptable urges and impulses, traumatic memories, etc. that can’t be brought to the conscious mind
4.	Cognitive unconscious mind: contains cognitive processes that can’t be brought into consciousness, some of which give rise to our thoughts, behaviors, emotions, but aren’t aware of them occurring
5.	Continuum—from being fully conscious (know and are able to describe one’s mental state) to minimal consciousness
C.	Controlled vs. Automatic Processes
1.	Controlled: require alert awareness, absorb your attention, require a good amount of effort
2.	Automatic: they occur rapidly, don’t interfere with other activities much, relatively difficult to disrupt
3.	Continuum
4.	How do processes become automatic? Some are known at birth, others are developed over time by practice. “overlearned”—learned so well that we don’t have to attend to them
5.	When do we attend to them? Desire to finish something or had a bad experience due to not attending to it
II.	Sleep
A.	Circadian rhythm
1.	Biological clock: a sleep-wake cycle that tends to be a bit longer than the 24-hour cycle we have
2.	Regulates
a.	Sleep
b.	Blood pressure
c.	Urine production
d.	Hormonal secretions
e.	Body temperature
3.	Getting out of sync: causes the quality of our sleep to suffer which causes
4.	Jet lag: crossing time zones, causing you to want to sleep at the wrong time; easier to fly westward than eastward
5.	Swing or rotating shifts: constantly changes your circadian rhythm (bad usually)
B.	Stages of Sleep
1.	Fully awake: beta waves are at a minimum
2.	Pre-sleep
a.	Brain slows down and alpha waves appear
b.	Hypnagogic sleep: begin to lose some voluntary control over your movements, sensitivity of outside stimuli decreases, thoughts become more fanciful and less reality-like
c.	Myoclonia: occurs when you feel like your falling, so your body or body part violently jerks to wake you up
3.	Stage 1 sleep
a.	Waves slow down even more and become Theta waves
b.	Eyes slowly roll from side to side, breathing slows down even more, muscles relax
4.	Stage 2 sleep
a.	Spindles: brief burst of a lot of waves in a short period of time
b.	K complex: occurs in response to some sort of stimulation; a low frequency high amplitude wave
5.	Stage 3 sleep—Deeper sleep with deeper and even slower waves called delta waves
6.	Stage 4 sleep—more prominent delta waves, enter this stage about 30 minutes after falling asleep, believed to be the stage where skeletal muscles relax and are restored
7.	REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep)—eyes dart around underneath the eyeball, first one occurs 90 minutes after one falls asleep
a.	Deep sleep
b.	Brain waves look very similar to the brain waves seen in stage 1 sleep
c.	4-5 times a night
8.	Differences between REM and non-REM
a.	Muscles—limp/flaccid and immobile with some twitching movements usually in the hands, feet, and face in REM; movement is freer in non-REM (can roll over, sleepwalk)
b.	Blood pressure—increases and becomes variable in REM; low and steady in non-REM
c.	Heart rate and respiration—increase and become irregular in REM; low and steady in non-REM
d.	Harder to wake up in REM
e.	If awakened, fairly alert in REM; if awakened from stage 3 or 4 in non-REM, tend to be disoriented, cognitively slow, and a bit confused
f.	Most dreaming occurs in REM sleep; any dreams in non-REM are much more simple and less vivid
9.	Cycle through stages—as night progresses, REM cycles get longer until they peak at 40 to 60 minutes each night; non-REM takes up most of the first half of the night, REM takes up more of the second half of the night