States of Consciousness
Numerous factors determine when and why you feel tired, full of energy, and hungry. A person's state of consciousness and awareness varies throughout the day and depends on a person's activity, environment, and time clock. As a human we have what is called circadian rhythms, which simply explains our daily highs and lows. An example of your basic up and down rhythm would be the sleep/wake cycle. Sunlight regulates the sleep/wake cycle by causing the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease its production of melatonin in the early morning and increase it in the evening. Melatonin is a hormone that if increased in blood levels makes an individual drowsy or tired and if decreased will make them more alert. Certain individuals will experience that their biological clock is often out of sync. This can be explained sometimes from either jet lag, working the night shifts or graveyards, and Monday-morning fog. Sleep in itself has its own biological patterns and rhythms. Hans Berger introduced the electroencephalograph to us so that we would be able to measure the patterns and rhythms of sleep through a record called an EEG. Two different patterns of sleep are REM sleep and NREM sleep. The NREM sleep actuall
Every one of us has a biological clock as well as circadian rhythms, though we choose to allow it to work properly or to force it to be out of sync with the rest of time. Individuals drink coffee, sodas, tea, and smoke cigarettes often. Both of these drugs tend to have the same affects being that they suppress appetite, intensify euphoria, mental alertness, and self-confidence. The last type of drug is the psychedelic drugs or LSD. Ernest Hilgard suggested that while hypnotized a person experiences dissociation that splits consciousness into two or more streams of mental activity. The second category of drugs is the opiates that produce euphoria in individuals. Depressants tend to depress and slow down brain activity. The most susceptible people are those who approach it with a positive attitude. Caffeine and nicotine are included in this category and tend to play a large role in today's society. A dream is simply an unfolding episode of mental images that involve characters and events. The second theory simply offers that sleeping restores and rejuvenates the body through physiological processes. The evolutionary theory of sleep suggests that our sleep patterns are based on or defined by evolution. The four categories of basic psychoactive drugs are depressants, opiates, stimulants, and psychedelic drugs. Another form of stimulants is cocaine and amphetamines.
Common topics in this essay:
Hans Berger,
Ernest Hilgard,
Consciousness Numerous,
nrem sleep,
rem sleep,
psychoactive drugs,
theta brain waves,
sleep nrem sleep,
stages nrem sleep,
sleep nrem,
sleeping disorder,
biological clock,
chemical substances,
brain activity,
theta brain,
circadian rhythms,
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Acceptance Essays
