Chapter Three - Consciousness and The Two Track Mind

This chapter discussed consciousness, how consciousness and the brain are related, the four stages of sleep, affects of sleep loss and sleep disorders, dreams, hypnosis, addictions, and near death experiences. The importance of knowing about our consciousness so that we as individuals are able to be aware of our environment.

So far this has been my favorite chapter to study. I enjoyed reading about selective attention, sleep stages, sleep loss, sleep disorders, dreams and theories that coincide with them, along with the information on addictions. After reading this chapter, I finally have an explanation as to why I am so "blind". This true especially when I am focused on one particular task that needs to get done. I try to multitask and I am usually fairly decent at it, but occassionally if I am multitasking and have several things going on at once I tend to overlook or not notice something that is important. This would associate with what the text book refers to as change blindness and inattentional blindness. The book also refers to a video where a group of teenagers is playing basketball and a man in a gorilla costume comes in and starts to play. When I saw this video in driver's education I was told to focus on the basketball. Due to my concentration I completely failed to see the person in the gorilla costume. My instructor's point was that you need to be paying attention at all times and cannot afford to be focused on just one thing but several. (I guess this would be a real life example of how change blindness and inattentive blindness could be used0

I had never realized that there are four stages of sleep. I always assumed that once you feel asleep that a person immediately was in REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). I also never realized that when you are sleeping you move from one stage to another and then back to the stage of sleep you were at before. Also, I learned that each individual is different when it comes ot the number of hours of sleep a person needs. For example I might need 9 or more but someone else might only 6. I also never realized that through sleep depervation a person can gain weight, feel stressed, depressed, and lowers immunity. I found the sleep disorders to be interesting. I had no idea that nightmares could be caused from sleep apnea. I always had associated them with a trick of the imagination.

The dream portion I found interesting but also confusing because there wasn't a validation as to which theory is the cause or source of our dreams. Some of the theories that I read seemed plausable but it doesn't sound like there is a concrete reason for them.

Overall I found the chapter interesting and learned some very interesting things.