TASK 8 - ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Question 1

altered states of consciousness

Answer 1

= ASCs = (subjective definition) qualitative alternations in the overall pattern of mental functioning

• experiencer feels his consciousness is radically different
• -> difficult to define, as different people have different prior experiences
• alteration in ASCs: alteration to representational relationships between consciousness and world (not consciousness per se)
• study how ASCs change functions: eg.g attention, perception, memory, self-control etc.

Question 2

ASCs

- changes in attention

Answer 2

• change along two dimensions
  (1) direction: directed inwards or outwards, which can be induced either by reducing sensory input or overloading it
  (2) focus: broadly or narrowly focused

Question 3

ASCs

- changes in memory

Answer 3

• linked with effects on thinking and emotion
• time perception changes are linked with changes in memory
• mind-altering drugs: reduce STM –> debilitating effect on conversation + more focused attention on here-and-now

Question 4

ASCs

- changes in arousal

Answer 4

• either decrease or increase arousal
• changes affect every aspect of mental functioning
• meditation: low arousal and deep relaxation
• ritual practices: high arousal

Question 5

phenomenal state space

Answer 5

= phenospace = three-dimensional space with different ASCs positioned along these dimensions
–> must simplify space, work only with few variables

Question 6

phenomenal state space

- Tart

Answer 6

• systematically map states of consciousness with two dimensions:
  (1) irrationality
  (2) ability to hallucinate
• derived three major clusters corresponding to (1) REM dreaming, (2) lucid dreaming, (3) ordinary consciousness
• all other positions in this space either cannot be occupied or are unstable (e.g. briefly hover between waking and dreaming, state is unstable and rapidly gives way to one of the stable states)

Question 7

phenomenal state space

- Laureys

Answer 7

• more systematic two-dimensional space:
  (1) level of arousal: physiological wakefulness
• -> dependent on the brainstem arousal system
  (2) awareness of environment and self: content of consciousness
• -> requires a functionally integrated cortex with its subcortical loops
• for most states, level and content are positively correlated as you need to be awake in order to be aware
• some exceptions: vegetative state, sleepwalking, some kinds of seizures
• -> some wakefulness but no apparent awareness

Question 8

phenomenal state space

- AIM (Hobson)

Answer 8

• three dimensions:
  (1) Activation energy: similar to arousal
• -> measured by EEG
  (2) Input source: vary between entirely external or entirely internal sources of information
  (3) Mode: which is the ratio of amines to cholines
• -> during waking, amine neurotransmitters dominate (essential for rational thought, volition + directing attention)
• -> during REM sleep, cholines dominate (thinking becomes delusional, irrational + unreflective)
• any area in the space can be occupied

Question 9

phenomenal state space

- psychological + neurobiological review

Answer 9

• four dimensions:
  (1) activation: low to high arousal
  (2) awareness span: narrow to broad amount of contents available to attention and conscious processing
  (3) self-awareness: diminished to heightened
  (4) sensory dynamics: reduced to heightened sensation
• dimensions are first step towards constructing a C-space (= the space of states of consciousness)
• B-space (= counterpart to C-space) = space of functional brain states
• -> challenge is to create mappings between the two

Question 10

PSYCHOLOGICAL triggers for ASCs

1. mediation

Answer 10

• Tart’s subjective definition of ASCs: meditation does induce ASCs –> people feel that their mental functioning has been radically altered
• meditation gradually changes the neural structures of the brain, advanced meditators may reach states that are unique to meditative practice
• Buddhist teachings: claim that ASCs can be achieved through meditation
• -> jhanas = series of eight increasingly absorbed states that can be reached through deep concentration applied in a series of graded steps
• techniques amount to controlled self-stimulation of the reward system –> begins dopamine, then noradrenaline and endorphins
• each neurotransmitter accounts for the various emotions and sensations of the jhanas

Question 11

PSYCHOLOGICAL triggers for ASCs

2. hypnosis

Answer 11

• Tart’s subjective definition: easily accept that hypnosis is an ASC –> hypnotic subjects often feel that their mental functioning is radically different from normal
• theoretical positions are on a continuum rather than a dichotomy
• what produces heightened suggestibility may be the person’s perception of being in an altered state, rather than some altered state itself
• -> “state” of consciousness can be distinguished from what the person experiencing it wants or believes it to be
• hypnotised subjects seem to be able to accept illogicalities in a way that fakers cannot + have also changes in neural activity (changes in anterior cingulate related to reduced pain)
• -> relationship between these changes and the induction of hypnosis remains unclear (many show no differences, but there are some interesting anomalies)

Question 12

PATHOLOGICAL triggers for ASCs

= mental illness

Answer 12

• psychologically induced ASCs may range from rhythmic trance to sensory deprivation to bereavement, and perhaps even hypnosis
• caused by mental illnesses that cause sleep deprivation, oxygen deprivation, fever, seizures
• mindfulness meditation + several kinds of psychoactive drugs seem to be effective in treating mental illness –> techniques often used for inducing altered states can also be used to cancel others out
  a) mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: conditions including depression
  b) micro-dosing of psychedelics: self-treatment for various mood disorders (e.g. by stimulating serotonin receptors as LSD)
• normality still needs as much investigation as alterations from it –> map continuities and variations in what different people from different cultures accept as normal (to establish when alteration varies from baseline)

Question 13

conscious state

Answer 13

• global dimensions of consciousness that modulate (1) contents that enter consciousness and (2) the way in which those contents can be used by the organism for cognitive and behavioural control
• uni-dimensional relation of conscious states: conscious states can be ordered along a single dimension
• -> doubtful whether all distinctions between conscious states can be captured in terms of a single dimension of analysis
• multi-dimensional relation of conscious states: conscious states can differ from each other along multiple dimensions

Question 14

CHEMICAL triggers for ASCs

= psychedelics

Answer 14

• psychedelic state = states of consciousness associated with the consumption of psilocybin and LSD
• neither higher nor lower than the state of ordinary waking awareness
• effects of psychedelics on:
  1. perception
  2. sensory content
  3. cognitive creativity
  4. creativity
  5. experience of self (+ time perception)

Question 15

effects of psychedelics

1. perception

Answer 15

= increased bandwidth of perceptual experience

• high scores on “elementary imagery” and “complex imagery” factors on an ASC questionnaire
• objects in an individual’s environment appear more salient and personally significant than they normally do
• subjective reports state that colour perception is enhanced
• -> laboratory-based studies: no objective visual improvements in colour perception
• -> found impaired objective measures of hue discrimination despite participant’s subjective reports of enhanced colour perception

Question 16

effects of psychedelics

2. sensory content

Answer 16

= increased amount of sensory content that can enter consciousness

• pre-pulse inhibition (PPI) paradigm: reduction in natural startle reflex that typically occurs if a startle tone stimulus is preceded by another tone
• -> relative reduction in inhibitory response = behavioural measure of sensory gating
• psilocybin: reduces PPI
• -> lower levels of sensory gating + increase in amount of sensory information that enters conscious awareness
• psilocybin and LSD: increased frequency of saccadic eye movements
• -> increases in saccade frequency could allow for a higher sensory sampling rate as a person views the environment

Question 17

effects of psychedelics

3. cognitive capacities

Answer 17

= strongly associated with impairments in cognitive and behavioural control

• LSD: (1) unimpaired declarative memory, learned associations, and working memory (2) impairments in tasks involving mental control and manipulation of new items
• slower reaction times but no reduction in accuracy during spatial WM tasks
• psilocybin: impair measures of sustained, divided, and covert orienting of attention
• impairments in speech production

Question 18

effects of psychedelics

4. creativity

Answer 18

= increase creativity

• novel insights into conceptual problems (= unconstrained style of thinking)
• psilocybin: increases availability of remote associations –> makes a wider array of thoughts available to the subjects
• no evidence that psychedelics increase second aspect of creativity (= capacity to distinguish novel thoughts that are genuinely insightful from those that merely seem to have those properties)
• impair the evaluative aspects of abstract thought
• -> increase in salience and amount of sensory information experienced may itself be sub-optimal for higher-level functions
• psychotomimetics = psychedelics mimic psychosis; deep commonalities between unconstrained style of thought in the psychedelic and psychotic states
• -> psychedelics do not lead to a cognitively optimal state

Question 19

effects of psychedelics

5. experience of self (+ time perception)

Answer 19

• breakdown in the perceived boundary between themselves and their environment (ego dissolution)
• -> generalised weakening or dissolution of the natural boundaries and segmentation that structure perceptual experience
• psilocybin:
  a) impaired integration and grouping of low-level sensory signals required for the detection of coherent motion pattern
  b) impaired a-modal completion: important for identifying boundaries of objects and segmenting scenes within the visual environment (not bad per se)

Question 20

challenges proposed by psychedlics

Answer 20

1) raises questions about recent suggestions that psychedelics might be useful in treating patients with disorders of consciousness (vegetative state, minimally conscious state)
2) challenges Global Workspace Theory (GWT) of consciousness: theory assumes a rather simplistic conception of conscious states
- -> GWT must be developed to accommodate the multi-dimensional nature of consciousness
3) challenges Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness: committed to unidimensional view of conscious states (= equate a person’s conscious state with its level of consciousness)
- degrees of consciousness according to IIT are understood in terms of amount of integrated information associated with the relevant system
- -> global states cannot be ordered along a single dimension

Question 21

ASCs during sleep

- dream research

Answer 21

• dreaming can be defined as ASC which occurs during sleep
• -> dreaming may be described along a continuum: thought-like mental activity (early N-REM) to very vivid dreams (REM)
• usually involve fictive events that are organised in a story-like manner
• characterised by a range of internally generated sensory, perceptual, and emotional experiences
• consciousness exists while individuals are dreaming –> ongoing debate on whether consciousness exists during dreamless sleep as well
• dreaming during different stages of sleep varies in terms of (1) phenomenological characteristics + (2) consciousness
• difficult to establish link between dreaming and underlying neurofunctional changes: dreaming arises from brain activity that is independent of interactions with external stimuli
• -> periods of REM, N-REM, and lucid dreaming: patterns of regional brain activity that are both similar and distinct from those observed during wakefulness
• -> methods do not allow for a separation of duration of REM/N-REM sleep and dreaming in regard to brain activity

Question 22

dream vs. consciousness

Answer 22

• differences in conscious experience between dreaming and wakefulness can be placed along a continuum: (1) no consciousness (2) primary consciousness: simple awareness of perception and emotion (3) self-reflective awareness: abstract thinking and metacognition (= secondary, higher-order, or self-consciousness)
• wakefulness: consciously aware of external world, our bodies, and our selves
• dreaming: consciously aware of internal world to some extent but fail to recognise their own condition
• -> two states of consciousness differ in terms of origin:
• dreaming: offline, internally generated simulation of waking consciousness
• dreams can be seen as a purer form of consciousness: free of constraints imposed by perception and interaction with physical environments

Question 23

dream research

- disadvantages

Answer 23

1. much remains to be learned about mechanisms underlying dreaming during NREM
2. causal links have not received much attention
3. objective assessment or verification of dreams is currently impossible
4. potentially overlook knowledge in relevant areas that could benefit their discipline (only work in highly specialised fields)

Question 24

ASCs during sleep

- REM sleep

Answer 24

(1) global HIGH-frequency and LOW amplitude EEG activity (similar to waking state)
(2) increased heart rate
(3) respiratory activity
(4) temporary muscular paralysis
- people are more likely to report dreams after awakening from REM sleep
- REM sleep and dreaming can be dissociated:
- -> forebrain lesions leave REM sleep intact while dreaming ceases + brain stem lesions prevent REM sleep while individuals continue to report dreams

Question 25

REM dreams

Answer 25

• particularly rich, emotional, and perceptually vivid
• loose, fanciful, and bizarre narratives
• reflect interests, personality, mood
• draw on long-term memory
• often uncertain about time, space, personal identities,
• often has subjective experience of being awake
• perceptual experiences: similar to wakefulness as same perceptual modalities dominate during REM dreaming; visual and auditory sensations, physical activities involve written and spoken language
• -> tactile percepts, odors, tastes, as well as pleasure and pain are not commonly reported
• more emotional contents (elevated levels of joy, surprise, anger, fear, and anxiety)
• aspects of primary but not secondary consciousness: due to less metacognitive activity, reflective thought, and volitional capabilities
• limited access to information about past and anticipated future –> exclusively present content of the dream narrative
• some reports involve reflective thought such as puzzlement about impossible events, contemplative alternatives in decision-making, reflection during social interactions, and theory of mind processes

Question 26

REM sleep

• neurofunctional activity
  1. EEG signals

Answer 26

• large similarities with that of wakefulness

- global brain metabolism tends to be very similar

Question 27

REM sleep

• neurofunctional activity
  2. activated brain regions

Answer 27

1. higher-order occipito-temporal visual association areas: responsible for very vivid visual dream imagery
2. motor regions (primary motor, premotor cortices, cerebellum + basal ganglia): frequently reported motor content
3. pontine tegmentum, thalamus, basal forebrain
   - -> some aspects of consciousness may be more available due to global activation of pontine tegmentum, amygdala, anterior commissure, parietal operculum, deep frontal white matter, and mid-line thalamus
4. limbic and paralimbic structures (amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex): responsible for intense emotional aspects
5. medial PFC, circuits of medial temporal lobe, and posterior cingulate cortex: implicated in memory and self-referential processing; very high overlap with default mode network (DMN) activity
   - -> localised activity changes in parieto-occipital region, irrespective of global cortex activity, may be a marker of conscious experience during sleep
   - activation in visual-occipital and auditory-temporal cortices during REM may underlie the visual and auditory elements that are frequently reported after awakening
   - range of subcortical and neocortical structures are active during both waking and REM, but not during N-REM, which may explain why phenomenological experience of REM is much more diverse

Question 28

REM sleep

• neurofunctional activity
  3. deactivated brain regions

Answer 28

1. right inferior parietal cortex: waking volition and contributes to a unified representation of self and self vs. other perspectives (–> first + third person taking)
2. executive regions of PFC (DLPFC, OBFC, posterior cingulate gyrus, precuneus, inferior parietal cortex): cognitive control, metacognition, and ego functions such as orientation in time and space, reality testing, and self-monitoring (–> dream amnesia)
   - decreased metabolic activity in DLPFC: reduced features of secondary consciousness
   - -> dreamer thinks they are awake, which is a delusion that might be due to a persistent inactivation of frontal and parietal circuits necessary for waking memory, self-reflective awareness, and insight

Question 29

ASCs during sleep

- N-REM sleep

Answer 29

• divided into three different stages called N1, N2, and N3 (= N3: deep sleep or slow-wave sleep)
  (1) a global LOW frequency and HIGH amplitude EEG signal (distinct from waking state)
  (2) slow and regular breathing and heart rate
  (3) low blood pressure
• contain accounts of dreaming (1) N1, 80-90% of the time, reports tend to be shorter than those following periods of REM sleep, (2) N3, 50-70% of the time
• sleep inertia: subjective feeling of grogginess following abrupt awakening –> makes evaluation of reports very difficult as it is unclear to what extent individuals are conscious during this phase
• reports of dreams after awakenings from N-REM are not merely recall of dreams that occurred during REM –> dreaming has been reported after awakenings from N1 before the occurrence of REM + individuals report dreams after awakening from short naps that consist of N-REM only

Question 30

N-REM dreams

Answer 30

1. sleep-onset phase: frequently experience hypnagogic hallucinations while being unaware that they have already fallen asleep
   - characterised by emotional flatness, often static, and involve no self-character
2. after sleep-onset: more thought-like, fragmentary, and related to current concerns
   - more conceptual, more plausible, and typically involve greater volitional control
3. late night NREM sleep: reports are usually longer and more hallucinatory, often being indistinguishable from REM reports
   - reports of conscious experience across N-REM states vary to a great extent
   - -> existence of N-REM dreams provides evidence that consciousness does not cease during N-REM

Question 31

N-REM sleep

- neurofunctional activity

Answer 31

• visual imagery during sleep onset (hypnagogic hallucinations) is represented by brain regions including early visual pathway, fusiform face area, and para-hippocampal place area
• dream reports following awakenings from N2 were preceded by decreased low-frequency and increased high-frequency power in bilateral parieto-occipital areas
• -> including the medial and lateral occipital lobes as well as precuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus

Question 32

ASCs during sleep

- lucid dreaming

Answer 32

• individuals achieve awareness of their own state of consciousness
• rare state of sleep –> skill that has to be trained, occurs rarely in untrained individuals
• achieved through meta-cognitive training, developing autosuggestions, external sensory stimulation, and through frequently contemplating about one’s own state of consciousness
• considered to be a part of REM –> recent evidence suggests that it might also occur during N-REM
• different degrees of lucid dreaming (1) pre-lucid reflections (such as minimal awareness that one is dreaming), (2) full-blown lucid dreaming (deliberately controlling the dream narrative)

Question 33

lucid dreaming vs. consciousness

Answer 33

= hybrid state of consciousness with features of both waking and dreaming

• involves combined aspects of primary and secondary consciousness
• findings of differences of volitional aspects of consciousness across (1) wakefulness, (2) non-lucid dreaming, and (3) lucid dreaming:
  1. self-determination = subjective experience of acting freely according to one’s will; similar for lucid dreaming and wakefulness; reduced in periods of non-lucid dreaming
  2. planning ability = how well-organised one pursues plans and intentions; impaired during non-lucid and lucid dreaming
  3. intention enactment = how promptly and determined intentions are executed; most pronounced during lucid dreaming + did not differ between wakefulness and non-lucid dreaming
  4. secondary consciousness = insight, control over thought and actions, logical thought; non-lucid REM sleep dreamers lack features of secondary consciousness + defining characteristic of dream lucidity

Question 34

lucid dreaming

- neurofunctional activity

Answer 34

• increased activity in DLPFC, bilateral frontopolar prefrontal cortex, and parietal areas including the precuneus, inferior parietal lobules, and supramarginal gyrus
• fronto-parietal activity: re-instantiation of reflective capabilities which induces features of secondary consciousness (metacognitive evaluation and self-referential processing)
• research may be key in understanding the neural substrates of secondary consciousness (= self-reflective awareness)

Question 35

dream research

- psychosis

Answer 35

• dream phenomenology has often been compared with psychosis
• many similarities between dreams and positive symptoms of schizophrenia (1) false beliefs due to incorrect inferences about reality (2) distorted sensory perceptions that have no apparent external source
• -> elevated levels and uncritical acceptance of cognitive bizarreness, decreased reality testing, and delusional belief of being awake while dreaming
• similarities in terms of cognitive bizarreness between the waking thoughts of individuals with psychosis, their dream reports, and dream reports of healthy individuals
• fMRI data: psychosis and dreams have large overlaps
• differences of psychotic patients from healthy subjects: judge dream reports as less bizarre and perceive bizarreness as being real without any critical reflection
• -> understanding lucid dreaming may shed light on mechanisms underlying lack of insight into the delusional nature of one’s current state of consciousness (in psychosis)
• -> certain studies suggest that psychotic patients can better control their internal reality than healthy individuals during lucid dreaming