The suggestion-theory may therefore be approved as correct, provided we grant the trance-state as its prerequisite.The three states of Charcot, the strange reflexes of Heidenhain, and all the other bodily phenomena which have been called direct consequences of the trance-state itself, are not such.They are products of suggestion, the trance-state having no particular outward symptoms of its own; but without the trance-state there, those particular suggestions could never have been successfully made. THE SYMPTOMS OF THE TRANCE.
This accounts for the altogether indefinite array of symptoms which have been gathered together as characteristic of the hypnotic state.The law of habit dominates hypnotic subjects even more than it does waking ones.Any sort of personal peculiarity, any trick accidentally fallen into in the first instance by some one subject, may, by attracting attention, become stereotyped, serve as a pattern for imitation, and figure as the type of a school.The first subject trains the operator, the operator trains the succeeding subjects, all of them in perfect good faith conspiring together to evolve a perfectly arbitrary result.With the extraordinary perspicacity and subtlety of perception which subjects often display for all that concerns the operator with whom they are en rapport , it is hard to keep them ignorant of anything which he expects.Thus it happens that one easily verifies on new subjects what one has already seen on old ones, or any desired symptom of which one may have heard or read.
The symptoms earliest observed by writers were all thought to be typical.
But with the multiplication of ob- served phenomena, the importance of most particular symptoms as marks of the state has diminished.This lightens very much our own immediate task.Proceeding to enumerate the symptoms of the hypnotic trance, I may confine myself to those which are intrinsically interesting, or which differ considerably from the normal functions of man.
First of all comes amnesia.In the earlier stages of hypnotism the patient remembers what has happened, but with successive sittings he sinks into a deeper condition, which is commonly followed by complete loss of memory.He may have been led through the liveliest hallucinations and dramatic performances, and have exhibited the intensest apparent emotion, but on waking he can recall nothing at all.The same thing happens on waking from sleep in the midst of a dream -- it quickly eludes recall.But just as we may be reminded of it, or of parts of it, by meeting persons or objects which figured therein, so on being adroitly prompted, the hypnotic patient will often remember what happened in his trance.One cause of the forgetfulness seems to be the disconnection of the trance performances with the sys-tem of waking ideas.Memory requires a continuous train of association.M.
Delboeuf, reasoning in this way, woke his subjects in the midst of an action begun during trance (washing the hands, e.g.), and found that they then remembered the trance.The act in question bridged over the two states.
But one call often make them remember by merely telling them during the trance that they shall remember.Acts of one trance, moreover, are usually recalled, either spontaneously or at command, during another trance, provided that the contents of the two trances be not mutually incompatible.
Suggestibility.The patient believes everything which his hypnotizer tells him, and does everything which the latter commands.Even results over which the will has normally no control, such as sneezing, secretion, reddening and growing pale, alterations of temperature and heart-beat, menstruation, action of the bowels, etc., may take place in consequence of the operator's firm assertions during the hypnotic trance, and the resulting conviction on the part of the subject, that the effects will occur.
Since almost all the phenomena yet to be described are effects of this heightened suggestibility, I will say no more under the general head, but proceed to illustrate the peculiarity in detail.