PSYA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Delta Wave, Sensory Deprivation, Sleepwalking
Document Summary
Lecture 15 & 16: altered states of consciousness. Consciousness may be referred the internal voice and self-awareness, however many things can affect consciousness. Consciousness can be altered by sleep, hypnosis, drugs and sensory deprivation. We spend a significant portion of the day sleeping, lying down defenseless for 8 hours a day. Sleep must have an important function- or we would have evolved to be able to function on less sleep. We are still unsure of what sleep does. We started to research sleep when the eeg is being used in research, which measures electrical signals from the brain. Researchers connected the eeg to humans when they are sleeping and found a pattern (sleep cycle) Stage 1: alpha waves (high frequency waves, low amplitude) similar to a state when we are awake. Stage 2: where we start to drift off, amplitude becomes higher, and breathing and heartbeat slows. Stage 3: frequency is lower, high amplitude (delta waves), deep sleep.
