172 CHAPTER 4
- Which of the following statements about nicotine is true?
a. In terms of addictive power, nicotine is more powerful than her-
oin or alcohol.
b. Nicotine can slow the heart and therefore create a sense of
relaxation.
c. Overall, the number of Americans smoking is on the increase.
d. Overall, the number of women and teenagers smoking is on the
decrease. - _____ is a tranquilizer that is also known as the “date rape”
drug.
a. Halcion
b. Librium
c. Rohypnol
d. Xanax- Typically, opiates have the ability to
a. cause intense hallucinations.
b. suppress the sensation of pain.
c. stimulate the user.
d. cause deep levels of depression. - Most studies of marijuana’s effects have found that
a. it creates a powerful psychological dependency.
b. it creates a strong physical dependency.
c. it produces intense withdrawal symptoms.
d. it is easy to overdose on the substance.
Applying Psychology to Everyday Life
Thinking Critically About Ghosts, Aliens, and
Other Things That Go Bump in the Night
4.15 Describe how the workings of our consciousness can explain
“ supernatural” visitations.
Down through the ages, people have been visited by ghosts, spirits, and other sorts of
mystical or mysterious visitors—or so they have believed. In more modern times, ghostly
visitations have often given way to aliens, who may perform some sort of medical exam-
ination or who may abduct the person, only to return them to their beds. And it is to their
beds that they are usually returned, and such visitations typically are experienced when the
person is in bed. Is there a simpler explanation for these experiences?
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, a type of hallucination can occur just as a person
is entering stage N1 sleep, called a hypnogogic hallucination (Lana-Peixoto, 2014; Ohayon
et al., 1996; Siegel & West, 1975). If you remember that people in N1, when awakened, will
deny having been asleep, a simple explanation for so-called supernatural visitations does
present itself. Hypnogogic hallucinations are not dreamlike in nature. Instead, they feel very
real to the person experiencing them (who does not think he or she is asleep, remember).
Most common are the auditory hallucinations, in which a person might hear a voice calling
out the person’s name, not all that unusual and probably not remembered most of the time.
Imagine for a moment, though, that your hypnogogic hallucination is that of some
person whom you know to be dead or ill, or a strange and frightening image, perhaps with
equally strange and frightening sound effects. That you will remember, especially since you
are likely to wake up right after and be completely convinced that you were awake at the
time of the hallucination. Combine this experience with the natural tendency many people
have to want to believe that there is life after death or that there are other sentient life forms
visiting our planet, and voilà!—a ghost/spirit/alien has appeared.
Sometimes people have a similar experience in the middle of the night. They awaken
to find that they are paralyzed and that something—ghost, demon, alien—is standing over
them and perhaps doing strange things to their helpless bodies. When a hallucination hap-
pens just as a person is in the between-state of being in REM sleep (in which the voluntary
muscles are paralyzed) and not yet fully awake, it is called a hypnopompic hallucination
and is once again a much simpler explanation of visits by aliens or spirits during the night
than any supernatural explanation. Such visitations are not as rare as you might think, but
once again, it is only the spectacular, frightening, or unusual ones that will be remembered
(Cheyne, 2003; Greeley, 1987; Mantoan et al., 2013; Ohayon et al., 1996).Individuals sometimes awaken with the very
real feeling that they have been visited by
aliens or a ghost, demon, or even an angel.
The more logical explanation is that they have
been startled awake from either a hypnogogic
or hypnopompic hallucination experienced at
some point as they were sleeping.