Artificial States of Consciousness

1. Artificial States of Consciousness Psychoactive Drugs, Hypnosis, & Meditation

2. Hypnosis • ---Posthypnotic amnesia • ---Posthypnotic suggestions • Hypermnesia

3. Essential Questions • What is hypnosis? • What are the techniques used in hypnosis? • What is meditation?

4. Hypnosis

5. Hypnosis • social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts or behaviors will spontaneously occur • a relaxed state

6. Hypnosis • State of awareness • Highly focused attention • Increased responsiveness to suggestion • Vivid imagery • Willingness to accept distortions of logic • Alteration of sensation and perception

7. Techniques • Eye fixation • Progressive relaxation and imagery • Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CxM7a6CbyI

8. Components of Hypnosis

9. Hypnotic Suggestibility • related to subject’s openness to suggestion • ability to focus attention inwardly • ability to become imaginatively absorbed

10. Posthypnotic Amnesia • supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis • induced by the hypnotist’s suggestion

11. Posthypnotic Suggestion • suggestion to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized • used by some clinicians to control undesired symptoms and behaviors

12. Hypermnesia • The supposed enhancement of a person’s memory for past events through a hypnotic suggestion

13. Possible effects of hypnosis? • Recall forgotten events? • Age regression therapy (the ability to re-live childhood memories)…effective? • Alleviate pain? • Dissociation = split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others

14. Possible effects of hypnosis? • Reduce pain • Reduce stress • Improve concentration and motivation • Modify behavior in eating disorders • Suppress the gag reflex (dentist) • Eliminate recurring nightmares • ….much more!

15. Do you think you can be hypnotized? • Let’s answer the questionnaire – can you be hypnotized 

16. Do you think you can be hypnotized? • Imagine you are holding in your hand a lemon. A bright yellow lemon with shiny, puckered skin. • Now imagine bring the lemon up to your mouth and bite right down into it, sucking in all the juices….

17. Hypnosis? • Can you be hypnotized against your will? • Can hypnosis force people to act against their will? • Awareness • Morals, religion , self-preservation • But keep in mind:an authoritative person in a legitimate context can induce people, hypnotized or not, to perform some unlikely acts

18. Check for understanding… 3. How can altering your state of conscious be positive? 4. How can it be negative? 5. How could meditation or hypnosis be useful in your life? Be specific.

19. Let’s watch some fun with hypnosis • This may or may not be for real…. It is funny non-the –less • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDt6G6UlN2U

20. Meditation

21. How to meditate • Let’s watch a how to video on how to meditate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6eFFCi12v8

22. Meditation • Sustained concentration techniques that focuses attention and heightens awareness • Lowered physiological arousal • Predominance of alpha brain waves

23. Meditation • All forms of meditation have the goal of controlling or retraining attention • Two forms: • Concentration techniques: • Mantra (focus) • Opening-Up/Mindfulness techniques: • Quiet awareness of the here and now

24. Check for understanding 1. What are the goals for each of these techniques? Compare and contrast. 2. How do these techniques affect our consciousness?

25. Psychoactive Drugs

26. Essential Questions • How do psychoactive drugs affect consciousness? • How are drugs classified? • How does culture and our environment influence drug use?

27. Drug-Altered Consciousness • Psychoactive Drugs- change moods and perceptions

28. Common Properties • Physical dependence • Tolerance • Withdrawal symptoms • Drug rebound effect

29. Drug Abuse / Substance Abuse • Recurrent substance use that results in disruption of academic, social or occupational functioning or in legal or psychological problems

30. Addiction • the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

31. Drugs Sex Gambling Eating Alcohol Tobacco Pornography Exercising Addiction Examples

32. Psychoactive Drugs • Common Properties: • Physical dependence • Tolerance • Withdrawal symptoms • Drug rebound effect

33. Physical Dependence • A condition in which a person has physically adapted to a drug so that he or she must take the drug regularly in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms

34. Tolerance • Increasing amounts of a physically addictive drug are needed to produce the original, desired effect • Examples?

35. Big effect Response to first exposure Drug effect After repeated exposure, more drug is needed to produce same effect Little effect Large Small Drug dose

36. Withdrawal Symptoms • Unpleasant physical reactions, combined with intense drug cravings • Occur when abstaining from a drug when physically dependent

37. Rebound Effects • Withdrawal symptoms are opposite to the drugs action • backfires • Examples?

39. How do we categorize drugs? • Depressants - inhibit brain activity, slow body function • Opiates – chemically similar to morphine, pain relief and euphoria, mimic the brain’s endorphins • Stimulants - increase brain activity, speed up body function, produce feelings of optimism and boundless energy • Psychedelics - distort sensory perceptions

40. Psychoactive Drugs - Summary • Depressants—inhibit brain activity • Opiates—pain relief and euphoria • Stimulants—increase brain activity • Psychedelics—distort sensory perceptions

41. Depressants • drugs that reduce neural activity • Slow body function • Barbiturates- sedation meds • Tranquilizers - Valium

42. What they do • Alcohol—CNS depressant • Barbiturates—induce sleep • Tranquilizers—relieve anxiety

43. Alcohol - Depressant • Alcohol- widely used, abuse common • Why people take – initial high followed by relaxation and disinhibition • Problems – depression, memory loss, organ damage, impaired reactions

45. Video on Alcohol • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH97OBRwC-A

46. Opiates Chemically similar to morphine and have strong pain-relieving properties • Mimic the brain’s endorphins • Heroin, methadone • Percodan, Demerol

47. Pain Killers/Opiates • Opiates- mostly illegal, produce euphoria alters the brains reaction to pain • Mimics endorphins

48. Heroin - Opiates • Heroin – most frequently abused opiates • Why people take – Rush of euphoria, relief from pain • Problems – depressed physiology, agonizing withdrawal

49. Stimulants • Caffeine • Nicotine • Amphetamines • Cocaine • Stimulant induced psychosis

50. Stimulants • drugs that excite neural activity • speed up body function • produce feelings of optimism and boundless energy, arouse behavior, and increase mental awareness; stimulates the cerebral cortex