Understanding Consciousness: Theory of Mind, Sleep, and Psychoactive Drugs

hey folks uh welcome today uh we are talking about Consciousness now I think for some of you the content of

this lecture will be a little bit surprising um because generally when the word

Consciousness is used um we're spending a lot of time talking about like elevated States Of

Consciousness and like uh stuff that maybe belongs more in the realm of of philosophy now

uh the reason that that's the case is um is because Consciousness is a thing that is difficult to understand and from

a scientific perspective Consciousness is a thing that's very difficult to observe right and so we are

um uh going to really focus on the elements of Consciousness that are observable

and changes to Consciousness that are observable and changes to Consciousness which have really clear causes so we're

going to spend some time talking about like drugs today for instance um this is this is going to leave leave

some some gaps in what I you know with some some gaps from like the the like popular conversation of

Consciousness but what you should know like the historical context of this discussion

is uh is that you know Consciousness was a huge source of difficulty for psychology for a really long time

um because it was thought of it's like well Consciousness isn't observable no one can prove to another person truly

that they're conscious you know we're just biological machines following programming

um and discussion of Consciousness discussion of these things that aren't observable touchable directly measurable

um was kind of it was sort of an embarrassment to psychology and so um because of that research on

Consciousness has become very narrow and um has sort of been forced to kind of like ignore really obvious stuff like

okay sure I can't prove that I'm conscious but we're all the same organism and we we all generally agree

we experience this thing um and so if you feel like there's some glaring

oversights from what we talk about I tend to agree with you um however the uh uh the research on

consciousness uh has is several steps behind kind of the rest

of psychology um and so uh uh I don't think this will necessarily be that much shorter of a

lecture if I'm being honest but it will uh um be sort of focused on a series of

kind of like narrow topics relating to Consciousness so um

one of the uh the the key concepts of uh of why we research Consciousness or think about it

at all is this concept of theory of mind right it's the knowledge that people think and have private experiences

um this might seem obvious to some of you I I imagine at some point some of you listening

um uh we'll we'll find the statement odd um uh and um that's that's a little scary but it

does it does happen that some people don't really think or care about the fact that others have

um private internal worlds but theory of mind is the understanding of like oh you you know a person separate from me is

thinking about this differently wants different things has different feelings right I uh I feel really sad about this

but you don't this doesn't this isn't important to you or you don't care about this at all

um you know this is the idea of like oh you know so and so really you know follows the Lakers super closely and so

they like you know when when Kobe Bryant passed away they like mourned for like a week

um you know and you know somebody might say like you know I I get that you know I get that the team and Kobe Bryant was

really important to him so I understand why he feels that way um because he's he thinks about this

differently than I do versus somebody who might say it's not stupid to be sad about it passing away of an athlete

that's sort of a a failure theory of mind a little bit in a really um in even simpler terms

uh the idea is um that another person might not have knowledge that you have right so that's

why um as children as toddlers start to develop theory of mind they start to do

things like lie right where um there's an understanding like oh I have been for information about what

happened but you don't right and uh kids are really nervous about getting in trouble or have very punitive parents

will jump to what amounts to and get out of free I get out of trouble free button which is called lying

um where you just go no I didn't do it right um uh and so

one of the uh there's a there's a couple different ways that we uh

um come to that in a second there's a couple different ways that we can approach this one so the false belief

task is uh is a pretty straightforward developmental psychology task wherein um we

show someone right we show a kid for instance usually we do this with kids we show a kid

um a ball right and then we hide the ball in a particular place

right and then we ask that kid hey when kid B when another kid walks into this room

where where are they going to look for that ball right and a kid without theory of mind

without strong theory of mind is going to say oh he's going to look for the ball under the couch where you hit it

right because the kid doesn't understand that that there's a gap in knowledge between the kid who saw the ball get

hidden and his nuke this hypothetical new kid coming in and a kid with theory of mind is going to go oh he's gonna

have to look for it right um the theory of my module is this um

this notion that uh human beings having a as part of our brain development right or as part of our cognitive

development um we naturally develop a capacity to have

theory of mind and you know like you'll know to kind of split the difference between brain and cognition

um and uh the theory mind module is likely a cognitive thing which is to say that it's sort of abstract right I

couldn't reach into your brain and pull out um

your theory of Mind module it's not like a there's not like a little knob of meat in your head that contains your ability

to have theory of mind the theory of Mind module is an abstract idea that in the same way that our ability to like

learn a language is thought of this way too which is like oh this is just a capacity that human beings develop and

it seems to be you know sort of a mental construct that forms as we as we develop now one of the what I consider is

somebody who works with people on the Spectrum to be a kind of shaky element but this gets generally talked about in

most like 100 textbooks and courses um but I'm a little skeptical of this is the city that individuals with autism

lack a theory of Mind module right lack the ability to understand right um that uh that other people are having

like different experiences right um uh and I think that the the belief that

this this the people on the Spectrum lack a theory of mind um or have an underdeveloped one or you

know um I think that you know this this comes from sort of maybe challenges reading social cues right

um which when we talk about autism spectrum disorder much later in the semester

we'll go over a little bit more um but just know there's there's there are there are some theories about how

the disorder of autism works that suggests that theory of mind the development of theory of mind is

inhibited um or interfered with in some ways part of having that disorder

um I don't know um I think that just FYI uh the way that

we think about autism is changing really rapidly um because

we are starting to hear more from uh from people with Autism who are growing up cultivating a voice for

themselves and sort of saying hey a lot of the ways that we think about this or the way that I was treated as a kid or

the way that you know my autism was treated right like was uh you know the way that I you know help was given to me

was actually really harmful and so um you know again uh I talk about this at

much greater length in a normal psychology but um

I think you should be aware of is that the way that we are thinking about uh

developmental disorders like ADHD and autism is changing really rapidly because as uh we're getting better at

diagnosing not diagnosing more getting better at diagnosing um we are now having

um a new generation of adults who are raised at this disorder who can now speak at length about this

is what it's like to have this whereas we were doing a lot of like speaking for them in the past

excuse me Okay so um

when we think about Consciousness we want to think about levels of awareness and the first way we want to do this

is uh approaching thinking of our thinking right and our the levels of awareness

within our thinking um a thing that I want to say that's going

to make it really easy for you to grasp this is you are not aware of all the work your brain is doing

you are not aware of the work your brain is doing to keep your heart beating to keep your breathing regulated to manage

all of your organs to make you feel full to make you feel hungry to make you feel tired to make you feel well rested right

all of that stuff happens outside of your awareness you can do some things to affect those things but your brain

does a ton of work that you are not aware of and it's in some cases not really capable of being aware of right

um and so with with that understanding in mind hopefully we can take the next step

which is a lot of your decision making is Guided by processes outside of your awareness right so

let's start with lower level Consciousness which is sometimes called system one uh there's a great researcher

named Daniel Kahneman who identified these two categories and so this is governing automatic processes they

require a little attention or conscious effort so for instance in this image here right these people are he's holding

a bicycle while having a conversation right and so the steps that he's taking the way he's

holding the bike and balancing it being able to turn and look at her while still moving his feet in a way where he's

carrying forward momentum he's matching her speed right um

you know he's making eye contact right all of these things for the most part right you know sometimes you have to

sometimes you have to manage your eye contact right and sometimes distracted distractions happen but for the most

part these things are happening all on their own right he's deciding yes I'm walking but I'm talking about the like

the foot placement this act of balance you know there's a lot of supporting motor movements that have to happen that

your brain just doesn't that you consciously do not need to worry about right so system one tends to be out of

our awareness and they do not interfere with ongoing with other ongoing activities so his Focus this guy and

then and this and this woman here too their focus is on the conversation they're having almost 100 thinking

carefully you know maybe you know maybe they got a little crush on each other and they're trying to like be cool right

and say interesting things right they're really focused on that and as a result they're probably not as focused on

uh on walking on keeping that bike balanced and making sure those books don't slip out of our hands right but

but all of that stuff is being managed right all of that stuff is being managed and the reason why this this metaphor

works also is a lot of you are probably thinking yeah but they might you know but they might trip or she might drop

those books or they might bump into somebody and that's 100 True right system one is is great because it works

all on its own but it does um uh it leaves out like Nuance or special exceptions if that makes sense

right where yeah totally they could he could he could try it's very likely you know if you're watching the scene in the

movie he would trip right because it'd be funny um

uh um because all of these other things are running on autopilot while these two are

focused on their conversation right and all the things running on autopilot are within the system one right

so things like you know when you find yourself daydreaming your mind wanders

right um a lot of uh a lot of fantasy imagination and rumination those of you

who do have pretty vivid Daydreams probably often sort of automatically return to the same ones and then when

you gain awareness that's where you introduce your sort of manipulations or changes to those fantasies

um rumination which is a feature of depression and anxiety a lot of other psychological disorders

is this idea of well you know um a ruminant is an animal that chews a cud um sorry you get a little agriculture

lesson here too it's like a cow will uh eat grass right uh choo choo choo swallow and then regurgitate it and then

continue to chew on it right and then swallow again I don't know it has like five stomachs or something um I didn't I

didn't study agriculture but um uh cow cows and a couple other animals do this and they're called

ruminants um and rumination is basically doing that chewing a cud right with your uh

with your thoughts right you're um you're thinking about um uh something that made you really

angry something that somebody did or thinking you know about the conversation you're gonna have right like oh I'm

gonna I'm gonna let them have it I'm gonna say this to them it's like you hurt me in these ways right and you're

stuck in this thought um and a lot of that happens really automatically right I bet many of you as

you think about this thinking about like you know if you think about the times where you

found yourself ruminating I know for me it it's this thing that sometimes sometimes will keep me up at night I'll

be thinking about like oh I really want to you know say this thing to this person because I need to understand you

know how they did me wrong or whatever um and that'll you know that'll happen as I'm trying to fall asleep right and

so um the the challenge is that with rumination is is it is automatic right

um but then sometimes we can become aware while we're doing it and then consciously keep it rolling right so a

lot of uh uh a lot of again daydreaming and sort of our wandering thoughts are sort of that's happening on its own

right and so you might be thinking as you're listening to this um or as you're in any of your any of

your other classes like a thought might bubble up into your head and you're like oh where did this come from and the

answer is it came from the part of your mind that does a lot of thinking without you right

and this I I you know this is potentially useful I just agree I think it's super useful it's incredibly useful

you're um this this thing it isn't it great for both of these two you know now now in my head they have a little crush

on each other now that I said that so that's that's we're going to call that canonical for this picture right isn't

it great that these two can focus on their conversation and not have to worry about like you know walking right not to

think super hard about walking not having to Super think think super hard about that you know that bike you know

um and how to how he's gonna uh you know keep it going straight to not be distracted right your system one is also

helping filter like these two in the back are also having a conversation with each other right

um you know they're probably having a good laugh about how these two are going to get together maybe

um uh and so um their conversation isn't distracting

these two because there are some automatic filters in place right that system one is managing right and that

would get broken immediately if this guy called his name that would get shattered instantly and again that's because

system one is doing all kinds of fun things like filtering out relevant information right

all right so higher level of Consciousness system two this is here she is she is she is uh uh solving this

crossword puzzle I assume that's what's on the other side of this page right she's solving this crossword puzzle

she's thinking hard this is our controlled processing it's our critical thinking it is that in that internal

monologue that we we have we feel like we have good control over system one might be out this weird thought bubbled

up for me but when you have that thought were you where you say to yourself that's an odd thought that I just had

right that's your system two coming in and like and being there to judge being there to evaluate

um we call this executive function um you know like an executive running a company in that same way

um yeah that's in that same way your system two is we we think of it as being in

charge right I think that's naive personally but um and and most neurologists and

neuroscientists and biological psychologists would agree with me um but it is

um we perceive it very keenly as running the show right all our planning problem solving

anything that where we're focused on something related to you know achieving a goal right and it requires our

attention the thing about system two I think about this higher level of Consciousness is that it's sort of it's

It's linear right it really can only have one thing and at a time now about half of you are probably saying to

yourself well I'm a really good multitasker I can think about multiple things at once

um and there is no research data that supports that what human beings do when they multitask they switch their

attention rapidly between those two things and it always makes them worse at both

right and so one myth that I love to dispel in this class is that well you know well I you know I know I'm bad at

multitasking I'm a man but women are naturally really good at multitasking and I'm here to tell you no there are no

observed gender differences in quality of multitasking work culturally and societally here in this country

um and unlikely elsewhere but I can really only speak for America we demand women and girls multitask take care of

many things manage other people's feelings as they are you know working on like projects right to uh to do like

kind of extra menial labor around offices right this is this isn't and you know for those of you who are you know

in have not been in the workforce before you have not not observed these kinds of patterns

um but uh this belief that women are better multitasking um is like is a circular tautological

um we wouldn't call it a tautology because um the reason we believe that is because

we make women do it actually um and and again if that if that sort of like that sort of gender analysis

offends you I hope one you'll open your mind but two let's just take a step beyond that and just go look there's no

data that supports anyone is better or worse than multitasking actually

um all the studies we've done on multitasking are like nope they're switching back and forth and they're

worse at both every time always right so um you're level two or your system two

your higher level Consciousness your your critical thinking your executive function tends to be linear it really

only has one thing in it at a time right and your system one is helping out by filtering out the things that you're

not supposed to be paying attention to but for instance if you are driving and texting or you know driving and you know

switching the song on your phone or whatever in that moment you are switching between the task of driving

which I would say especially we all we have a lot of freeways around here right I would say it's very important and the

task of operating your phone which is less important and when you're doing you're worse at both right you're going

to mistype on your phone you're going to search for the wrong term and then uh you're gonna swerve out of

your Lane right you're gonna miss the brake lights in front of you right and every time you do that and you succeed

you're getting very lucky that something that required your immediate attention while driving didn't come up right and

so um it's it's important to uh uh to keep to keep that in mind because a part of

the things that are valuable about psychology is they help us understand how the Machinery of the brain works

right and one of the things that we know about the brain is that when it comes to critical thinking when it comes to tasks

that require effort we've got one lane right and system one is there to handle all the stuff

that is around it that can happen automatically so system one is there to help us handle walking taking steps

doing a little bit of navigation Maybe right because you've all had the experience of driving home and then you

pull into your driveway and realize well I don't remember the last 15 minutes of that drive right

um because yeah your system one was running the show what's scary about that right is uh is Pilots also experience

this they'll land a plane and be like huh yeah here we go here we are um because they've done it so much right

and so system one can't handle some pretty complicated things um

uh but really if something requires our attention and requires us to sort of respond to new information we need our

system too and that really only fits one thing at a time so

um I think people are often curious about right our Altered States Of Consciousness and so one of the ways

that we can uh we can alter our state of consciousness right are sort of you know we can think of Consciousness as sort of

like our are you Unified singular consistent experience of the world right generally speaking you don't

wake up and feel like a different person you wake up and feel like you right um You experience the world and you're

like oh yeah this is this is me experiencing these things I like this I don't like this huh I I really like this

that surprises me I learned something new about myself right um

and then there are processes that can come into uh um and disrupt that so drugs alter our

Consciousness right um this is true even you know a couple drinks of alcohol can change the way

that you experience or think about a situation right um being really tired being really sick

a traumatic experience uh deprivation of food um can change your how you're thinking

right how you're experiencing the world processes like meditation and hypnosis um uh I'm going to refer you to your

book about hypnosis for the most part um generally though people get excited when

they see that out there and and the and and hypnosis is a is a weird thing because there are there

are people who absolutely who absolutely swear by like yeah I was hypnotized I was hypnotized and the the funny

frustrating thing about hypnosis that I'm just going to say here and then I'm going to move on is that a person who

does not want to be hypnotized will not be hypnotized 100 there is no way to hypnotize a person who does not

want to be hypnotized now can you use drugs to induce a state of uh of suggestibility that resembles hypnosis

absolutely but I'm talking about the guy with a watch you know a guy moving his finger back and forth you know cartoon

Bugs Bunny hypnotizing Elmer Fudd or whatever right because I you know you mostly see hypnosis in cartoons

um if you don't want to be hypnotized you won't be period full stop um and so

uh it's one of those things where we kind of go well it seems like maybe then there's sort of a role fulfillment thing

happening here right less so than anything actually happening

um so yeah hypnosis mostly a matter of role fulfillment meditation however

um uh does induce um uh some altered perceptions and I

think where people get stuck and where people like who want to who want to build their own personal like practice

and meditation right um where they get stuck is they look for really like a really profound shift but

the reality of of what happens with meditation really is that um we're really slightly changing how

our body is right we're slowing our breathing which in turn slows our heart rate which in turn like really gears up

our parasympathetic nervous system right and really like Narrows what Sensations we're attending to

right and in those moments right we are we are experiencing a kind of thinking and an

experience of the world but is that is not radically different right but different from our day-to-day lives

right and so the you know the the practice of meditation generally in eastern religion is about

um is about learning to become more aware of what you're focusing on right and that's a very very rudimentary

explanation of that and so for those of you who are familiar with those religions or practitioners or religion

please forgive me um but uh we think of meditation as an alternative Consciousness because it is

it isn't it is an act of of narrowing our attention and uh in doing so things are going to come up you are going to

have thoughts that emerge right um and in you know like a a you know a more sort of like pirated

Western version of of meditation the the things I've often been taught are things like hey and then what comes up for you

when you meditate you should pay attention to and make a note of it and understand like huh this came up for me

right and so people sit down to meditate and expect this like profound uh you know like

profound change right and I think that that ends up disappointing a lot of people when they

sit down to do it when really meditation is about um you know kind of quieting your system

too enough to see what is [Music] um

what ideas are sort of uh waiting for you or preoccupying you know the other corners of your mind right and it takes

time it takes practice and it's the kind of thing that you build you know five minutes at a time right but people you

know perfectionists that we are get frustrated by being distracted or and these distracting thoughts which are a

feature of meditation not a bug um are thought of as failure right because you know we all think we're

supposed to feel inside like this woman looks outside which is to say she looks like she's really you know at peace you

know another another place but um she's just got her eyes closed and she's breathing really carefully right

and some fun stuff is going to come up for her mental disorders can also uh change our level of awareness right so

individuals going through manic episodes depressive episodes all these things change how we see the world how we think

about the world and alter our conscious experience of the world a person with depression interprets a conversation

with a friend very differently than a person who is not who but then a person with depression who's not in a

depressive episode will even say right where um we're you know individual depression

might be right it looks differently for a lot of people but a personal depression might be Keen to read the

nonverbal cues of their friend as disinterested right or as contemptuous um faster than a person who's not going

through a depressive episode um would look at them as just being like oh they're tired right

foreign so our system one thinking tends to like

govern the sort of automatic things and then beyond that we also have uh we think about some some Notions of

uh subconscious awareness incubation refers to the sort of the incubation of an idea right a concept or

a problem right you can um an easy example of this and and um I'm not surprised how many students will say

they haven't had this experience but um it'll it'll happen um uh but going to sleep with a problem

and then waking up and you know within a few minutes of waking up having a solution right

um for me personally the example I go to a lot is um I uh um one of my favorite video game series

is the Dark Souls games and the Dark Souls games are famous for being very difficult but that's it's a marketing

Ploy they're not that hard but you can get stuck in some parts of them and in particular there are very tough enemies

called you know these are the bosses or whatever right um and sometimes I'll find myself very

stuck on a boss I'm very frustrated and I'll have been playing for a long time and you know it'll be it'll it'll

be time to go to bed and I'll go to sleep and then naturally because I'm still kind of angry about that boss I'll

wake up the next morning and go and you know go fight it again right and find myself

beating it in one or two tries all right it's another example of incubation uh the idea here the theory here is that

overnight while I was asleep I was still thinking about

that boss in those fights right and um you know the uh the rest period right and there's debate here as to whether or

not sleep is a key part of this process right the agreement is that rest taking a break is super important

um the the part that remains controversial is the role of sleep in the you know in problem solving

sometimes it just makes sense to be having a really tough problem just take a break from it you don't have to go to

bed but just take a break from it and give your mind some time to rest and again let these ideas incubate again

outside of our awareness right um and in that rest period the idea now is that we're forming connections

between that problem and um prior experiences that might actually be more useful to us that we're not

immediately able to retrieve right um it is widely accepted and so that's the concept of incubation right the idea

of we are um ideas or problems are sort of being um being addressed outside of our

awareness right parallel processing is this is this concept that um you are you are thinking a lot about

um everything that's happening around you all of the time um but again it's outside of your

awareness so to be more specific about that right um

foreign a good example of parallel processing is something called the cocktail party

effect it's very simple um you are at a party um you are having a conversation with a

group of people at a party right and it's a party right so there's lots of other conversations going on nearby

but here's the thing you're you're a good party goer and you're a good listener and so you're not paying

attention really to any of the other conversations and you're very involved in your conversation

but then you hear your name in a nearby conversation they're not calling to you they're not yelling your

name or whatever but the other your name just got mentioned in another conversation group

and the idea behind the cocktail party effect is wait a minute

you were paying attention to your conversation like a good friend you have no idea what that other group

is talking about because you weren't listening to the words they were using but all of a sudden you heard your name

and that pierced through right your focus and distracted you and

got your attention so the theory there right and that's the cocktail party effect right that even

when you're completely focused on a conversation there's some stuff that will cut through that attention and

somewhere in your mind something is filtering is hearing everything in that room right

um I think this video is very exciting it always blows my mind to think about right you're you are hearing right

because all the sound of that room is reaching your ears right there's you know you're not physically separate from

all that sound right a conversation at the really far end of the room you might not be able to hear but at some level

somewhere in your mind you are taking every single sound that is happening around you

and somewhere a decision is being made as to whether or not you should become conscious of it

right whether you should become aware of it and here's the thing you are not really

a huge part of that decision-making process consciously right that decision is happening automatically

right so that that's parallel processing as you're thinking about being a really good participant in that conversation

right parallel to that process there are a bunch of other processes being like who

are basically being like well don't think about how your shoes feel on your feet right now don't think about that

conversation happening next to you don't think about how the music is really bad right now like who is doing this to us

right instead think of the conversation right and that's happening in parallel to you being a really good conversation

partner so when we sleep we are unconscious right we have very low levels of

awareness of the outside world but we can still be woken up right um and so uh

the last section here this idea of no awareness right which is unconscious censored thought that Freud suggests um

this is this is the one that we are increasingly um

excuse me sorry um that we are increasingly skeptical of right

um the reason that we we are uh we're skeptical of it is I think that there's a lot of processes that we have very

little awareness of but the the prevailing notion is that we can learn that these processes exist and we can

take steps consciously to kind of mitigate or manage some of them um whereas again you know Freud thinks

of this idea of this like censored thought as like well no these are thoughts are just too too much for us to

Bear when for the most part um uh

the thing that is actually happening is it's not these thoughts are too harmful for us the reality is that these these

processes of thinking right that are guiding our behavior that we're not really aware of right

um are it's not that they're too too terrible it's that they're too automatic for us to even consider that they are

there right um an example of this

um this is I'll it's a little embarrassing for me um but I used to tell people when I was a student when I

was much much younger um uh I used to tell people that I could walk into a room and tell who I could

get along with trying to be like you're walking around be like oh that person seems like

somebody I could talk to that person seems like somebody I could talk to that person I won't have anything in common I

used to tell people I had that talent I could walk into a room and figure it out just by looking at people

um just so you know it's very it was very stupid of me um

because uh what was happening is um I had a bunch of biases right everybody does right I had a bunch of biases and

assumptions about uh about what people were like that

were happening automatically right I used to say like oh yeah that person tends to have like more color to them

right they like they're like they appear highlighted to me right like it was almost like a synesthesia sort of thing

I I was an insufferable undergraduate um here's the answer here so um I bring that up I bring up this

personal example because here I am telling people I can I can I can make these distinctions I can just look and

see who I'll get along with um and what I wasn't considering right what was outside of my awareness was the

fact that you know I have some built-in assumptions about what the kind of person I'll get along with looks like

right um and so uh you know I look at a person and be like oh that person looks kind of

like a they like sports so I probably won't get along with them and again I'm not thinking that I'm just looking like

I just know I won't get along with that person but under what I what I learned was that I was making again assumptions

about about people just sort of super automatically right and here's the trick the reason why these things stay out of

our awareness right and this is what's this can be very useful to all of you the reason not these stay out of our

awareness is because we never test them and we never allow them to be disproved right because what do I do I walk into a

room I go I'm only going to get along with these three people and so what do I do with this party I only talk to these

three people I only try to talk to these three people I wasn't that rude of being like well am I going to talk to you

because I already know we're not going to get along but what I would do is I would direct my energy to talk to

the people who I had already assumed I'd get along with and I never really gave an opportunity gave anybody else an

opportunity to to prove that wrong I didn't do any experiments right um which one of the most useful things

you can do to make your life easier is to allow yourself to start conducting experiments to test your beliefs right

to test your expectations about things to try new things and see what happens right and so increasingly we are leaning

more toward the idea that it is not that an idea is horrible right that makes us not think of it it's that we

um it's that testing your beliefs is takes energy and um most people are not super eager to

spend their energy on testing beliefs that so far have worked for them right and the answer here is always but

everything could be working a little better if we just tested and pushed on those beliefs but for the most part you

know people have stuff they have to do so they don't do it

right uh let's Forge ahead here okay so

our Consciousness moves through rhythms which are biologically dictated throughout the day right we are and

human beings are an animal that sleeps that's the thing we do right it's uh it's not optional there's no there's no

one that is a human being that doesn't sleep unless something really horrible has gone wrong and if

there's a human being who has suffered a kind of brain damage that stops them from sleeping they are not long for this

world they are going to die right and so um it's rare that I that I'm going to speak this like

essentially about humans uh especially because you know humans are very complex there's lots of variation among us but

when it comes to humans as an animal right humans sleep lots of other animals sleep as well so

um we have a biological Rhythm where we go through periodic physiological

fluctuations right some of them for some animals they're annual or seasonal right um one of the one example of this the

perhaps the most important one is the 24-hour cycle the Circadian rhythm right uh which probably many of you have heard

of but the Circadian rhythm is the is the um the way our bodies change throughout

the day right and so

uh the superclosmatic nucleus is the the region that uh that kind of governs March 24-hour cycle we know this almost

certainly because in people where this is damaged um we see disruptions in in sleep

patterns right and so uh the the idea right is we have we have internal clocks that manage levels of

various hormones uh our energy levels all of those things are kind of are managed and go up and down

um based on so sorry um based on a lot of pieces of information

um and so if that's vague I apologize but I'll go through some of them so the Circadian rhythm is affected by our

perception of light it's affected by our diet it's affected by our previous day's waking

um we know that it's affected by light because a really fun uh a really fun fact and I don't know if this has

necessarily been replicated because I learned this when I was an undergrad but it's a fact that stuck with me for a

really really long time I learned this in Psych one uh when I was an undergrad and um

uh the idea uh is our circadian rhythms actually expand to about 25 hours when we're

deprived of light so they took some folks um who spent uh basically they spent

time living in a cave more or less totally deprived of natural sources of light and over time their circadian

rhythms expanded to be about 25 hours long right so that extra hour is kind of interesting but for us our day has 24

hours um and so based on light around us right so information from our visual system

influences how uh our circadian rhythm right so um if you're trying to get adjusted to a

new area a new time zone right you may need to invest in some blackout curtains or some special lamps or lights right

um another thing if you're trying to get used to um a new time zone is making sure you're

having a protein Rich meal times that correspond with the time you're trying to get used to right so

don't keep eating when you're hungry right after you um uh after you

um uh move to a new time zone instead um what you really want to do right is

you know say you fly to Paris you need to start eating lunch at noon Paris time even if you're not that hungry you need

to make sure it's protein rich and that will again start to shift and pull your circadian rhythm into the right into the

right spot right so there's a lot of factors that um

uh that really dramatically influence um your skating Rhythm right so it's not

just an internal biological clock because or rather it is however what's important to understand is a bunch of

outside information affects how this clock is working right so

why why do we need to need to sleep um I'm gonna put all these up here because

I'm gonna put all these up here because um I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you the answer ahead of time one of the one of

the things that I find psych one does a lot is it'll list a bunch of things and be like it could be this it could be

this it could be this and then we always end on the same point of we're not exactly sure it's probably all of these

and the answer is it's all of these right so um sleep is adaptive it's interesting

safety is always a one that that it tends to be surprising and so um

being in one place not moving at all for eight hours actually makes it harder for predators to find you right you're not

because most Predators uh uh rely at least a little bit right A lot of them are rely on scent but a lot of predators

are at least a little bit on the on movement right

um in order to like sort of finalize the tracking of their prey this is why deer

have a freezing reflex right um it's because if they freeze in place they might get lucky and that Predator

might lose them right and so uh one of the guesses about why any organism sleeps

is um in part uh going to be that hey look

if we just take a third of our day where we're not moving around a bunch that's a third of our day where we do not attract

as much attention it also could be useful for energy consumption conservation right

or rather using our energy more efficiently right because you do still use quite a bit of energy while you

sleep um but uh the idea here being like okay you've

got you know 18 hours of really like active uh of really active time and movement

that's 18 and it's 16. 16 hours of like you know of active you know searching for food building shelter blah blah blah

um and then you're gonna take some time where you are forced to not move right by sleep

um it could have a restorative function uh helps with healing helps with uh getting over illnesses right generally

when we start feeling better from a cold or a flu we tend to sometimes we'll sometimes will feel really rotten in the

morning but then we'll realize as the day gets started like oh I'm feeling better today right and that usually

happens after a stretch of sleep it could be helpful with growth give our bodies an opportunity to focus on uh

building new tissue one of the major things that we're very interested in research-wise is the idea

of blame brain excuse me brain plasticity right which is this this notion that while we sleep our brain is

building new connections I don't know what happened uh building new connections right so you can think about

our waking hours are um we're forgive this metaphor but our waking hours are spent making a bunch of

dirty laundry right we're wearing a bunch of clothes we're trying on different kinds of clothes we're doing

activities in them we're doing all these new things right and at the end of the day we gotta take all these clothes off

right we make a big pile and what is happening when we sleep is our laundry's getting folded and stored

right it's like oh well we wore this shirt and this we'll want to wear this again so Let's Fold this right and so

what we're doing is we are consolidating right memory consolidation we're taking it and we're taking the laundry like our

laundry is a big pile but once we fold it right it looks much smaller right it fits in our storage places right that's

why I use that laundry metaphor um and so yeah sleep may be a time when

our brain goes through folds the laundry of our experiences of that day decides what should be kept which like oh we

haven't worn this we haven't worn this in forever let's get rid of it right and so forgetting right we uh and then so

what this looks like the idea of what this looks like in reality is our neurons working overtime to rearrange

themselves in order to create networks that are going to better store stuff we need to hang on to right or in the case

of I you know I talked about that idea of going to sleep with a problem waking up with a solution right in that case

what is likely happening is that work is being done to draw connections between the experiences of the day right and

literal physical connections being made with um uh relevant experiences from our past

perhaps right so either way um there there are there are suggestions that uh sleep plays a huge role in uh

the development of memory and the uh construction of synaptic connections so

the last thing that I want to reiterate here the bottom line with this is going to be that

we are not 100 sure it's likely all of these are many of these right um the issue is that um when we deprive

people of sleep they they lose quite a bit um but but oftentimes uh we can get some

of this stuff back with just like kind of basic rest without sleep so it's we're still we're still we're still

ironing it out so we lose alertness and cognitive performance we can't really sustain attention uh our brain activity

is less complex we make worse to sit and we make worse decisions right

um and so not getting enough sleeps really bad for you um many of you

oh I it's uh one of the things I love about teaching psych 100 is that many of you are kind of new to the whole College

thing and so let me tell you up front you are going to meet people who like to play a game or participate in an event

called the No Sleep Olympics the No Sleep Olympics is when somebody comes to class and goes oh I didn't

sleep at all last night because I was studying it rather really goes like this I only slept three hours last night

because I had to study so hard and then somebody goes well I only slept two hours last night because I was studying

so hard and somebody goes I didn't sleep at all and somebody says I haven't slept for two days right and then this this

goes on um and uh what I want you to do is to

realize that those people are stupid they are stupid they are stupid and you should not think that that is what most

people are doing and you should not do it yourself right sleep is incredibly important to learning it is incredibly

important that keeping your brain sharp so that you can uh so you can wake up and learn new things in class so you can

wake up and Tackle your reading effectively and not feel super over tired right

um and so uh this is my invitation to you to not pull an all-nighter to finish that essay and

instead start it a day or two before or even if you're gonna do it the day before start it first thing in the

morning right um for goodness sakes don't start at 3am

before it's due right um because what you're doing is you're you are um you're not only stressing

yourself out but then you're also robbing yourself of um a brain that's going to be good for

learning right and so um uh just just be cautious about that and again don't let a couple of

boneheads trick you into thinking that you have to pull all-nighters right um uh I will say this I never pulled a

single all-nighter in my entire educational career um the only time I pulled an all-nighter was because I

watched a scary movie I watched paranormal activity in theaters and I was too scared to sleep that night so I

stayed up all night um so one time I pulled an all-nighter had nothing to do with academics a person does not need to

do that um and you might go but Professor Smith I bet you manage your time very well

absolutely not um also not true the [Music]

um uh um there are there are different levels of time management

um mine were generally very poor but I was not a starter I was not a start at midnight kid um for sure

um and so if you have any questions about how to manage your time about how to

um how to do the work of school without um having to pull all liners and stuff please reach out to me by email come to

campus come to office hours um uh make an appointment I love an excuse to be on campus

um uh and so um so we can talk about it um please because uh if you're pulling all nighters

um you've uh you've you have borked your process um and and you should take some steps to

correct it because it's not it's not mandatory at all alrighty forging ahead um so uh

sleep interacts with certain diseases in some in in some comfortable ways um a stroke and asthma attacks are more

common at night infectious diseases uh oftentimes will uh will will induce sleep or cause us to be incredibly

drowsy and sleep problems are super common with those of mental disorders um sleep symptoms are both my favorite

and least favorite to see as a clinician and I'll tell you why um the fur the reason I like them is

because treating issues with sleep or being like okay we're gonna work really hard to get you on a normal sleep

schedule again right or a sleep schedule that is restorative to you right normal whatever

but um that is restorative for you right is super important um and oftentimes addressing problems in

sleep will improve other symptoms which is really cool there's a there's a great

study on depression that that what they do is they took individual depression all they did was like we're just going

to fix your sleep We're not gonna do anything else we're gonna fix your sleep and a lot of those patients saw

Improvement just by getting their sleep back under control so that's why I love sleep as a symptom why I hate sleep as a

symptom is it's so common for so many mental disorders it does not help with what's called differential diagnosis if

somebody says I'm having trouble sleeping I'm almost no closer to figuring out what disorder they have

it's very annoying um but it's but it's it's usually helpful

um to when it comes from the treatment perspective from the diagnostic perspective it is not helpful at all

because it's everywhere right just about every psychological disorder one of the symptoms can be uh disruption of sleep

let's talk about some sleep disorders so sleep apnea uh I I can speak about this one from personal experience sleep apnea

is when um during the night your uh your Airways shut um if you are somebody who snores really

heavily and people tell you like oh you're snoringly loud it might be worth talking to your doctor about having a

sleep study um because uh it's possible that in addition to your snoring

um you are going through periods of time during the night where you are not breathing which is what sleep apnea is

right um sleepwalking sleep talking and sleep eating are

related to differing uh issues General issues with the the chemicals that regulate your sleep um your body has a

bunch of naturally release releasing chemicals um in your endocrine system so your

hormones and uh neurotransmitters in your brain and throughout your body and when the the levels of these different

chemicals are out of whack um you might find yourself being unconscious but still moving

around still talking maybe even going to the kitchen for a snack insomnia is the inability to sleep

insomnia has a billion potential causes right I mean it looks it has two different

forms it's trouble falling asleep and trouble staying asleep um and yeah it's got It's got a bunch of

different causes if you find yourself chronically unable to sleep it again definitely definitely time to talk to a

physician nightmares and night terrors um uh

so individuals with really persistent nightmares and night terrors um they are generally going through one

of two things they're either suffering from an anxiety disorder or um have are they are likely the result

of a traumatic experience unless it is a kid at which case they will almost certainly grow out of it but it um it

can be really tough on parents when a kid is going through um a kid is going through night terrors

because they'll wake up screaming and that's really really alarming for literally everyone involved including

the kid um and uh so

um yeah generally speaking we see we see night terrors in in in scenarios related

to psychological disorders or um it's it'll be it's it's difficult to say it this way um because it feels a little

dismissive but um uh it's a thing that a phase that kids will that children will sometimes

go through um and usually they will move out of it uh finally narcolepsy this is the uh

people who find themselves falling asleep suddenly um it can be fairly debilitating

um in the in the sense that individuals with narcolepsy who don't have it under

control are aren't really able to drive um because again they'll just suddenly fall asleep so those are all examples of

um of psychological disorders so the next thing that really will all will

alter Consciousness are psychoactive drugs um they act directly on the nervous

system to alter Consciousness modify perceptions change moods um uh there are a lot of different

reasons why people take drugs people take drugs for performance related reasons people take drugs uh because of

difficulties with their their own like emotion regulation people take drugs because the behavior is modeled for them

by parents family members or peers they look up to um there are many many reasons that

white people take drugs um uh generally it's widely accepted now at this stage that addiction to drugs is related to

use obviously and also genetic vulnerability um

uh and uh the other thing is that uh treatment for addiction it remains unreliable

right um uh there there's all kinds of data that

you know rehab programs aren't effective until um I numbers as high as like the ninth

visit then by the ninth visit we can reliably say that this person will um will be better right ninth stint in

rehab right so there's all kinds of different numbers about treatment for these uh for these things but um

treatment's not our Focus today um uh we're gonna skip uh I'm talking about

adolescent use so um the way that we think about addiction is it's characterized by these things uh

tolerance which is needing greater amounts of the substance to get the same effect withdrawal which are negative

symptoms when access to the drug is denied these are the two like these are the two most important ones

um because again they reflect a biological change that has happened right and so uh

we can this this woman here she's got her cup of coffee and she's really wigging out

um uh and again I can speak from personal experience when it comes to addiction to caffeine except I'm

absolutely addicted to caffeine I can um I'll be vulnerable with you all here which is to say

um uh oftentimes I'll find myself needing to needing to drink more coffee to get the same effect and then if uh

now at this stage if I go two days without coffee that third day I will have a headache guaranteed right so

that's what that's withdrawal symptom you all so those of you who are who are deep into your Monster energy drinks or

I think the kids are drinking Celsius now um you know or or if you're like me and

you have a coffee habit just just be aware that um if addiction is not just you know like the previous slide a guy

shooting up addiction is um uh is is really any chemical we come to rely on right so for all of you