Sleeping persons can be hypnotized. Conversely, the hypnotic state can be succeeded by a natural sleep. I have frequently induced hyp-notism in a sleeping person by simply pressing the fingers and making rapid suggestions. In about two minutes the hypnotic state will supervene, and the subject will obey any suggestion made to him. I have also succeeded in hypnotizing a woman when suffering from that condition known as catalepsy, and made her breathe more rapidly and talk to me when she was insensible to all others in the room.

A subject may be hypnotized by one operator when he cannot he by another. The subject under the control of the operator will usually obey him only, and yet he can, by suggestion, be transferred to another hypnotist while in the hypnotic state. Or a person who cannot be hypnotized by one hypnotizer, afterward having been hypnotized by another, is generally susceptible to the first one in the future.

Children under three years of age, and violently insane people, are difficult to hypnotize, because it is not easy to hold their attention. The same is true of idiots.

Are there any pre-requisite qualities in the person which particularly fit that person for a hypnotic sensitive? French authorities, like Charcot, claim that hypnotism is more frequently induced in the hysterical than in those who have a more normally-balanced mentality. I shall have occasion to report a number of cases of hysteria in this book, as it bears a very important relation to all psychic abnormalities. The condition, or multiplicity of conditions, constituting the disease ridiculously called "hys-teria," varies so much that volumes would be required to enumerate them. Suffice it to say, that hysteria is a diseased condition of the psychic life in which the ego is abnormally prominent. A hysterical person may be vivacious, may laugh and cry in rapid succession, may become paralyzed in one or another part of the body, and recover rapidly. He may also be so abnormally sensitive that sight, hearing, taste, and smell will be painfully acute, or one of these senses may become wholly absent, or he in a perverted state.

It is impossible to draw the line between hysteria and many forms of emotional insanity.

Now, from a prolonged study of the subject, I believe that there are two forms of hysteria, namely: latent and active. I believe that there is a certain amount, nay, I may say a large amount, of latent hysteria in every one. When the control of the will is withdrawn, these lower states of our consciousness show themselves in an infinite variety of ways. A hypnotized patient, as I have said, can be made numb in any part of the body at the will of the operator. You can cause him to feel pain in any portion of the body in the same way that you can cause any or all of the manifestations of consciousness to be very acute, or very sluggish.

In other words, the hypnotic state develops that latent subconscious condition, in which one faculty or sense may be made to predominate, or in which they may be all, for the time, extinguished. This is exactly what occurs in a profoundly hysterical person, independently of the hypnotic state.

Hysterical persons can be more easily hypnotized only when their attention can be held for a sufficient length of time. When a hysterical state has so disordered the faculty of concentration as to make prolonged attention impossible, hypnotism cannot be induced. Dr. Moll truly says that the element of contradiction is very strong in the character of many hysterical persons, and that they will not give the requisite degree of attention for successful hypnosis.

Awakening From, And The Duration Of, The Hypnotic State

Subjects will usually awaken of their own accord in a few minutes, from the lighter degrees of hypnosis, or, in some cases, in even a few seconds. The more profound hypnotic states will continue for some time when they are not interfered with by the hypnotist. There are almost as many methods of awakening a subject from the hypnotic state as there are of putting him into it. A subject who is hypnotized will usually awake when commanded to do so. I frequently command him to count 2 twelve, and tell him to wake up when the word ten is spoken. He may also be awakened by simply telling him that he is "all right"and to open his eyes. The application of cold water is also said by some writers to arouse subjects readily.

If the hypnotic state has been induced by passes over the body, passes in the opposite direction will frequently arouse the subject. I have never had difficulty in arousing a subject from the hypnotic sleep.

Things Which Will Prevent The Production Of Hypnotism

Disturbing noises at the first experiment have power to prevent hypnosis. They distract the attention, and thus interfere with the mental state necessary for hypnosis. Later, when the subject has learned to concentrate his thoughts, noises are less disturbing. But in hypnotic experiments the most absolute avoidance of any sign of mistrust by those present is necessary. The least word, a gesture, may thwart the attempt to hypnotize. As the mood of a large company is often distrustful, even as a whole generation is also sometimes sceptical, so the great variations in susceptibility to hypnosis which have shown themselves at different times and places are explicable. It is not surprising that at one seance six persons, one after another, are hypnotized, while at other seances six persons will all prove refractory.

The American people certainly seem less susceptible to hypnotism, and as a rule are more sceptical about it, than are their brethren across the water.