Consciousness- Sleep Stages

Activity Consciousness – Sleep stages

Purpose: To help students understand sleep stages and apply theories of dream interpretation.

 

Objectives:

  1. Role-play dream stages.
  2. Guess the sleep stage that another student is in.

 

Materials:

Enough sets of 3×5 sleep stage cards that each pair of students can have one.  The set of six cards is comprised of a card for each stage of consciousness beta through REM.  On the front of the card is the name of the stage and a picture of the EEG recording during that stage. On the back of the card is a description of what the persona experiences during that stage of consciousness.  For example, if the front of the card depicts REM waves, the person experiences vivid and narrative-like dreams.

 

Student preparation: Students will read about sleep stages and dream theories in assigned reading.  The student practices identifying EEG recordings for each stage of consciousness through a computerized activity.

 

Procedure:

  1. Students gather into groups of three and are given a set of consciousness cards.
  2. Students are instructed to choose the role of experimenter, dreamer or EEG recorder.
  3. The each role is explained to the student.  The EEG recorder shows the front side of one of the six consciousness cards to the dreamer.  The dreamer acts as if they are in that stage of consciousness.  The experimenter tries to guess the stage of consciousness that the dreamer is in based on their behaviors.  The EEG recorder lets the experimenter know if the guess is correct.  For example, if the person playing the EEG recorder shows the dreamer the card with the REM wave recording, the dreamer will pretend that she is asleep.  The experimenter will wake up the dreamer and ask him what he was experimenting.  The dreamer will tell the experimenter that he was having a vivid story-like dream (they can make up a dream if they wish).  The experimenter will try to guess which stage the dreamer was in.  The job of the EEG recorder is to give feedback to both the dreamer and the experimenter on the correctness of their interpretation.
  4. After all six cards have been role-played, students change roles.  Each student should have a chance to play each role.
  5. Explain to students that they will be expected to identify the stages of consciousness on the exam.
  6. Students’ participation is graded according to the rubric in the syllabus and is part of the class participation grade.