Fifth Experiment

The woman seated on the chair is thirty years of age. She is highly hysterical. Directly she stares intently at any glittering object, and I at the same time speak to her as I did to X. in the last experiment, she falls into a kind of sleep. Her eyes close, and she sits there in an apparently passive condition. When called upon to open her eyes, she attempts to, but cannot so long as I assure her it is impossible for her so to do. I suggest that she is on board ship. (The suggestion takes effect and she immediately feels unwell; she declares she is sea-sick.) I let her sit still for a few seconds, when she suddenly jumps up and asserts that fire has broken out. She can only be calmed with difficulty. Her breathing is very rapid, and every expression of her features betokens dread of the fire. It is not possible to explain how she came by this idea, as nothing leading to it was said to her. You will observe that although the patient has hardly recovered from a state of abject fear, her face now assumes a look of contentment; she begins to laugh, and when asked the cause of her hilarity, explains that a tramcar has just passed, and it was so funny to see an elegantly dressed gentleman stumble in the mud.

It is anything but easy to free the patient from auto-suggestive influence, and it has cost me much time and trouble to bring her into a state of quiet, and apparently dreamless, sleep. I now ask her to wake up, but she declares that she is terribly tired and does not want to wake up yet. Further remarks addressed to her lead to her opening her eyes, at first partially, then completely. She was told that on awaking she would be quiet, cheerful, and contented; nevertheless she gives one the impression of being exhausted and worn out. Her eyes close; she sleeps again; it takes an hour before she is thoroughly awake and free from lassitude. She only complains that her head troubles her,

We have here a case of hypnosis in which auto-suggestion plays an important part. It is true that the woman resembles X. of the previous experiment in that she can be influenced by suggestion; but left to herself, even for only a short time, autosuggestion exerts itself and produces the scenes we have witnessed. Also, it is to be noticed, that the woman cannot be so speedily and surely awakened as in the case of X. Further, on waking, the woman does not feel quite well, and it takes considerable trouble to efface the phenomena set up by hypnosis.

I interrupt here for a time the description of the experiments; I shall describe others in the course of this work, and shall occasionally return to those already depicted. To sum up, in all these experiments, however different they might be, the voluntary movements were always inhibited, that in the last two cases hallucinations of the senses could be induced, and that it was possible for me in all cases to converse with the subject, and we could understand each other. I wished to bring forward these examples in order that the reader might understand to a certain extent, in spite of the absence of living subjects, what different states are included in the idea of hypnosis - how those states are induced and how terminated. The experiments described above are typical; they can be reproduced by any one who knows how to experiment correctly.

At the conclusion of these experiments I add a short terminology, which, however, is by no means complete, as some particular ideas can only be made clear in the further course of the work.

By hypnosis I mean the state into which the subjects were thrown during the experiments described above.

Hypnotism is not, as Braid defined it, the name of the state itself, but of the whole science which deals with the phenomena of this state.

A person in the hypnotic state is called a hypnotic, or subject

A hypnotist is a man who hypnotizes for scientific purposes. A hypnotizer is a man who makes hypnotism a profession.

Hypnosigenesis is the technical term for the act of inducing hypnosis. Hypnosigen is the means employed. Hypnogen, a term frequently used, only leads to confusion. It is derived from vttvoo- - sleep - and is often used for "sleep-producing." Hypnosigen is derived from hypnosis.

The different commands which are given to the subjects in the experiments described, the prompting and persuasion, are called suggestion, I shall use the phrase "to suggest" for the giving of these hints and promptings. If the suggestion takes effect it is said, from the point of view of hypnotism, that the subject is under the influence of suggestion.

As is often the case in other branches of science, the terminology of hypnotism is very defective. Preyer pointed this out long ago. Many terms, such as post-hypnotic, are hybrids, and have been justly condemned. The second Congress of Hypnotists, held in Paris in 1900, appointed a committee to devise a sound terminology. Oskar Vogt was a member. The work of the committee does not appear to have been over-fruitful, for Dr. Vogt tells me that although five years have elapsed since its constitution he has failed to hear anything of it

There are several methods of inducing hypnosis, as can be gathered from the above examples. In order to make a systematic survey, we divide these methods into two groups - the mental and the physical.