Handout # 8
Introduction to Phychology
BBA-1
Consciousness
Instructed By Ms. Ghazala Danish

Consciousness:
Consciousness refers to your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment. Your conscious experiences are constantly shifting and changing. It is prosperity of particular parts of the brain, not of the brain as a whole. The awareness of various cognitive processes and making decision. For example, in one moment you may be focused on reading this article. Your consciousness may then shift to the memory of a conversation you had earlier with a co-worker. Next, you might notice how uncomfortable your chair is or maybe you are mentally planning dinner.

Cognitive Process: |
Cognitive processes are very important for human behavior. It is about knowledge and the way people use their knowledge.
For example, sleep, looks dream are count in cognitive process. Consciousness as a social phenomenon:
Consciousness is that we aware of ourselves of our thoughts, our perceptions, our actions, our memories and our feelings. Historically, people have taken three philosophical positions about the nature of consciousness.

The first and earliest position is that consciousness is not a natural phenomenon, (natural phenomenon is that subject to the laws of nature that all scientists attempt to discover: laws involving matter and purely physical forces. This position says that consciousness is something supernatural and miraculous, not to be understood by human mind.

The second position is that consciousness is a natural phenomenon but also that, for various seasons, we cannot understand it. Some people say that we can never understand consciousness because our brains are simply not capable of doing so it would take a more complex brain than ours to understand the biology of subjective awareness. Before we can hope the study it with any success, we must define just what it is we want to study.

The third position is that people are indeed conscious, that this consciousness is produced by the activity of the human brain, and that there is every reason for us to the optimistic about our ability to understand this phenomenon.

Consciousness and the ability to communicate:
We can share knowledge with others by describing our past experiences. We can make plans with other people to accomplish tasks that are beyond the abilities at a single person. In other words, we can express our needs, thoughts perceptions, memories, intentions and feelings to other people. The fact that it can learn to tell you when it wants to eat, go for a walk.

Selective attention:
The process that controls our awareness of particular categories of events in the environment is called selective attention. The process of selective attention determines which events we become of. Attention may be controlled automatically, as when an intense stimulus (such as loud sound) captures our attentions.
For example: when we are driving a car, we pay a special attention to other cars, pedestrians, sound sings and soon.
Attention plays an important role in memory, by existing control over the information that searchers short term memory; it determines what information ultimately becomes stored in explicit long term memory. There are two types of selective attention, * Auditory information * Visual information

Control of consciousness:
Control consciousness is the awareness or experience of seeming to be in control of one's actions. In the sense that I use the term “control consciousness,” states of control consciousness can occur both when the appearance is accurate (one really is in control) and when it is inaccurate (one really is not in control).

Hypnosis:
Hypnosis can be defined as a special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and marked by a functioning of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state.

Induction:
Hypnosis is normally preceded by a "hypnotic induction" technique. Traditionally, this was interpreted as a method of putting the subject into a "hypnotic trance"; however, subsequent "non state" theorists have viewed it differently, as a means of heightening client expectation, defining their role, focusing attention, etc. There is an enormous variety of different induction techniques used in hypnotism. Characteristics:
A subject under hypnosis experiences heightened suggestibility and focus accompanied by a sense of tranquility. It could be said that hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect.
The hypnotized individual appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist. He seems to respond in an uncritical, automatic fashion, ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out to him by the hypnotist. He sees, feels, smells, and otherwise perceives in accordance with the hypnotist's suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the stimuli that impinge upon him. Even the subject's memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended (post hypnotically) into the subject's subsequent waking activity.

Sleep:
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, Sleep is a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems.

Stages of sleep:

Stage 1
Stage 1 is the beginning of the sleep cycle, and is a relatively light stage of sleep. Stage 1 can be considered a transition period between wakefulness and sleep. In Stage 1, the brain produces high amplitude theta waves, which are very slow brain waves. This period of sleep lasts only a brief time (around 5-10 minutes). If you awaken someone during this stage, they might report that they weren't really asleep.

Stage 2
Stage 2 is the second stage of sleep and lasts for approximately 20 minutes. The brain begins to produce bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity known as sleep spindles. Body temperature starts to decrease and heart rate begins to slow.

Stage 3
Deep, slow brain waves known as delta waves begin to emerge during stage 3 sleep. Stage 3 is a transitional period between light sleep and a very deep sleep.

Stage 4
Stage 4 is sometimes referred to as delta sleep because of the slow brain waves known as delta waves that occur during this time. Stage 4 is a deep sleep that lasts for approximately 30 minutes. Bed-wetting and sleepwalking are most likely to occur at the end of stage 4 sleep.

Stage 5
Most dreaming occurs during the fifth stage of sleep, known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep is characterized by eye movement, increased respiration rate and increased brain activity. REM sleep is also referred to as paradoxical sleep because while the brain and other body systems become more active, muscles become more relaxed. Dreaming occurs due because of increased brain activity, but voluntary muscles become paralyzed.

Stage of sleep can also consider from book as well

Functions of sleep:
Sleep is one of the few universal behaviors. All mammals, all birds, and some cold-blooded vertebrates spend post of each day sleeping.
The universal nature of sleep suggests that it performs some important functions. But just what are they? The simplest explanation for sleep is that it serves to repair the wear and tear on our bodies caused by moving and exercising. One approach to discovering the function of sleep is the deprivation study.

Dreaming: dreams can be baffling and mysterious. Throughout history dreams have been associated with sacred revelation and prophecy. Moreover, it was a dream that revealed to a scientist the molecular structure of carbon atoms in the benzene ring. All this mystery can leave us wondering what a particular dream means to the dreamer, and we can argue about what causes dreams in the first place.