LEARN ABOUT HYPNOSIS

SUGGESTION

Suggestion has been variously defined as "A successful appeal to the subliminal self" (F.W.H. Myers); "A process of communication of an idea to the subconscious mind in an unobtrusive manner carrying conviction, when consciously there is no inclination for its acceptance and logically there are no adequate grounds" (Hollander); or, "The aptitude of the brain to receive or evoke ideas, and its tendency to realize them and to transform them into acts" (Bernheim).

Suggestion is thus associated with the subconscious mind, and as a great part of our life is subconscious, suggestion is at work in innumerable ways at almost every moment of the day. We are constantly receiving suggestions, many of which may lie hidden and apparently lost in the subconscious mind and yet be hourly and daily shaping our characters. These may eventually lead to acts of great importance. We can prove this to ourselves by tracing back and back to an almost forgotten impression of childhood perhaps, some of the feelings which dominate our lives. As we are most open to suggestion during childhood, it follows that the impressions stamped upon a child's life are often of momentous importance, and this will therefore be further discussed in the chapter on Education.


Let us in some detail go into the working of the conscious and of the subconscious mind, or, borrowing the phraseology of the author of Body and Soul, we may speak of them as the Overmind and the Undermind; the Overmind for our present purpose covering everything which we are accustomed to speak of as Voluntary or conscious thought or action, and the Undermind covering involuntary or subconscious action and the whole domain of subconscious thought. The necessity for differentiating our self into a conscious and a subconscious element arises from the fact that so much of our life is lived below the threshold of consciousness. There are many sensations, thoughts, and emotions which do not mingle in the current of our everyday life, and which yet influence and direct it to and extent of which we are only partly aware.

In dreams, in delirium and in insanity this subconscious element sometimes reveals itself in strange and startling fashion. It is doubtless true that much of what is submerged in our minds and which we have inherited from ancestral times, existed then above the threshold of consciousness, and that so there is a constant shifting of this threshold. The undermind or subconscious mind controls actions which are done by habit, in some cases by habit learnt since birth--walking, talking, etc, in other cases habit which we have acquired before birth, as a result of its exercise by generations of ancestors--digestion, respiration, etc. The undermind can work entirely independent of the overmind, as instanced by the constant action of the heart or stomach, without our conscious knowledge, or the overmind may interfere by the action of various thoughts. Thus worry may interfere with the manufacture of the digestive juices, upset the digestive action, and the first intimation that this has occurred is the danger signal of pain. Again, thoughts of fear traveling down the nerves to the heart may upset its normal unconscious action by causing violent palpitation, or they may even in rare cases entirely arrest its connection with the blood-vessels, organs, etc. The human body is covered with a network of nerves, which are connected with every organ and with every tissue in the body, these nerves being united in the lower brain, and from there connected with the cortex or outer surface of the brain. The brain itself consists of millions of cells in which our thoughts are memories are registered, while from them messages are constantly being sent out by the nerves to control the working of the body and the mind. The seat of the undermind is in the lower brain, and the seat of the overmind in the cortex, the overmind having the power to control the undermind, though for the most part the latter is capable of working independently of the overmind. Further, this system of nerves called the Central Nervous System, because connected with the brain and spinal cord, is linked with a second system of nerves and works in partnership with it. This latter is called the sympathetic system, and it specially controls the blood vessels and the various secretions of the body. In physiological language it is easy, perhaps too easy, to give satisfactory and understandable explanations of how this dual system of nerves works in conjunction with the brain: how it is able to alter the blood flow constantly, now to concentrate it specifically in a muscle or group of muscles to produce muscular action, again in the stomach to produce the juices necessary for the digestion of the food, yet again in the brain to work out some difficult problem. But if we leave the domain of physiology we find ourselves utterly unable to explain how these daily miracles are worked. We ask ourselves how does a thought travel along these nerves? how has it power to alter the flow of the blood so that a thought of shame has the power to cause a sudden rush of blood to the face? and we have no answer to give.


WE ask ourselves again, how is the process of thought carried on by these millions of brain cells, how is it possible that no memory is ever lost, but is stored in our subconscious mind, from which we are sometimes able to evoke it either by a conscious effort of the will, or with the help of another, while we are in a slightly hypnotic state? How is it that these thoughts which we think, and that these memories which we have stored in the subconscious mind, are capable of modifying the outlines of our faces or altering the expression of our eyes or changing the tones of our voice? Is it not true also that thoughts lead often to most characteristic attitudes and gaits, and that it is sometimes so easily possible to read the salient points in a man's character by a study of his back view in motion, that we have no need to see his face? Old age alone does not bow a man down, thoughts of sorrow or shame have also the power to entirely alter his physiognomy and general appearance. Even if we accept without further questioning the working of the undermind in carrying on circulation, respiration, and digestion, we find ourselves caught in a maze if we attempt to grasp the working of the overmind. WE know that it comprises our voluntary actions and our conscious thoughts, but we know that it comprises far more than this, more even than can be classed under the heading of "psychic": all the "thoughts hardly to be packed into a narrow act," all the "fancies that broke through language and escaped," all the intangible things expressed in a sonata of Beethoven, or in a sunset of Turner, and all that we class under the heading of "spirit." It might seem as if we were wandering far from the subject of suggestion, but we aer in reality only approaching it at closer quarters, since to understand the action of suggestion both in everyday life and as medical treatment we must have spent a little thought on the action of mind, overmind and undermind, on the body.

It is a fact of common experience that we constantly accept many facts without wonder and without any sensation of witnessing the miraculous at play, simply because they have become so familiar to us. And yet if we see them in a slightly different and therefore unfamiliar setting our attention is at once arrested, and we may even marvel or assume an attitude of frank incredulity. That shame or even pleasures should cause such a flow of blood to the face that the skin becomes hot to the touch, we are so familiar with that we do not wonder at it. But to be told that in the hypnotic state an area of redness with blistering has been produced is to state what by most people is received with utter incredulity; while the fact that St. Francis of Assisi and others were able by intense concentration of thought to reproduce the stigmata of Christ in their own bodies, is regarded as a mere fable and imposition. Again, we are familiar with the fact that in some people worrying thoughts have the power to send messages to the intestine, alter the secretions, possibly quicken the normal action and produce diarrhea; but many people find it impossible to believe that is suitable suggestions be given in the hypnotic state, these suggestions have similarly the power to affect the secretions and movement of the bowels, and so to cure constipation, sometimes with startling suddenness, at other times more gradually. To understand how cures are worked in the hypnotic state it is therefore only necessary to study the ordinary phenomena with which we are familiar, and to realize that in the hypnotic state these phenomena are sometimes greatly exaggerated on account of the greater suggestibility of the subject, because in that state the subconscious mind exercises full control over us.

It is with the overmind and the the undermind that we are concerned in our attempt to understand suggestion in its everyday aspect and in its medical aspect. Although we regard them as, so to speak, controlling different departments--the one controlling voluntary thought and action, and the other controlling involuntary thought and action--there is yet a constant interchange and blending of their work. For instance while learning the elements of walking or of piano playing, every movement is made with a painfully voluntary effort, but once the elements are mastered the undermind is capable of undertaking the work of thought sending, and so we can not only do these actions with great ease but we can if necessary relegate them to the undermind. SO little need have we indeed of voluntary effort that we can carry on a conversation while playing, that we can think out puzzling thoughts which demand the greatest concentration while we walk on and on, forgetful even of our destination. Many other instances could easily be cited to show how many actions which are at the commencement performed by the overmind and undermind together can in time be with ease relegated to the undermind. We are also aware, if we interest ourselves in studying and in analyzing these, of intrusions of our subconscious life into our everyday consciousness. Such intrusions may sometimes be produced with the aid of our various senses; thus a sound, an odor, the falling of the glance on an apparently insignificant object are sufficient. It may be that in the hilarity of a picnic party we are suddenly dissociated from our conscious surroundings, and for the space of a moment we live vividly in quite other scenes. Why? Merely because a sudden waft of peat smoke has wakened and forced up into our conscious thoughts almost forgotten memories, which lay hidden in our subconscious mind and which centered round the smell of peat smoke. At other times these intrusions or uprushes are so intangible and elusive that we should find it hard indeed to explain in words what we had experienced. We only know that in some unaccountable way we have for a short space had an insight into things which lie below the threshold of ordinary consciousness, and that life has been the better for such an insight. Our subconscious mind reigns supreme during sleep, that state which we so little understand, which we area accustomed to regard as a negative part of our existence, in contrast to the positive evidence of our waking hours, but which we should rather reckon as an extremely important influence in our daily life. In it, as we have seen in treating of the phenomena of hypnotism, there is sometimes an extraordinary heightening of the mental faculties, and a study of dreams has shown that these are not only a reflex of our subconscious life, where are stored many things which our conscious mind entirely failed to apprehend. Dreams again lie buried in our subconscious mind, influencing our daily thoughts and actions and sometimes acting as strong self-suggestions.

We have dwelt sufficiently in the conscious and subconscious mind to allow of our proceeding further to see how they are constantly and at every moment of the day being acted on by suggestions from outside and by self-suggestions, and how these are modified often by counter-suggestions. Suggestions are constantly pouring in upon us from the sights we see, the sounds we hear, the people we associate with, the work we do, the books we read, the lectures we hear, and plays and concerts to which we go. Suggestions are in fact influencing us the whole day long, some of them to be accepted and acted upon, some of them to be resisted by counter-suggestions, but to be stored for a ll eternity in our subconscious minds, there to act as subconscious suggestions influencing our lives momentously. They are then handed on to generations of descendants, either to help in a higher evolution of the race or to hinder that evolution, even though that hindering be so trifling that we might compare it to the resistance offered by one grain of sand to the onward flow of the wave. What one grain of said is apparently powerless to do, a mass of many grains has a certain amount of influence to effect. So though we may feel that the stored subconscious impressions of one mind are apparently powerless to help or hinder the evolution of the race, we realize that the impressions of several minds have great power to do so. We again are enormously influenced by the store of subconscious memories which we in turn have inherited from centuries of ancestors; we fear the dark because of the subconscious memory of prehistoric days when the fall of night necessitated great caution, lest behind any wayside bush there might lie hidden an enemy ready with club in hand to attack the unwary. To the stored subconscious memories of generations of ancestors the rabbit owes its pitcher-like ears, admirably adapted to catch the faintest sound of approaching danger so as to escape death, a death which overtook only too easily the rabbits of the centuries previous which had not yet developed such a protection against danger.

How do we normally deal with suggestions offered to us? The suggestion is carried to the brain, where it becomes an idea, and the idea is then transformed into an act. Such a normal course of events may be interrupted at any point, just as an electrical machine may fail to generate electricity through a break in continuity of any of its parts. Thus a suggestions may fail to reach the brain, in which case an idea is not created, or the idea when created may not be transformed into an act, either from lack of power or through strong counter-suggestions. To instance this take the familiar example of a beggar at the street corner offering in his person to each passer-by the powerful suggestion of almsgiving. In many people such a suggestion, perhaps through the dulling influence of familiarity, fails to create the idea of almsgiving. In others the idea is created and at once transformed into the act of almsgiving, while in yet others the act is prevented by strong counter-suggestions regarding the harmfulness of indiscriminate almsgiving or the indivisability of parting with one's penny, or it may be that the idea fails to become and act through lack of power.

Such instances could be endlessly multiplied, and have as a rule no interest to the onlooker beyond the psychological. But when the onlooker is a physician, and when such instances occur in his medical practice, and further, when the consequences of failure of a suggestion to act may lead to disastrous consequences, then indeed the question is one of more than purely psychological interest. Here then steps in treatment by hypnotism and suggestion, since we have shown in a previous chapter how, when all other means fail, an appeal to the subliminal mind while the subject is in a slightly hypnotic state will carry conviction. Numerous instances of such successful appeals will be discussed under the heading of medical treatment. Fortunately hypnotism, though invaluable for many obstinate cases, is not the only way in which a suggestion effects an entrance into the subconscious mind and transforms itself into an act. Interesting and in some cases most unexpected are the ways in which suggestion sometimes acts both in the daily round of suggestion sometimes acts both in the daily round of life and medically. Happiness, sudden and unexpected happiness, under the various forms in which it comes, is a most potent health-giving factor. When all medical remedies have failed to act and to banish nervous ills and ailments, happiness has the power of making an immediate and convincing appeal to the subconscious self, and in the space of a few days we see the external signs of ill-health gone, the eye bright, the complexion clear, digestion normal, sleeplessness vanished, in fact health restored as by a miracle; of such happiness the most potent is undoubtedly that which is commonly called "falling in love." Further we are familiar with the far-reaching influence of one personality on another, and of the power which such an influence may have to completely alter habits and character in a comparatively short space of time. THis very question of personality, or ability to inspire confidence and to give potency to even the simplest suggestion, is as we shall see of great importance in all hypnotic treatment. Certain circumstances again act as powerful suggestions, which sink deep and are transformed into acts without delay. This suggestive power of circumstances is often unaccountable and capricious. A man is capable of wasting his weekly earnings in drink in spite of the deprivation thereby caused to his wife, gravely ill with consumption and barely able to drag herself through the day's work. But a case is known where the removal of his wife to hospital has acted as such a powerful suggestion to the drunkard that drink has been given up, and on her return a life of complete sobriety has been led. Not circumstances alone, and not the influence of a particular personality alone, but stranger still a chance word heard in a certain mood has sometimes the power to alter the current of an entire life. We have again the suggestions cures effected by patent medicines, since a farthing's worth or a half-penny's worth of drug in six or eight ounces of water can claim no power beyond that of sending healthful and hopeful thoughts traveling down the nerves to the various organs. There is the suggestion element, not only in all varieties of mental healing, but in much of hydropathic, electrical, and other medical treatment. Every physician both consciously and unconsciously uses suggestion in his medical practice; the more outstanding the personality, the greater part does suggestion play. Why not, then use it in a more organized and methodical way, so that its usefulness may be still further extended, and so that every year increasing numbers may receive mental healing, as they ought to, from the medical profession.

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