Resources for States of Consciousness Exploration

As we will discuss in class, your exploration of content from the States of Consciousness unit will happen largely over break. This is good in some ways, because it involves sleeping, and who wouldn't want to do that? However, it does mean you'll be responsible for keeping track of your own progress through some of the material, in preparation for a quiz on January 3rd.

To help you out, I've created a checklist for you AND I've attempted to give you options for reducing your workload in fun and interesting ways (You should have receieved a paper copy of this in class, but I'll give you the online version here). In order to be ready for our end-of-break quiz, you should:

1. Read Ch. 7 in your text.
2. Complete Ch. 7 Reading Questions (due January 3)
3. Get notes on Stages of Sleep & Sleep Disorders either
•  in class on 12/21/12 
• OR by viewing video lecture for this topic
4. Complete either Dream Monitoring OR Sleep Habits Monitoring for 4 consecutive nights, your choice.
5. Get notes on Dream Theories either
• by attending Psych Club at 4:00 PM on Friday, December 28 (rm 136); extra credit is available for this
• OR by the viewing video lecture for this topic  
6. Optional: watch Inception! Psych Club will be watching this at 5:00 on Dec. 28^th (after lecture/discussion)
7. Optional: view Discovering Psychology video on Hypnosis. For those interested in hypnosis and its uses, this is a great supplement to the text reading.
8. Finish video notes from “NOVA: What Are Dreams?” show (if needed). Note: you should have completed the majority of this with the sub on December 13.
9. Prepare for quiz on Ch. 7 on January 3^rd
• Quizlet flashcards can help with vocab review
• Review the Unit Objectives. Do you feel comfortable with all of these listed tasks?
• You may use your notes, your Ch. 7 Reading Guide, and your video notes sheet from “What Are Dreams?” on the quiz.

Good luck! Hopefully I'll also see you on the 28th for a mind-bending viewing of Inception!

Preparing for Your Cognition & Language Test

It's that time again. Time to review your notes, textbook reading, and study guides in order to perform your very best on our LAST test before Christmas break! This unit seems to have gone by quickly, but on some level they all do, I suppose.

To help you with your studies, we will have a study session from 5-7 PM tomorrow (Wednesday)evening. If you are looking for more practice with multiple choice questions than you can find in you study guide (or just need some new ones to try), give these a shot.

Otherwise, our old friend Quizlet is here to help you out, too.

NOVA: What Are Dreams?

Because I'll have to be gone tomorrow for a meeting, you get the privilege of enjoying a break from my incessant talking and demo repertoire. Instead, you'll be viewing a video that's a little ahead of the content we're now discussing. The NOVA production, "What Are Dreams?" will introduce you to research and theory on dreams, a topic we will be learning more about next unit.

Yes....I'm having you complete a viewing guide, too. But when you finish groaning, cheer up, because this will actually help you on the quiz for Chapter 7, which you'll take when we get back from Christmas break (more groans...I know). It's only because I love you guys so much! :)

Bring your caffeine, since this video shows lots of footage of people sleeping. And, given what you know about mirror neurons from last unit, you should be able to guess what effect that tends to have on people.