In the movies, a loss of consciousness nearly always follows a major injury, especially one to the head. Identifying whether or not a person is conscious seems pretty simple, right? An unconscious person will not react when someone shouts at them or tries to shake them awake. Actually, it’s not that simple. Some things people do in everyday life are difficult to categorize as conscious or unconscious activities. Sleeping is one example. While asleep, a person does not recognize external stimuli and is generally unaware of the environment, so they are unconscious. However, one perceives what goes on during a vivid dream. A way to conceptualize states such as sleeping is to place them at different points on a “gradient of consciousness.” …show more content…
While in a state with wakefulness, one’s eyes are open and the body instinctively reacts to stimuli (Bates et al., 2003). Awareness relates to one’s ability to use mental processes to make sense of an environment and form perceptions. A person who retains full awareness can also perceive themselves and think about ways to act on the environment. This means that after perceiving what is going on around them, the person can think of actions to do in order to satisfy their wants and needs, in addition to focusing attention on certain stimuli. Usually, people have both; the functions of daily life require each one. Problems do occur, though. When a person’s awareness, wakefulness, or both are impaired, they fall into a disorder of consciousness. There are several, including but not limited to comas and the vegetative state. In a coma, both components are impaired. Only awareness is impaired in the vegetative state. Observing what goes on in these states can further clarify the two components of consciousness, and consequently the concept as a …show more content…
This is partially true, but comas are more specific. In order to be considered in a coma, a patient must have impaired wakefulness along with reduced awareness, and the condition needs to last for at least an hour. Comas can last for a few days, although patients much longer periods have been observed. An impairment of both wakefulness and awareness that lasts from two to five weeks is classified as a prolonged coma (Gosseries et al., 2013). While a person remains in a coma, they do not respond to stimuli and cannot be woken up. A comatose patient’s eyes will not open, and no evidence of visual pursuit is present. Behavior in response to the environment is also absent; the only movements one makes while in a coma are reflexive. To add on, electrical activity in the person’s brain differs from a properly functioning brain, as only slow frequency bands can be detected (Schnakers, Giacino &
Any truth that can exist in one can exist in the other. Because of this, there is no definite way to tell if an experience is dreamt or not. The arguments against this are purely speculative, based on personal experiences, and perhaps experiences of others, but that is not enough. Just because one person may not feel pain during a dream, signifying some sort of differentiation between the two states, does not mean another person doesn’t. Because all the evidence against this argument are purely speculative and circumstantial, it proves that we cannot prove consciousness at any given moment with Cartesian certainty. A waking state does exist, however, our ability to differentiate it from a sleeping state is impossible, leading to confusion about experiences. Having Cartesian certainty about whether or not we are dreaming at any given moment allows us to evaluate all the other aspects that might be skewed our findings. Because we may be asleep at any moment, who is to say our knowledge and experiences aren’t all dreamed? The brain, although a complex mechanism, is not complex to come up with the ideas that we have experienced within them. We may form new ideas based on our experiences, but the basis of it must have been experienced at one point or another. Our brain’s need reference for knowledge, and for us to know absolute truths, we need to understand that some truths may not be as
...ior of persons with PVS or in a locked-in state. I know believe that even in patients who are vegetative or locked-in, brain does equal behavior regardless of I-function status.
Chapter 4 discusses the several states of consciousness: the nature of consciousness, sleep and dreams, psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and meditation. Consciousness is a crucial part of human experience, it represents that private inner mind where we think, feel, plan, wish, pray, omagine, and quietly relive experiences. William James described the mind as a stream of consciousness, a continuous flow of changing sensations, images thoughts, and feelings. Consciousness has two major parts: awareness and arousal. Awareness includes the awareness of the self and thoughts about one's experiences. Arousal is the physiological state of being engaged with the environment. Theory of mind refers to individuals understanding that they and others think,
The unconscious mind can be explained in various ways and can take on various attributes. Carl Jung the author of “The Archetype and the Collective Unconscious,” defines unconsciousness as the first reactions and interactions a person endeavors. Several Physicists believe that the unconscious mind acts separately from our voluntary thinking. Scientist believes that understanding the unconscious mind is key to determining what type of archetype a person may have or develop. Experiments such as, reaction to stimuli, have lead cognitive psychiatrist to determine the strength of the unaware and involuntary mind. In addition, many social physicists have also believed that the unconscious mind is unaware of it actions and that the unconscious part of our brain can sometimes be focused on several signs that our conscious self can’t see.
When someone is having a partial seizure they are conscious throughout the whole seizure. They know of their surroundings and remember everything that ...
The two brain scans show the contrast between a conscious patient and of a brain dead patient. The colourful or bright region in the normal conscious brain scan highlights areas which are active, preforming tasks such as, thinking, involuntary and voluntary movement. The image which shows brain death is completely black, suggesting no brain activity is taking place in comparison to a person with normal consciousness. The purple region around the brain represents the cerebral fluid around the brain.
There have been some cases where people have been declared brain dead but then regain some brain activity (Greenberg, 2014). This has sparked debates that brain death does not necessarily mean death.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
The unconscious is the largest part of the mind. All the things that are not easily available t...
Two-way interactive dualism accurately describes the connections between our bodies and minds because we can see they causally affect each other. As a result, we as human beings cannot always determine what physical state we are in, but we always know where we stand
Under the heading, Small Chunks of Gray Matter Mediate Specific Content of Consciousness, Koch examines different scenarios in which people experience some sort of brain trauma and as result lose bits of their conscious experience (color blindness, face blindness)(32). These examples provide an argument that consciousness not only holds some physical form within the brain, but these examples allow us to get one step closer in identifying key areas of the brain where consciousness may hide. This information provides reconciliation to the reductionist perspective because it can be reduced to the neurons and the areas in the brain that form consciousness. Romanticism shows unreconcilable aspects in the notion that it does little to elaborate on the phenomenon of consciousness. The question of “why?” is less crucial to consciousness than the question of
Lack of sleep may cause an accident. As you get drowsy, your reaction becomes slow as much as driving drunk.
“Consciousness is defined as everything of which we are aware at any given time - our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions of the external environment. Physiological researchers have returned to the study of consciousness, in examining physiological rhythms, sleep, and altered states of consciousness (changes in awareness produced by sleep, meditation, hypnosis, and drugs)” (Wood, 2011, 169). There are five levels of consciousness; Conscious (sensing, perceiving, and choosing), Preconscious (memories that we can access), Unconscious ( memories that we can not access), Non-conscious ( bodily functions without sensation), and Subconscious ( “inner child,” self image formed in early childhood).
The mental status exam investigates global and limbic brain functions, left and right parietal functionality and language. This is achieved through tests such as, level of consciousness, memory, and language assessment (Blumenfeld, 2010). Yanagawa and Miyawaki (2012) highlight the importance of obtaining reports from witnesses to assist with a mental status examination. They state that pre-hospital patients can deteriorate quickly into unconsciousness, limiting the ability for para...
Sleeping and Dreaming Despite the large amount of time we spend asleep, surprisingly little is actually known about sleeping and dreaming. Much has been imagined, however. Over history, sleep has been conceived as the space of the soul, as a state of absence akin to death, as a virtual or alternate reality, and more recently, as a form of (sub)consciousness in which memories are built and erased. The significance attributed to dreams has varied widely as well.