Essay on States of Consciousness

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntary in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Dreams can mean anything. They can mean something for anybody, someone else, or just imagination. What a person dreams in life is usually different than sleeping dreams. Shakespeare’s play, “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is represented of dreams in historical and modern theories.

A dream by definition is a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.

Dreams are scenarios your mind creates which represents who you truly are, were and are destined to be. You 're mind creates illusions that either further enhance your knowledge on what your purpose in life is or could make you fear it. Dreams are essentially part of the foundation of a persons life. Rudolfo Anaya in the novel Bless me ultima uses the concept of dreams to demonstrate the growth and the loss of innocence Antonio faces from beginning to end.

The US National Library of Medicine defines a nightmare as, “a bad dream that brings out strong feelings of fear, terror, distress, or anxiety.” A dream, then, is a series of thoughts or images that happen during the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. Research has shown that the biggest amount of common adult dreams are in a category known as “pseudonightmarish” dreams, which is essentially any dream of being in trouble or in danger, being alone and/or trapped, something you don’t have control over (like losing your teeth), or facing natural forces.

Circadian rhythm is another sleep disorder that has to do with our body functions. In this case, our body clocks are off, due an internal change or external factors like a change in time zones or regions where a midnight sun occurs during a 24-hour period. Bright lights in a room have a similar effect on sleep.

A nightmare is a dream occurring during REM sleep that results in feelings of strong terror,

Tests performed on these theories show that animals deprived from sleep suffer from a loss of all their immune system functions and inevitably die from this in only a few weeks’ time. Studies show that muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormones are most active while you sleep, and even a few are only active while you sleep. While we are conscious and awake our brain produces a chemical called adenosine, this chemical is thought to be the cause of why we feel tired at times and feel the need to sleep, this chemical is countered by caffeine. That explains why you feel more awake and alert after drinking that cup of Joe. Caffeine actually blocks the receptors for adenosine making that feeling of being tired and not alert diminish. While you sleep it gives the body a chance to clear the adenosine from the system, in turn making you feel “refreshed” and not tired when you wake up from your slumber.

Chapter Four: States of Consciousness in Understanding Psychology by Charles G. Morris and Albert A. Maisto helped significantly in expanding my knowledge of psychology specifically about the States of Consciousness. Although the chapter taught me a lot there was still some topics that I already knew. Such as how marijuana helps ease the pain of medical conditions. “Some evidence indicates that marijuana can relieve some of the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy and can reduce suffering among terminal cancer patients” (Morris & Maisto, 2016, p. 148). I believe that if we have some way of helping the ill enjoy life a little more and a little longer, than we should help them. I’m a huge condoner for legalizing medical marijuana, I have

There are many forms of altered consciousness, a state in which a person’s perceptions of sense are different than normal. Forms such as sleeping and dreaming, hypnosis, biofeedback, and meditation, can be used to help the body in various ways. Scientists are still researching, because the mind and consciousness has not been fully figured out.

Dreams are a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind. In our dreams we can portray ourselves as anything, we can go anywhere and do anything. There are many types of dreaming methods such as, daydreams, recurring dreams, nightmares, epic dreams, prophetic dreams, and lucid dreams and so on.

How do your chosen texts represent altered states of consciousness (e.g. dreaming, drugged states, trances, madness)? What does the representation of these states explore that the representation of normative states does not?

Have you ever found yourself thinking about the different levels of consciousness? Consciousness is "the state or quality of awareness you have of your surroundings both internally and externally, and the understanding of what is happening to you." That is not anything I had considered before, but it was just taken for granted. Research shows that consciousness’s are separated into two major levels, wakefulness and sleep. There are many levels of consciousness that each person goes through, some of these levels occur while you are asleep; others while you are alert and concentrating on a task and some while you are daydreaming. While asleep there are five stages of consciousness that you go through. While you are awake and alert, responses

I guess we should start with what is a nightmare. Nightmare is a frightening or unpleasant dream. Nightmares that occur frequently are a parasomnia (or a disorder characterized by abnormal or unusual behavior of the nervous system during sleep) dream state event, in which visual sequences unfold that often depict imagery or situations that are particularly disturbing or frightening to the individual experiencing them, and may often come from fears in their own subconscious.

Dreams are series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Most of the time, they depart dramatically from reality. Dreams that reflect the day’s experience tend to single out sensory experiences or objects from walking life and mix them together. The content of dreams takes snapshots from the day rather than retelling the stories of what you have done or seen.

Consciousness is a complex theory of thought and/or state. Throughout the semester I altered my consciousness, or awareness of consciousness, by paying attention and changing certain “default” consciousness aspects. The semester projects and recordings allowed me to focus on different facets of my own consciousness day-to-day and throughout each day. By having different projects through the semester, I was able to restart my awareness of my “normal” consciousness and bring it to the forefront of my mind. I realized multiple things through this exercise, consciousness is largely based on perspective, consciousness is constantly flowing and moving, and consciousness is.… I will be discussing three key insights defining consciousness: as a state(s), phenomenon, and developmental processes.