Michael Matthews October 11, 2011
Lecture 8
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Exam on the 27 of October. (3, 5, 12) Chap : 12 Sleep, Chap 5: 11, Chap 12: 27
We spend most of our conscious lives daydreaming. If people spend more time daydreaming than in reality,
they are called “fantasy pro-personality” people.
We spend about half of our day dreaming.
The first theory about sleep is it is an information processing time, which is fundamental.
Dream sleep stimulates memory. During REM sleep we consolidate the important information needed. The
activation synthesis theory (physiological theory) argues that there are random neuron bursts that come
from the lower cortex centre that have no meaning at all. The next phase of this is the brain confusion, in
trying to figure out what these mean.
The third is our attempts to problem solve, where she argues there is a lot of continuity of the sleeping and
awake thoughts. Dreams encourage us to think about problems that are not constrained by logic or realism.
Dreaming about problems does not mean we are dreaming about solutions.
Freud says that dreams represent wish fulfillment. Even though your dreams do not have some explicit
imagery of sexuality, we experience some form of libido and sexual dreams/ erotic foundation.
It is us who interpret out dreams.
Consciousness- psychoactive drug is anything that alters consciousness.
Anything that excites you will also depress you to the same extent. The brain will attempt to compensate
when using drugs.
The endorphins can act as a powerful drug in the brain if you can tap into them.
Most psychologists would day that consciousness is simply awareness of ourselves and our environment.
The unconscious and the conscious are on an endless continuum.
There is a form sub processing occurring throughout
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