The effects of suggestion are not necessarily temporary and immediate, but may be caused to appear hours, days, and in some cases months, after the suggestion has been given. Bernheim cites several instances of this prolonged or deferred action, applied to the physical or psychical side. Under the physical heading I should place the her in deep somnambulism. She was a lady of good position, intelligence, and education, married to a professional man, and thirty-three years of age. She had been Dr. Scott's patient for some months, suffering from obstinate headache and menstrual troubles. Other treatment having failed to give much relief, he tried what hypnotism would do, and the results exceeded his most sanguine expectations.

The patient, Mrs. T------, was an even better hypnotic subject than my Mrs. H------referred to on p. 147, and she took a great interest in the experiments. Not only did she carry out such subconscious estimation of time as described on p. 79, but she developed very well marked stigmata on her forearm, corresponding to the touch and suggestions of Dr. Scott. These took the form of numerous punctate spots - petechia; - arranged in the form of a cross and triangle, and were evidently due to small extravasations of blood under the skin. Such phenomena are, of course, quite different to the taches cerebrales often obtainable in hysterical patients without hypnotism.

production of such an objective symptom as a blister or ecchymosis, and under the psychical a sensory impression, such as the appearance of a hallucination at a given hour, or the performance of a suggested action after a certain interval. For instance, a soldier, a patient of Liebeault, while in a state of hypnotic somnambulism was told that on a certain day in two months' time, at ten o'clock a.m., he would come to Liebeault's consulting-room, and would there see the President of the Republic, to whom he would make a profound obeisance. The President would then advance towards him, would address him in complimentary language, and confer upon him a decoration, which he himself would fasten to the recipient's buttonhole. On the day appointed a considerable audience, consisting both of doctors and patients, was assembled in the consulting-room, and at ten o'clock precisely the soldier appeared. As he entered his expression changed; he regarded the bookcase, and bowed low in its direction. He then advanced, bowed to Dr. Liebeault, and stood at attention, with a gratified smile on his face, and looking downward at his buttonhole.

In a few moments he made another profound obeisance, muttered some words and walked away, much to the astonishment of those present, who were ignorant of the meaning of this pantomime.*

Beaunis tells a similar story of a young woman whom, while she was in a profound hypnotic state, he assured that on the following New Year's Day she would see him enter her room, and would hear him say, 'Bon jour, mademoiselle.' This suggestion was made in July, and on the following Ist of January the young woman wrote to the doctor, saying that she could not understand how it was that he had entered her room that morning, had greeted her, and then walked out immediately. She remarked further that he was dressed in the same clothes she had seen him wear in the month of July. At that time Dr. Beaunis happened to be in Paris, while the young woman was at Nancy.

* Quoted by Binet and Fere, op. cit., p. 245.

Bramwell has made some interesting experiments on the estimation of time by somnambulists (Brain, 1898). His subject, a young woman, is told in the hypnotic state that after a given number of hours or minutes she is to perform a certain act. For example, she is to address an envelope to Dr. Bramwell at the expiration of 12,500 minutes from the moment she wakes up. When awakened she remembers nothing of the sitting, and goes about her usual work, but at the appointed time she executes the order, though perhaps it may be in the middle of the night, and she has to wake up for it, or she may be engaged in some absorbing work. * It is a very interesting question what causes this response to time suggestions. It may be that the 'subconscious self has a means of reckoning the moments as they fly. Perhaps the ratio of expiration is unconsciously noticed, and gives a clue to the passage of time. The conditions of modern life tend to suppress many faculties which exist in primitive man. The Australian savage can find his way through the pathless bush by an instinct which has been lost by the white man.

There is a story of an imbecile youth who could always tell the time within a few seconds: I suppose he had the ' time sense' unusually developed, and, having nothing else to do, cultivated it as a speciality.

Deferred suggestions, like nearly all suggestions given in the advanced stage of hypnotism, are almost invariably followed by amnesia. The subject, when awakened, has no recollection whatever of the order received by him, nor will it recur to his consciousness until the moment for performance has arrived. If he is then questioned as to his motives for such an action, he will probably reply that he did it upon an unaccountable impulse which he could not withstand. In very rare cases indeed there exists for some time beforehand an impression that at a certain hour a specified act must be done, or a specified word spoken. Occasionally, too, the hypnotic subject may recognize the impulse as having been dictated to him by a past suggestion; but generally, as I have said, it will be regarded as quite spontaneous, and not to be accounted for.

* Dr. T. W. Mitchell has given particulars of a similar case in Transactions of the Psycho-Medical Society.

Moll, in discussing this point, aptly compares the mental state of a subject to whom the execution of a past hypnotic suggestion at a certain time has been commanded to that of a person who has been given a letter to post, and who puts it in his pocket and forgets it until he is reminded of his duty by passing a post-office. He then automatically posts the letter, but very likely entirely forgets the action, and may be unable to recall it.