LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

By
Prof. B. Y. Oladimeji,
Dept of Mental1 Health,
College of Health Sciences,
O. A. U.,
Ile-Ife.

INTRODUCTION:

In every science there are basic concepts so fundamental that they are nearly
impossible to define. Biologists agree on what is alive, but not on precisely what life is. In
physics, matter and energy elude simple definition. To psychologists, consciousness is
similarly a fundamental yet slippery concept. What is consciousness? Is it an awareness
of the world? Is it an awareness of ones thoughts? Or an awareness of being aware?

DEFINITION

Consciousness is a loosely defined concept that addresses the human awareness

of both internal and external stimuli.

This can refer to spiritual recognition, psychological understanding, medically

altered states, or more modern- day concepts of life purpose, satisfaction, and self-
actualization.
 Levels Of Consciousness

Most theories map consciousness in a series of levels, some stages of which are
more continuous or complex than others. Movement between stages is often
bidirectional depending on internal and external conditions, with each mental ascension
precipitating a change in reactivity. Advances in neuroscience made it possible to relate
brain activity to various normal mental states waking, sleeping, dreaming.

Researchers also began to study altered states of consciounsness induced by

hypnosis and drugs Medical and pathological perspectives often hypothesize tiered
consciousness as a result of disease or disorders. The Altered Levels of Consciousness
(ALC) theory is one such measure, in which a persons arousability and responsiveness to
environmental stimuli are classified by their behavioural response.

Consciousness as selective attention

Consciousness involves awareness and intention. Psychologists define it as

selective attention to ongoing perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Selective attention
means that at any moment awareness focuses on only a limited aspect of all we are
capable of experiencing. From among all the stimuli striking your body right now, you
select only a few for consciousness. For example, when you are at a cocktail with many
other people chatting and exchanging pleasantries, one usually concentrates on the
person in front of you, ignoring all others cocktail effect.

To understand the nature of consciousness, it is necessary to forego the notion

that we are either conscious or unconscious. Consciousness is not a switch, either on or
off. In humans, neurologists recognize levels of consciousness from minimally conscious
states to full consciousness.

Most theories map consciousness in a series of levels, some stages of which are
more continuous or complex than others. Movement between stages is often
bidirectional depending on internal and external conditions, with each mental ascension
precipitating a change in reactivity. In the most basic sense, this alteration might lead to a
reduced responsiveness as seen in anaesthesiology. More abstract facets of tiered
consciousness describe characteristics of profoundness, insight, perception, or
understanding.

Speculations abound from Eastern and Western cultures about the levels of
consciousness. Examples include the Seven Shamanic Levels of Consciousness, yoga
meditation practices as well as the teachings of Vedanta and Tantra which emphasize the
importance of self-realization. That concept has become increasingly popular in Western
philosophy after Abraham Maslows and Carl Rogerss research in Humanistic Psychology/

Medical And Pathological Views of Consciousness

Medical and pathological perspectives often hypothesize tiered consciousness as

a result of disease or disorders. The Altered Levels of Consciousness (ALC) theory is one
such measure, in which a persons arousability and responsiveness to environmental
stimuli are classified by their behavioural response.

Many such ALC tests take place in hospital settings. The primary evaluation of
patient alertness is the Glasgow Coma Scale, which separates levels of conscious
awareness to a comatose state.

Conscious: normal, attentive; oriented to self, place and mjnd.

Confused: impaired or slowed thinking; disoriented

Delirious: disoriented, restless, clear deficit in attention; possible incidence of

hallucinations and delusions.

Somnolent: excessive drowsiness; little response to external stimuli

Obtunded: decreased alertness, slowed motor responses; sleepiness

 Stuporous: conscious but sleep-like state associated with little or no activity; only
responsiveness is in reaction to pain

Comatose: no response to stimuli, cannot be aroused; no gag reflex or pupil

response to light.
Psychological perspective proposed by Sigmund Freud

One of the most popular psychological perspectives of consciousness was

proposed by Sigmund Freud. In the latter part of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud, a Jewish
physician working in Vienna, elaborated the first, all-encompassing personality theory.

Freud concluded that mental functioning could be described in terms of three

states of consciousness, namely, conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

Represented by the iceberg analogy

Conscious State:

The first and most obvious, is the conscious state. This includes whatever one is
thinking about at the moment. For example, you are consciously listening to this lecture,
consciously writing and from time to time consciously thinking of quite different things as
your mind wanders off to other, more exciting things.

Preconscious State:
 This refers to all stored memories which are not part of the current thoughts but
which can be brought into consciousness. For example, what is the name of your
roommate? You were probably not thinking about that before the question was asked but
now it is in your consciousness. Sometimes it is rather difficult to retrieve such material,
even though you know it. For example, if I ask for the name of your Biology teacher in
Form IV.

Unconscious State:

This is the state containing all the memories and desires, elements of which we
are unaware. According to Freud, some of this material was never conscious, but much of
it consists of material that caused so much anxiety that it was thrown out of consciousness
and repressed. Examples are hostile feelings towards brothers, sisters or parents.

3 regions of mental activity

Freud later found it necessary to describe a kind of mental map involving three
regions or types of mental activity, namely: id (desire); ego (reason); and superego
(conscience).

ID

This is the primary region of mental activity. It is present at birth and is

unconscious. Impulses from the id are directed toward immediate gratification of desire
like food, sex and so on. The pleasure principle rules. However, in response to early
frustrations, we begin to learn something about the limitations imposed by the real world.
We find that our wishes may not be immediately fulfilled. Freud described this coming to
grips with reality as the development of the ego.
 EGO

This type of mental activity involves perception, reasoning, learning and other
activities necessary to interact effectively with the world around us. The ego crosses all
three levels of consciousness, but it primarily involves conscious and preconscious states.
The ego is a realistic servant of the id. It also strives for satisfaction. However, the
pleasure principle governing the id is toned down or governed by the reality principle.

SUPEREGO

The third region, the superego, ordinarily develops as children are exposed to the
moral values of their parents. In this setting, the child accepts and internalizes:

the parental views of ideal behaviour;

their moral values as to what is right or wrong.

These two aspects of the superego are known as the ego ideal and conscience.
Like the ego, the superego spans all three levels of consciousness.

Most of us are able to verbalize our ideals and our moral system. However, we
are not always aware of the reason for our strong emotional reactions on some issues. It
is as if we carry around with us as a stern and moralistic chaperon who punishes our
slightest deviation from the straight and narrow path of virtue by making us feel guilty.
Most people would be unable to kill an innocent puppy not because of legal restrictions,
but because the act would make us feel terrible. At times, the superego can be irrational
as the id. For example, an individual may have been taught that premarital intercourse is
wrong, but then be unable to engage freely in sexual behaviour after getting married.
Individuals with sexual inhibitions often say that it feels as if mother is standing at the foot
of the bed shaking her head in disapproval.

Defense Mechanisms

Over the course of a life-time, each individual develops various methods of

handling anxiety producing situations and feelings of anxiety.

The behaviours that a person uses to deal directly with stressful situations are
called coping strategies

Defensive Strategies are aimed at defending against anxiety rather than dealing
directly with the problem. They are referred to as defense mechanisms, unconscious
processes that defend a person against anxiety by distorting reality in some way.

DENIAL

When an external reality is too unpleasant to face, we may deny that it exists.
The parents of a fatally ill child may refuse to admit that there is anything wrong although
they are fully informed of the diagnosis and expected outcome. Because they cannot
tolerate the pain that acknowledging reality would produce, they resort to the defense
mechanism of denial, at least for a while. Less extreme forms of denial may be seen in
individuals who consistently ignore criticism or fail to perceive that others are angry with
them - or in the spouse who fails to notice all kinds of clues suggesting that his or her
marriage partner is having an affair.

REPRESSION
 While denial of reality is a defense against external threat, repression is a defense
against internal threat. In repression, impulses or memories that are too threatening are
excluded from action or conscious awareness. It is called motivated forgetting. Cases of
amnesia illustrate some aspects of repression. Repression, if completely successful,
results in a total forgetting - a total absence of awareness of an unacceptable motive and
behaviour resulting from such a motive.

SUPPRESSION

Repression must be distinguished from suppression. The process of suppression

is one of deliberate self-control-keeping impulses, tendencies, or wishes in check and
perhaps holding them privately while denying them publicly.

RATIONALIZATION

Rationalization does not mean, to act rationally; it means assigning logical or

socially desirable motives to what we do so that we seem to have acted rationally or
properly. Rationalization serves two purposes: (1) it eases our disappointment when we
fail to reach a goal - I did not want it anyway -and (2) it provides us with acceptable
motives for our behaviour. If we act impulsively or on the basis of motives that we do not
wish to acknowledge even to ourselves, we may rationalize what we have done to place
our behaviour in a more favourable light. In the search for the good reason rather than
the true reason, a number of excuses can be put forth. These excuses are usually
plausible, they simply do not tell the whole story.

Illustrations:

(a) Liking or disliking as an excuse: I would not have gone to the party even if I
had
 been invited. I do not like that crowd

(b) Other people and circumstances as an excuse: My room-mate failed to wake

me. I had too many other things to do. Both statements may be true, but they are not
the real reasons for failure to perform the behaviour in question. If the individual had
been really concerned, he or she could have set an alarm clock or found time.

REACTION FORMATION

It is sometimes possible to conceal a motive from oneself by giving strong

expression to its opposite. Such a tendency is called Reaction formation. For example:

1) A mother of an unwanted child may feel guilty about not welcoming her
child and so becomes overindulgent and overprotective to assure the child of her love and
also, perhaps, to assure herself that she is a good mother.

2) An employer dislikes an employee violently; without being aware of doing

so he bends over backward not to criticize him and gives him special privileges and
advancements.

3) A married woman who is disturbed by feeling attracted to one of her

husbands friends treats him rudely.

There is always the possibility that reaction formation is active among some
individuals who engage in anti- activities, such as censoring pornographic literature or
preventing cruelty to animals. The censoring individuals may actually be fascinated by
pornographic literature. They wage a campaign against it in order to fight others of their
own purity.
 The existence of reaction formation in some people does not mean that motives
can never be taken at face value. Not all reformers are moved to action by veiled or
hidden impulses. Those who are defending against unacceptably impulses often can be
distinguished from the socially concerned reformers by the excessive zeal with which they
pursue their campaigns and by occasional slips that reveal their true motivation.

PROJECTION

In projection, we protect ourselves from recognizing our undesirable traits by

attributing them to other people. Therefore, projection is also compensatory. It protects
our self-esteem. In projection we put meaning into objects and situations which do not
necessarily have a definite meaning. The meaning we find depends on our subconscious
traits. That is why projective tests are so useful.

Projection may involve wish fulfillment. Unmarried women sometime tell police
that men are trying to rape them. However, it simply reflects their frustrated sexual
impulses. A man who is having affairs with women will sometimes accuse his wife of
having affairs - i.e. he projects his own guilt on an innocent person. When projection is
carried to an extreme it leads to the mental illness called paranoia.

INTELLECTUALIZATION

Intellectualization is an attempt to gain detachment from an emotionally

threatening situation by dealing with it in abstract, intellectual terms. This kind of defense
is frequently a necessity for people who must deal with life and death matters in their
daily job. The doctor who is continually confronted with human cannot afford to become
emotionally involved with each patient. A certain amount of detachment may be essential
for competent functioning.

DISPLACEMENT

It is a method of reducing anxiety by directing our behaviour against something

other than the real cause of the anxiety. For example,. the boy who is afraid to hit his
mother may hit his little brother instead, or kick his dog, or kick the wall or break things.
The man who is afraid to talk back to his boss may take his hostility out on his fellow
workers, or on his family. Or he may be too afraid to take it out on anyone, and therefore
he may blame himself. Aggression toward oneself is one explanation of suicides.

REGRESSION

Regression means a return to an earlier, less adequate, more infantile form of

behaviour that is, a return to ways of behaving that were proper for a younger age. It is
essentially an attempt to return to a period when we felt a sense of security. When a
person cannot have his way, or has a difficult problem, he may regress by crying,
screaming, having tantrums, throwing things, bed-wetting, etc. Regression occurs often in
children below six, at the arrival of a new baby. They may ask for feeding bottles, which
they have earlier dropped. Although children sometimes get what they want by this
behaviour, it normally does not solve any problem.

SUBLIMATION

It is attenuating the force of an instinctual drive by using the energy in other,

usually constructive, activities. When we cannot express a motive directly, we can
sublimate it by expressing a different motive, for example, a person who has socially
unacceptable impulses (sex, aggression, etc.) may satisfy these impulses indirectly by
socially approved outlets (art, literature, etc.).

Freud says most art works are forms of sublimation. Artists and other creative
people compensate for their socially unacceptable impulses. Sex, homosexuality,
aggression) by turning them into socially acceptable channels (sex is expressed in art,;
homosexuality is expressed in leadership of boys, and also in art; aggression is expressed
in prize-fighting or surgery.

COMPENSATION

Compensation is a method of making up for our shortcomings in one activity by

excelling in another activity. The term is also applied to the process of over-correcting for
a handicap or limitation. A physically unattractive girl may become an expert dancer. A boy
with muscle damage from poliomyelitis becomes an athlete. Compensation is said to
explain the great accomplishments of Napoleon and Mussolini who are very short men).

FANTASY

People often satisfy their frustrated desires in dreams and daydreams, which are
both not bound by the reality principle. Fantasy can provide pleasure, escape from the
stresses of daily living, a partial gratification of otherwise unattainable desires, and on
occasion may contribute to creative activities. They can be harmful:

If they occupy a disproportionate amount of time and attention,

 if they tantalize the person so that he becomes tempted to act them out in a
detrimental way,

and if, on the other hand, they become substitutes for real efforts to seek goals.

For examples: a man may spend much of his spare time daydreaming of being a
millionaire, but neglect to do a small amount of additional work that would win him
increase in salary and open the way to further advancement. If a girl daydreams about the
perfect romance, refuses to have dates with boys she knows because they do not measure
up to her fantasy of the ideal man, she may end up on the shelf.

IDENTIFICATION

Identification is the unconscious modeling of ones self upon another person.

One may also identify with values and attitudes of a group. Without being aware that he
is copying his teacher, a resident physician may assume a similar mode of dress and
manner with patients;

A school girl wants her mother to buy her the same kind of shoes her classmates
are wearing; she angrily rejects the idea that she is trying to be like the other girls and
insists that the shoes are truly the best available and the sort she has always wanted.

CONVERSION

Conflicts are represented by physical symptoms involving portions of the body

innervated by sensory or motor nerves.

SOMATIZATION

Conflicts are represented by physical symptoms involving parts of the body

innervated by the sympathetic and parasympathetic system.

**Conversion and Somatization are the only defense mechanisms that are always
pathological. Their existence imply maladjustment.

DEFENSE MECHANISMS AS ADJUSTMENT REACTIONS

We all use defense mechanisms at times. Rationalizing failures that would

otherwise cause us to despair or finding partial justification for conduct that would
otherwise make us despise ourselves sustains us, until we can work out better solutions to
our conflicts. Defense mechanisms can be compared to drugs (such as aspirin and
antihistamines) that reduce symptoms without curing the ailment. Antihistamines, for
example, relieve sneezing and runny noses and help hay fever victims live more
comfortably until the basic treatment - desensitization to the offending pollens - can
become effective. Similarly, defense mechanisms may provide relief from anxiety until
more realistic ways of solving personal problems can be worked out.

Although they are helpful as a temporary relief, defense mechanisms often

distort reality and thus prevent effective problem solving. A person who depends on
 defense mechanisms may never learn more effective ways of coping. For example,
individuals who project their hostile feelings onto others may withdraw more and more
from social contacts. By refusing to acknowledge the anger as their own, they never learn
that most people are kind and that they can develop satisfactory interpersonal
relationships.

The premedical student who is failing may by unable to admit that he or she
lacks the interest and ability to handle the course works. A rationalization must therefore
be found to account for failure. Getting sick will convert an academic problem into a
health problem; getting into trouble with college officials will convert the problem into a
disciplinary one. Defensiveness and denial of the realities of the situation prevent a more
satisfactory solution- for example, changing to an academic program more suited to ones
interests and abilities.

ASSESSMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Psychoanalysis dismisses objective assessment tools such as agree-disagree or

true-false questionnaires as merely touching the conscious surface. Needed is a sort of
psychological x-ray a test that can see through our surface pretensesand reveal our
hidden conflicts and impulses.

Projective tests aim to provide such a view, by providing people with ambiguous
stimulus and then asking them to describe it or tell a story about it. The stimulus has no
inherent meaning, so whatever meaning people read into it presumably reflects their
interests and conflicts.
Examples include the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in which people express their inner
hopes, fears, and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. The
Rorschach Inkblot Test seeks to identify peoples projected feelings by analyzing their
interpretation of a set of 10 inkblots.
 LECTURE SUMMARY

Consciousness is a loosely defined concept that addresses the human awareness

of both internal and external stimuli.

This can refer to spiritual recognition, psychological understanding, medically

altered states, or more modern- day concepts of life purpose, satisfaction, and self-
actualization.

Most theories map consciousness in a series of levels, some stages of which are
more continuous or complex than others. Movement between stages is often
bidirectional depending on internal and external conditions, with each mental ascension
precipitating a change in reactivity.

Medical and pathological perspectives often hypothesize tiered consciousness as

a result of disease or disorders. The Altered Levels of Consciousness (ALC) theory is one
such measure, in which a persons arousability and responsiveness to environmental
stimuli are classified by their behavioural response.

One of the most popular psychological perspectives of consciousness was

proposed by Sigmund Freud. In the latter part of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud, a Jewish
physician working in Vienna, elaborated the first, all-encompassing personality theory.

Freud concluded that mental functioning could be described in terms of three

states of consciousness, namely, conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

Freud later found it necessary to describe a kind of mental map involving three
regions or types of mental activity, namely: id (desire); ego (reason); and superego
(conscience).
 Over the course of a life-time, each individual develops various methods of
handling anxiety producing situations and feelings of anxiety.

The behaviours that a person uses to deal directly with stressful situations are
called coping strategies

Defensive Strategies are aimed at defending against anxiety rather than dealing
directly with the problem. They are referred to as defense mechanisms, unconscious
processes that defend a person against anxiety by distorting reality in some way.

Examples discussed include denial, repression, suppression, rationalization,

reaction formation, projection, intellectualization, displacement, regression, sublimation,
compensation, fantasy, identification, conversion and somatization.

We all use defence mechanisms of one type or the other at different times. They
are helpful as a temporary relief. However, they often distort reality, thus preventing
effective problem solving.

THE

END