Sleep & Dreams		

    Consciousness - an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself & your situation.

Continuum of Consciousness (different states):

	Controlled processes - full awareness required
	Automatic processes - require little awareness
	Daydreaming - low level of awareness
	Altered states of consciousness - meditation, psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, or sleep deprivation
	Sleep - deepest stage of sleep borders on being unconsciousness
	Dreaming -
	Unconscious (Freud's theory) - no voluntary recall of this repressed info.
	Implicit or nondeclarative memory - learning without awareness
	Unconscious - total lack of sensory awareness

Rhythms of Sleeping & Waking

    Biological clock - An internal biological mechanism which controls certain biological rhythms & bio 
    cycles, such as metabolism, sleep cycles.

    Circadian rhythm - a daily cycle of activity observed in many living organisms

The location of biological clocks:

	- Suprachiasmatic nucleus - part of the hypothalamus
	- Interval timing clock - located in the basal ganglia

Circadian Problems & Treatments:

	- Accidents
	- Jet lag - fatigue & sleep disturbance resulting from disruption of the body's normal circadian rhythm 
          as result of jet travel.

	- Resetting the clock - light therapy
        - Melatonin - This hormone is produced by the pineal gland (located at the center of the brain) at night. 
          It is believed to regulate the body's biological clock and reproductive cycles and has been found to 
          improve the quality of sleep in elderly insomniacs. 

Stages of sleep:

Alpha stage - Alpha waves - relaxed & drowsy

         Non-REM sleep:
            Stage 1 sleep, Theta waves
                Stage 2, Sleep spindles
                    Stage 3 sleep, Delta waves
                         Stage 4 sleep, Delta wave - deepest sleep
                             REM sleep

   Sequence of sleep stages: 123432 - Rem - 23432 - REM - 232- Rem - 2 - REM - 2 - REM - 1

Characteristics of REM (paradoxical) sleep:

        - REM behavior disorder - physical acting out. REM normally stops muscle activity.
        - REM: Behavioral or physiological effects are not a problem if REM is disturbed.
        - REM rebound - more REM sleep is required if missed, this suggests a need for REM sleep & one 
          such need involves memory (REM required).

    When you are awake & alert, brain activity is much like REM beta wave activity.

    There are morning persons & evening persons, almost all older people even if they where evening persons 
    become morning persons. Play to your strengths!
 
You need less sleep as you get older.

	infancy - 17 hours a day for newborns
	childhood - to 10 hours a day for 4 year olds.
	adolescence - almost 10 hours
	adulthood - 7 to 8
	old age - 6.5 
 
Why sleep? Two Major Theories:

      - Repair theory - to fix us
      - Adaptive theory - to conserve our energy

Theories of dream interpretation:

        1. Freud's theory of dreams
        2. Extension of waking life theory of dreams (Rosalind Cartwright)
        3. Activation-synthesis theory of dreams (Hobson & McCarley)
        4. Entering the spiritual world theory of dreams (Inuit)

Sleep Problems & Treatments

    Insomnia is a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or 
non restorative sleep, for at least 1 month

        - Psychological causes: stress
        - Physiological causes: schedule changes - drug abuse
        - Non-drug treatment for insomnia: behavioral
        - Drug treatment for insomnia: benzodiazepines (ben-zo-die-AS-ah-peens)

    Sleep apnea syndrome is characterized by sleep-disordered breathing with daytime sleepiness. 
It affects about 4 percent of men and 2 percent of women in their middle age. The prevalence of this 
condition increases with age and become a major cause of reported sleep disturbance and of people 
feeling excessively tired/sleepy during the day.

     Narcolepsy is a disorder of sleep and wakefulness; all patients with narcolepsy are positive for the DR2 
antigen which is one of the HLA antigens. Patients affected with narcolepsy have a chronic and excessive 
need to sleep regardless of the time of the day and this need is not relieved by increased sleep at night.

     Night terrors in children

     Nightmares

     Sleepwalking  (happens during stage 4)
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                                                  Topics in Psychology
                                                       Robert C. Gates