This case is characterized by loss of memory of all that happened during the post-hypnotic state, and further by susceptibility to suggestion. I do not know how this state is to be distinguished psychologically from a true hypnosis, and to my mind Delbceuf is right when he says that to make a posthypnotic suggestion is really to order a new hypnosis at a fixed moment and the carrying out of the suggestion in this new hypnosis.

There are other very different cases. We have here a man in hypnosis and I say to him, "When you awake, directly I rub my bands together you will forget your name. When I separate my hands you will remember it again." Everything happens as ordered; we talk to one another, but when I bring my hands together the subject forgets his own name. He is, however, completely awake, and incapable of accepting any further suggestion. When I separate my hands he knows his own name, and knows also that he had forgotten it a moment ago. He goes away, and in a few days we meet again; but now he remembers his name however I hold my hands. But he remembers perfectly well that the other day he was several times unable to say his own name. He maintains that he was awake all the time.

We are not justified in calling this case one of hypnosis. There was no mental symptom of hypnosis, no loss of memory, no suggestibility, no fatigue; the subject did not think he had been asleep; nothing remains but to consider the state a perfectly normal one, except on one point. Whether such a state may be regarded as normal, generally speaking, is another matter. I shall discuss this when I come to the legal question for which these cases are very important, according to Bentivegni.

It appears from these examples that post-hypnotic suggestions may be carried out in various different states. Between the two extremes - the one case in which there were all the mental symptoms of a new hypnosis, and the other in which there were none - there are many degrees which I will now discuss.

Here is a third example. A woman is hypnotized, and two men A., and B., are present. I say to the subject, "When A. speaks to you after you wake, you will laugh at him. When B. speaks to you, you will put your tongue out at him. Wake! "She wakes. A. speaks to her and she laughs. I ask, "Why did you laugh just now?" "I did not laugh." A. speaks to her again; she laughs, and again at my question she denies having laughed. She puts out her tongue at B. when he speaks to her, and the moment after, when I question her, she says that she did not do it. I suggest that she hears a barrel-organ, but she says she does not, and is insusceptible to other suggestions. She remembers everything else that has happened, and knows perfectly well what I have said to her. All that is forgotten is the post-hypnotic act and what is immediately connected with it - i.e., the words which A. and B. spoke to her. She can repeat what I said to her, and her replies; everything, in fact, unconnected with the post-hypnotic suggestion.

She knows nothing about the brief space during which she carried out the suggestion; at the same time she recognizes no gap in her memory.

In this case there is complete loss of memory for the posthypnotic act, and no further suggestibility; the loss of memory extends simply to the post-hypnotic act. This is, then, a third way in which hypnotic suggestion is carried out, and it is not rare.

In other cases the subject not only forgets the post-hypnotic act he has just performed, but becomes susceptible to a fresh suggestion while he is carrying it out. It is difficult to distinguish these cases from those just described; on that account I shall not make a separate group of them; for it seems that subjects like the person described in the last example are really always susceptible to suggestion while they are carrying out the act, but that in many cases the act takes place too quickly to allow of a fresh suggestion being made. The post-hypnotic act is completely forgotten, while the state of the subject before and after the action is quite normal. Liegeois thought this a separate state, which he called condition prime. He gave this up later, and now calls the state condition seconde provoquee; Beaunis calls it veille sotnnam-bulique; Gurney, "trance-waking." I, however, agree with Delbceuf that these states must be considered true hypnoses. Evidently the suggested idea is so powerful in them that it produces a state analogous to that in which it was first implanted.

When the idea vanishes, the abnormal state also vanishes.

I will now proceed to give a fourth case. I suggest to X. to take a chair and put it on the table five minutes after he wakes. The suggestion is carried out. While he is putting the chair on the table I call out suddenly that a dog is biting him. He believes it, kicks the imaginary dog away, and wakes spontaneously. X. remembers moving the chair and remembers the dog, but says the whole thing was like a dream.

Consequently this state is characterized by suggestibility during the carrying out of the post-hypnotic suggestion; and there is also memory. It is true X. feels as if he dreamed it. He has a consciousness of having slept through the performance, and of having waked when it was ended. This consciousness of having slept is very important (Delbceuf). We often have some life-like experience in a dream and yet know directly we wake that it was a dream. I think the last described post-hypnotic state must be considered a hypnosis.

Amongst the post-hypnotic states we have studied - (1) a state in which a new hypnosis characterized by suggestibility came on during the carrying out of the suggestion, loss of memory afterwards, and no spontaneous waking; (2) a state in which there was not the slightest symptom of a fresh hypnosis, although the suggestion was carried out; (3) a state in which the post-hypnotic suggestion was carried out with complete forgetfulness of the act, with or without fresh susceptibility to suggestion, and from which the waking was spontaneous; (4) a state of susceptibility to suggestion with retention of memory following, but a feeling of having been asleep. In judging of these states the chief symptoms are - firstly, the fresh suggestibility; secondly, the retention of memory; and thirdly, the feeling of having been asleep. Whether the subject wakes spontaneously or has to be again awakened is of secondary importance, as spontaneous waking is observed in ordinary hypnosis.