LEARN ABOUT HYPNOSIS

THE PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM

We propose now to consider the main phenomena observed during the state of hypnosis, and following the lines of Bernheim, to attempt to link these with phenomena closely analogous to them which are observed in everyday life. In doing this we fully realize that deep hypnotic sleep is a thing by itself, resembling ordinary sleep in some points, but quite dissimilar from it in other points, and that no theories succeed in explaining it satisfactorily. In spite of this we feel that it is both interesting and helpful to realize that many of the phenomena of hypnotic sleep have their parallel in everyday life. Hypnotism is thus robbed of some of its mystery, greater encouragement is given to use persuasion in the waking state whenever such is practical, and treatment by hypnotic sleep is held in reserve for selected eases. We hope to bring out this point more clearly in the sections on Suggestion and on Education.


Catalepsy or rigidity is a striking phenomenon of deep hypnotic sleep. If the arm of the hypnotized person be raised it often remains raised when the operator's hold is released. Should this not happen at once it suffices for the operator to grasp the arm firmly, raise it again and suggest that is will remain up-raised, that the patient is in fact unable to lower it, when such a position will be maintained for from twenty minutes to half an hour without any appearance of strain or fatigue. The arm is then extremely gradually lowered and brought to rest on the couch. The patient may also be placed in an attitude expressive of fear, anger, or other emotional state with a like result, or rotatory movements of arms or legs may be started, which are kept up for a considerable time. Any of these movements may be interrupted by a suggestion from the operator that the subject is unable to to make them. The more frequently a subject has been hypnotized for scientific experiment, the more readily and quickly he responds to these suggestions. In hysterical patients such a condition of rigidity of the limbs is frequently induced by self-suggestion, and without any hypnotic interference.

Under what circumstances is the phenomenon of catalepsy seen in everyday life? It is a common experience that should a patient's hand or arm be lifted while conversing ordinarily, it frequently remains up-raised when the supporting hand is withdrawn, as if the fact of having had the arm lifted had acted unconsciously upon the patient as a suggestion to keep it in that position. Further, it is the experience of all hypnotists that nine people out of ten seldom if ever "relax" except in sleep, and are quite unaware of the truth of this fact until it is proved to them by the operator's ineffectual attempts to induce full relaxation. To test relaxation one has only to grasp the patient's hand and arm, while requesting him to let them go so that they may be bent, raised, or put through any movement the operator may desire. The average person is quite unable to give up his arm in this way. If one suddenly withdraws one's hand while the arm is raised, it remains stiffly in the air; if one then attempts to lower it, one does so against a certain amount of resistance.


Other and possibly more familiar instances of catalepsy in everyday life are seen occasionally under the influence of strong emotion, though here it generally only lasts for a few seconds. One may thus under the shock of a strong emotion remain petrified and immobile, while in the middle of performing some action, or "paralyzed by fear" as we say, we may fail to act at the critical moment in an emergency.

Just as catalepsy may be induced by hypnotic suggestion, paralysis of any limb may similarly be induced, the arm or leg remaining at the command of the operator flaccid, inert, and incapable of performing any action. A patient may similarly feel powerless to open his eyes, should it be suggested that he is incapable of doing so, until permission is given by the operator.

In the deeper stages of hypnosis the patient entirely loses consciousness of the outer world, he hears and obeys the operator alone and on waking-has partially or completely forgotten all the incidents of his sleep. This phenomenon of deep sleep is called somnambulism. In spite of loss of consciousness the patient's eyes may remain open, he will rise, walk, and carry out all commands given by the operator, and will answer when spoken to by him, but fails to reply to any other person. This is called being en rapport with the operator; and if the patient is being hypnotized for medical treatment, it is customary for the operator to suggest that no other person will have the power to hypnotize him unless he expressly desire it. This state of deep sleep is still for us shrouded in mystery, and therefore of intense interest, but we have so far but very limited powers of understanding what it really is.

It is during this deep sleep that many subjects show themselves extraordinarily susceptible to hallucinations, and consequently afford much merriment at a public show by responding to any suggestions, even the most farcical and ridiculous, if given by the operator. Needless to say all experimentation which aims at the ridiculous has no place in the medical use of hypnotism.

Somnambulism has its counterpart in sleep-walking. A sleep-walker, as we know, is capable not only of wandering about from room to room, but of doing many strange and even dangerous actions in a state of entire unconsciousness, and of these actions he has no recollection whatever on awaking the following morning.

During the state of deep sleep it is common for patients to show an entire insensibility to pain, for which insensibility the term anaesthesia is used. So complete is it that a pin may be pushed through the skin in any part of the arm without the slightest movement from the patient, and on awaking he finds it impossible to believe that this could have been done without his knowledge. We have already mentioned how Esdaile and others took advantage of this marked anaesthesia in pre-chloroform days to carry out large numbers of major and minor operations. In recent times tooth-extraction has been painlessly done on more than one occasion with the aid of hypnotic sleep. This anaesthesia can also be induced by suggestion in the state of light sleep, when the patient is fully conscious, and has allowed tooth-extraction to be done so painlessly that only the sight of the extracted tooth has carried conviction to the patient.

It is a well-known fact that such profound anaesthesia is constantly noted in cases of accident, when cuts or graver injuries are sustained and where consciousness has never been lost. The injured person will maintain that he felt no pain at the time of the accident, and that the presence of blood was the first indication that he had of his injury. It would seem that in these cases the sudden shock of paralyses sensation, since such injuries if inflicted in cold blood could not have been borne without great suffering. We believe that similarly the martyrs, as a result of the state of intense explanation into which they fell in anticipation of martyrdom, were to a great extent oblivious of their physical injuries and sufferings. We have also the classical instance of Archimedes, who was found in his tower all unconscious that he had been mortally wounded by a bullet and that his life-blood was flowing away, because of the intense concentration of his mental faculties in working out the solution of a deep problem. Hysterical persons on account of their extreme suggestibility are capable of producing areas of anaesthesia by strong self-suggestion, and may show a complete insensibility to deep pin-pricks over these areas.

As regards the other special senses, it is similarly possible during the hypnotic state to render a person incapable for the time being of exercising his faculties of seeing, hearing, tasting, or smelling, except in so far as the operator allows him to do so. At the command of the operator strong ammonia may be pronounce to be odorless, a bitter drink may be accepted as tasteless, and any article of furniture or person in the room may for the time being be non-existent for the patient.



Many such symptoms of an unhealthy type can be and are produced by strong self-suggestion in hysterical patients, and considerable skill and even strategy is often necessary on the part of the doctor to differentiate between a case where there is a genuine physical cause for them and that where no such cause exists. It may be necessary sometimes to trap a patient into betraying himself when he is off his guard, and so to convince him of and destroy his self-suggestion.

Another well-marked feature of deep hypnotic sleep is the readiness with which in some people we can create illusions and hallucinations. An illusion may be defined as a wrong interpretation of an existing object. One may thus offer a patient a glass of water as a glass of wine. He will sip it and taste it as if it were not water, but in reality wine. A hallucination is the perception of an object where none exists. Thus one may offer a patient an imaginary glass of wine, which he will drink with the utmost gravity as if he really had in his hand a glass of choice wine. One may induce a very suggestible subject to play a varied role of characters with the skill and the art of an actor. At one time he is a child of six playing games with imaginary children and with imaginary toys, at another he is the bashful young girl of sixteen, and at still another a general at the head of his forces.

The carrying out of such experiments is of course only justifiable when its object is to arrive at a fuller understanding of the phenomena of hypnotic sleep.

The parallel of these phenomena in everyday life and in sleep is extremely interesting, and can be readily illustrated. If we are accustomed to regard a certain blend of tea as a superior to any other, is it not true that many of us are quite capable of imagining these qualities to exist in an inferior blend, should we be under the impression that we are drinking the superior blend? If a patient is convinced that a drug called calomel invariably upsets her, one need in certain cases only call it subchloride of mercury and all the disagreeable effects vanish as if by magic, because the patient believes a different drug has been prescribed. Once again, how explain the magical effects of some patent medicine tonics, when we know, thanks to recent investigations, that many of them contain a farthing's worth of drugs? Is the person who drinks such a tonic and finds himself rapidly improving in health, in any different position from the hypnotized person who sips and enjoys a glass of water under the impression that it is a choice wine?

Dreams afford many instances of illusions and hallucinations. Our dream self, our subconscious self, lives through many imaginary scenes, acts many imaginary parts, and sometimes acts them with such intensity that we awake in terror from a gruesome nightmare, or in laughter over some amusing incident, or in tears over a tragic occurrence. Even in day-dreams we often live through past or future scenes, seeing places and people almost as clearly as if they were really existent, and sometimes so vividly that we awake with a start to realize that these were mere hallucinations.

We must now discuss the question of post-hypnotic hallucinations and suggestions in regard to their importance in medico-legal cases. Post-hypnotic hallucinations are such as retain their hold on the subject after he has been wakened, and which can only be dispelled by re-hypnotizing the patient, and suggesting contrary ideas. A hypnotized person may thus be made to believe that he has been robbed of his purse, or that he has been witness of a terrible crime, the details of which he is made to see. If questioned about these after waking, he will describe the details with the utmost confidence and would be capable of giving evidence to that effect in a court of law.

It is familiar to us all how readily some people can similarly fabricate the details of a scandal, can so to speak create for themselves the hallucination of a scandal, every incident of which they can believe themselves to have seen. For this it suffices simply that a slight rumor should be set afloat, and ere long idle onlookers create the details which are wanting, and which they implicitly believe they have founded on fact. Nowhere are more striking instances of this seen than in law courts, when an attempt is made to sift evidence. It is a well-known fact that a clever counsel may lead a witness into accepting and affirming most contradictory statements, by merely suggesting with an air of conviction that certain events had or had not been witnessed by him.

In carrying out experiments to test this matter, it has been found that in order to convince some people that certain things have been done or witnessed by them, it is only necessary to continue to insist strongly and with conviction that such is the case in order to succeed in the end. Cannot most of us recall occasions when it has been so insistently suggested to us that we had done a certain thing that in the end we have hesitated, doubted, and wondered whether after all we might not have done it and quite forgotten the fact?

It will be interesting to dwell at this point upon another phenomenon of the deep hypnotic state, which is a very practical application in all medical treatment by hypnotism. This is the phenomenon of post-hypnotic suggestions.

These are suggestions given to the patient during the hypnotic sleep, to take effect after the lapse of a certain interval of time, it may be hours or days or weeks. It has been shown that in certain subjects specific commands can be given which are executed with the greatest exactness, though the subject is himself quite unaware why he has done the action, and if questioned may attempt to explain it away or maintain that he did it of his own accord. Many experiments have been carried out by Dr. Miln Bramwell and others on the following lines. It was suggested to a woman of poor education that after the lapse of so many thousand minutes she would write on a piece of paper her name, the hour of the day and the date. At the appointed time she noted name, hour, and date as commanded, in spite of the fact that she was mentally incapable of calculating the time. Other subjects were commanded to deliver messages at a fixed time at a certain house, and they too succeeded, in spite of obstacles purposely put in their path, in carrying out these commands.

The working of these post-hypnotic phenomena can only be explained by allowing for the existence of a subconscious self which receives the command when the conscious self is asleep, and at the appointed time causes the conscious self to execute it. THus we may before falling asleep will ourselves to wake at a certain hour, when we shall either wake exactly at that hour or pass a restless night in our endeavor to do so. Similarly, we may promise to do a certain thing, and then go upon our way and apparently forget our promise. But some days later, for no reason that we can understand, the remembrance of the promise suddenly comes back to us in much the same way as a hypnotic command which has been heard and forgotten.

The practical value of post-hypnotic suggestions lies in their bearing on medical treatment by hypnotism. Thus a person suffering from sleeplessness may be given very definite directions as to the hour at which he will get drowsy and the number of hours which he will sleep. In some cases these suggestions are responded to literally, in other cases a gradual improvement in sleeping occurs. Similarly, definite suggestions may be given in a case of obstinate constipation to act later in the form of a post-hypnotic suggestions, and so to lead after a few treatments to the complete cure of the constipation. The various secretions may be influenced on the same lines, and so appetite and the ability to digest any food can be successfully suggested in a person suffering from loss of appetite and may have refrained from solid food for weeks or months. Again, a patient's entire character may be modified by suggesting an entirely new set of ideas and a new outlook, these suggestions gradually forming more and more of the patient's waking thoughts and so modifying and changing his life.

Amnesia or forgetfulness, which as we have seen, is a phenomenon of deep hypnotic sleep, is of peculiar interest, not only because of its parallel in the waking state, but because of its parallel in the waking state, but because of its bearing on the interesting question of loss of memory and of dual or multiple personality.

In deep hypnotic sleep, as we have seen, a subject may do extraordinary things and act various roles, and yet have no remembrance of this on awaking, or only a partial and hazy remembrance. On being re--hypnotized, however, he recalls the minutest details of these acts. We frequently find as regards our dreams, that we entirely fail to recall them on awaking, or that we can only recall them in a disconnected and confused fashion.

Again, we may perform a certain action with our thoughts perhaps concentrated on other matters, and then be quite unable to recall whether we have done it or not. Perhaps the most interesting instances of this phenomenon are furnished by sleep-life as recorded in several well-known cases. It is known that on more than one occasion feats have been performed during sleep which were beyond the waking powers of the individual and of which no recollection remained on waking, and only the evidence of actual work done carried conviction. Thus Paganini woke one morning to find his famous Sonate du Diable written in score by his bedside, and attributed this, as the title of the piece shows, to the devil. Problems which have baffled the intelligence in waking moments have sometimes, so to speak, solved themselves during sleep, and these may be either mathematical problems or problems of daily life and conduct. So familiar are we with this fact that we often deliberately decide to "sleep over a thing" before acting, and awake to find some solution presenting itself clearly to our mind.

As regards sudden loss of memory we have instances, well authenticated, mysterious and interesting, of people who have suffered a sudden loss of memory with complete obliteration of their own personality and life up to that point. In this state they may travel to a distant town, settle there under and assumed name, and continue to carry on business in a perfectly rational and normal way for months or years. Then one day memory returns with the same suddenness that it vanished, and the unfortunate person can give no explanation of how he comes to be in these unfamiliar surroundings. Strange too is the fact that with loss of memory a totally different character often shows itself, while with the return of memory the former character reasserts itself. Such a phenomenon has been called dissociation of personality, and of it we have many instances in hysteria and in a modified form in daily life. Instead of the individual showing himself a united whole of ideas, feelings, and mental states, one idea, feeling, or mental state may be split off or dissociated, and may for the time being most unduly and unnaturally dominate the individual's life. In hysteria an emotional cause most commonly determines such a dissociation. The most familiar instance of such a dissociated personality is that of Felida reported by Dr. Azam of Bordeaux.

At the age of thirteen Felida changed from a bright, active girl into a reserved, melancholy and suffering creature, and had already been three years in this state when she first came under the notice of Dr. Azam. From time to time, after what might be called a slight faint, she suddenly resumed her original character for varying periods, while losing no recollection of her second character. But on relapsing into her old state of melancholy and suffering she invariably lost all recollection of her bright and happy periods. Fortunately for Felida, as life went on state No. 1, which we might call her normal state, predominated more and more, and practically filled her life. In slighter degree we have numberless such instances of altering personality in everyday life. Just such a dual personality has Stevenson portrayed in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Dr. Jekyll, the respectable and much respected West-End doctor, and Mr. Hyde, the creature more beast than man, who, transformed by a drug, grovels in his laboratory, drawn to his bestial state as irresistibly as the drunkard to his drink. Have we not a similar alternating personality in the man or woman addicted to drink or drugs. The sober man, freed from the influence of drink, shows himself a respected business man and an exemplary husband and father; the same man under the influence of drink being, like Mr. Hyde, more a beast than a man. Do we not also recognize these dual or multiple personalities in ourselves, strongly marked in some, less strongly marked in other? Thus we speak of our "better self" and our "worst self." Some of us have many sides to our character, and though we are fortunately able to regulate them as a rule in a unified whole, any profound shock or emotion may in a nervously unstable character lead to a dissociation of any one side, which will then predominate for the time being as our character. Fortunately such dissociated mental states are often transitory. Dissociations of personality may also lead people to journey as the prodigal son did, into a far country, where after a time they "come to themselves," and cannot explain what led them there.

In no direction has more valuable service been rendered by the use of hypnotism than in the unravelling of these mysterious states of loss of memory and of dual and multiple personalities. In cases of loss of memory it has been found possible during the hypnotic sleep to revive memory as regards the details of the former life, and to obliterate the second phase of existence, so allowing the person to resume his former life. As regards dual personalities and allied states, invaluable work has been done by eliciting from the person, during hypnotic sleep, the details of the shock or emotional state which had first caused the dissociation and which it was often found impossible to elicit in the waking state. Such work has brought out the fact that the real cause had often to be sought in the subconsciousness life, in buried and possible disagreeable memories of childhood. Once these are brought to light, talked over and viewed in their proper proportions, and their bearing on the present illness made clear, it is possible in very many cases to unify the dissociated personality and build up a normal controlled life.

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