Sleep
...of age, we will spend about 25 years sleeping including about five years dreaming. At least once everyday, more often at night we experience sleep, along with it an altered state of conscious different from a state of normal waking consciousness. During the altered state of consciousness associated with sleep, our awareness and perception of ourselves and events occurring around us differ. Just as there are differing states of consciousness or levels of awareness within normal waking consciousness, when we sleep we also experience different states of consciousness. These stats of consciousness also differ during different stages of sleep, such as dreaming.
For psychologists to detect and record physiological responses while a person is sleep they use sleep study unit or sleep laboratories to carryout the research. These laboratories are homelike, furnished and decorated to be as comfortable as possible. The sleep laboratories are fitted with a number of devices to monitor and record various physiological responses of a sleeper during the course of the night. Devices such as EEG (electroencephalograph), EMG (Electromyography), and EOG (Electro-oculogram) provide useful information on physiological changes that occur as we fall asleep and during sleep itself are electrical activity of the brain, information about eye movements, and the body’s muscle tone or tension. Other physiological responses such as heartbeat, skin or body temperature, respiration, the amount of oxygen in the blood and leg movements can also be recorded.
SLEEP PATTERNS
Over the course of a typical night sleep we experience two different states of sleep called NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. These occur in continues cycle with one following the other. NREM sleep consists of four different stages, each lasting for about seventy to ninety...
View Full Essay
