As a human we have what is called circadian rhythms, which simply explains our daily highs and lows. An example of your basic up and down rhythm would be the sleep/wake cycle. Sunlight regulates the sleep/wake cycle by causing the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease its production of melatonin in the early morning and increase it in the evening. Melatonin is a hormone that if increased in blood levels makes an individual drowsy or tired and if decreased will make them more alert. Certain individuals will experience that their biological clock is often out of sync. This can be explained sometimes from either jet lag, working the night shifts or graveyards, and Monday-morning fog.

Sleep in itself has its own biological patterns and rhythms. Hans Berger introduced the electroencephalograph to us so that we would be able to measure the patterns and rhythms of sleep through a record called an EEG. Two different patterns of sleep are REM sleep and NREM sleep. The NREM sleep actuall

Hypnosis is a very controversial state of awareness because of its changes to an individual's perception, memory, and behavior. Not everyone can be hypnotized. The most susceptible people are those who approach it with a positive attitude. When subjects are deeply hypnotized they have said to experience detachment from their bodies or extreme relaxation which changes their subjective experience of consciousness. When a posthypnotic suggestion is made during hypnosis the subject will act on that for a short time after being hypnotized and sometimes up to a couple of days after the session. Ernest Hilgard suggested that while hypnotized a person experiences dissociation that splits consciousness into two or more streams of mental activity.

y has four stages involved in it. During the first stage a person becomes slightly drowsy because of the mixture of alpha and theta brain waves. At the second stage, an individual tends to have bursts of brain activity for a short time, which in terms are called sleep spindles. The second stage also involves theta brain waves and the beginning of delta waves. The third and fourth stages of NREM sleep are often referred to as "slow-wave sleep". Both of these stages are measured by the amount of delta brain wave activity. During REM sleep, the sleeper is unconsciously active. His eyelids may flutter, he may have increased heart rate, and occasional muscle spasms. The two basic sleep theories are the evolutionary and restorative theories of sleep. The evolutionary theory of sleep suggests that our sleep patterns are based on or defined by evolution

Some common words found in the essay are:
Hans Berger, Ernest Hilgard, Consciousness Numerous, nrem sleep, rem sleep, psychoactive drugs, theta brain waves, sleep nrem sleep, stages nrem sleep, sleep nrem, sleeping disorder, biological clock, chemical substances, brain activity, theta brain, circadian rhythms,
Approximate Word count = 1073
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)