7). Sleep phenomena.

Most of us will probably spend the third of our lives asleep. Every day every human being experiences two kinds of sleep.

The discovery of the two kinds of sleep occurred almost accidentally at the University of Chicago by Dr. Kleitman. He decided to look for rolling eye movements throughout the night to determine whether they were related to the depth or quality of sleep.

Dr. Kleitman coined the terms REM and NREM. The NREM state is often called “quiet sleep”, because of the slow, regular breathing and the slow regular brain activity. The first sleep of the night is always NREM sleep.

REM sleep is called “active sleep”. At the onset of REM sleep the sleeper’s body is still immobile. But we can see convulsive twitches of his face and fingertips. REM sleep protects us from acting out our dreams and hurting ourselves.

The NREM-REM cycle varies from 70 to 110 minutes. We are believed to go into REM sleep and dream roughly every 90 minutes.

8). Sleep and dreams

Freud construct a theory of dreams as a protector of sleep. If subjects are awakened every time there is an onset of REM, they have a night’s sleep without dreams. After deprivation there was more REM sleep the following night, indicating that there is a kind of “quota” for REM.

When there is less REM sleep one night, more will be required the next. But REM is prominent in infants and also lower mammals. The only conclusion is that the psycho-physiological studies of dreams have given little support to the Freudian theory.

But from the work done so far, it appears that dreaming serves several cognitive functions. It is involved in mood changes; it offers a kind of workshop for the repair of self-esteem and competence.

9). Humanistic psychology.

Humanistic psychology exemplified by such outstanding writers as Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, Eric Fromm and Rollo May.

Humanistic psychology focuses on the individual as a whole person. The humanistic psychologist does recognize the influence of early conditioning and of unconscious drives.

Man has learned to anticipate the consequences of his most complex behaviour. He is capable of ordering his life into paths of his own choice.

Great importance is attached to awareness of self-of values, suffering and joy. Humanistic psychology sees man as being inherently good.

10). Rogerian therapy

Carl Rogers is often cited as the progenitor of humanistic views. Rogers regarded optimal mental health as a state of total congruity between the self and “ideal self”. Such congruity would create unconditional feelings of self-worth. It would translate into positive regard for others.

Rogers thought of therapy as an opportunity to lessen any incongruity between the self and ideal self. Rogerian therapists advocate a therapeutic atmosphere of warmth and permissiveness. A person could receive more “stroking”, that would free him to take chance in life and to self-actualize.

11). Visual perception

There are four experiments to determine what visual perception is.

In the first a person is asked to match a pair of black and white discs. The discs are rotating at such a speed as to make them appear uniformly grey. He has made the proportion of black to white in the illuminated disc identical with that in the disc in shadow. But the disc in shadow is darker than other one if photographed.

In the second experiment a person is asked to match the colours of two pictures in dim illumination. One is of green leaf the other of a green donkey. The percipient makes perceptual world compatible with his own experience.

In the third experiment hungry, thirsty and satiated people are asked to equalize the brightness of pictures depicting food, water and other. Perception serves to satisfy needs not to enrich subjective experience.

In the fourth experiment people are deprived for considerable periods of external stimulation. The subjects begin to see, feel and hear things that someone who is asleep experiences. Such hallucinations are called autistic perception.