On twenty-four occasions Miss A. was asked to calculate [in hypnosis] when the suggestions fell due; she was wrong in the first nine instances, but in the remaining fifteen right in eleven and wrong in four. As the experiments advanced, not only the frequency, but also the extent of Miss A.'s errors in calculation decreased, and the answers were given much more rapidly. Sometimes the correct replies were almost instantaneous, and in these instances no conscious calculation could be traced. It is to be noted that Miss A.'s mistaken calculations had no effect on the correctness of her results....

On [all occasions but one] when Miss A. was questioned in hypnosis as to the unfulfilled suggestions, she... recalled the fact that these had been made, but rarely remembered their exact terms. She always asserted that she had never thought of them, did not know how much time had elapsed since they had been given, nor when they were due. This was so even in cases where she had calculated the terminal time.... When Miss A. was questioned in hypnosis, after the execution of the suggestions, her memory on certain points was very clear. She could recall in every detail the terms of all experiments that had recently been carried out, i.e. she remembered the hours at which they had been made, the number of minutes suggested, her own calculations, if any, and the moment and circumstances under which the suggestions had been fulfilled. Putting aside the calculations she made at the time, in response to suggestion, she was unable to recall having made any others, or to give any information as to the methods by means of which she had correctly fulfilled the experiments....

[Similar experiments, more or less successful, but not so striking as those with Miss A., were made with other somnambules, and details are given of some with Miss B. In her case], when a simple suggestion was given, Miss B. sometimes spontaneously calculated when it would fall due. Miss A., on the other hand, never made any spontaneous calculations at all. Apparently Miss B. did not spontaneously calculate the more complicated arithmetical problems. When she did so, in response to suggestion, her results were invariably correct, but, despite this, the experiments were not always fulfilled at their appropriate time. Miss A., on the contrary, was often wrong in her calculations, while the suggestions themselves were carried out with phenomenal accuracy.

The most fundamental difference between these cases and those of Gurney's given above seems to be that the method of estimation of time really used by Dr. Bramwell's subjects could not be discovered by questioning during hypnosis, but appeared to belong to some stratum of consciousness more profound than the hypnotic (suggesting an analogy with the "inspirations of genius" or the feats of "calculating boys"); whereas Gurney's subjects, when hypnotised again before a suggestion was fulfilled, were conscious of keeping count of the lapse of time.

552 A. The following case of improvement of dramatic faculty in hypnosis is recorded by Dr. Dufay in a paper in the Revue Philosophique for September 1888, a translation of which appeared in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 407 - 427. The subject was a hysterical young actress, whom he had hypnotised several times previously. The special interest of this case is that hypnosis was produced apparently without the subject's knowledge, or suspicion that it was being attempted. (Other instances of the apparently telepathic production of hypnosis are given in the Appendices to Section 568).

I said just now that I had managed to hypnotise Mdlle. B. by a word or a look, but I did not think that without real contact it could succeed unless I was close to her at the time. Having always noticed that intelligence is much more highly developed in the somnambulic state, I had sometimes hypnotised this very indifferent little actress by merely telling her, just as she was about to make her appearance on the scene, that she was going to sleep, which always procured her a great success with the public. It is a circumstance of this nature which introduces her into my present subject.

One evening I arrived late at the theatre. The manager was waiting anxiously for me in his office; he had changed the order of the pieces, and put the "Caprice" at the end of the entertainment, because he had just been informed by telegram that his grande coquette had missed the train, which was to have brought her from Tours to Blois. But he was relying on my assistance to substitute Mdlle. B. without damaging the performance.

"Does she so much as know her part?" I asked him.

"She has seen it played several times, but she has not rehearsed it".

"Have you expressed any hope that I might come' to her assistance ? "

"I took care not to do that: any doubt as to her talents would have been sufficient to have produced one of her attacks".

"Very well, do not let her know I am here. I will take advantage of this opportunity to make a very interesting experiment".

I did not show myself on the stage, but took my place in a close box at the far end of the house, which happened to be unoccupied, and the grating closed. Then, drawing myself together, I willed intently that Mdlle. B. might fall asleep.

It was then half-past ten. I learned at the end of the performance that at this same time the young artiste, stopping in the middle of her toilette, suddenly sank down on the sofa in her room, begging the dresser to let her rest a little. After a few minutes of drowsiness she got up, finished dressing herself, and went down to the stage. When the curtain rose I was not very confident of the success of my experiment, not then knowing what had taken place in the actress's dressing-room; but I was not long in satisfying myself, merely by seeing the action and attitude of my subject She had retained in her memory this part which she had not learnt, but had only seen played, and acquitted herself marvellously. There was, however, another suggestion that I must unconsciously have given her, when mentally ordering her to play the comedy, and that was to put herself en rapport with the other characters in the piece, since without that somnambulists only see and hear the person who has put them to sleep.

However that may be, I was obliged to awaken Mdlle. B. in order that she might take part in the supper which was given by the delighted manager.

She then remembered having thrown herself on the sofa, just as she had put on one of her gloves, and, finding herself seated there again, she imagined that we had come to tell her that the curtain was rising for the "Caprice." It was only on seeing her companions surrounding her, and congratulating her on her progress, that she understood what had taken place, and thanked me with a glance.

If it be objected that she had expected my arrival, then suspected my presence, or at least my influence, which had been so favourable to her talent on other occasions, and that self-suggestion had even in this case produced somnambulism - I have no reply to make.

In the same paper Dr. Dufay gives several other instances of the improvement of memory in hypnosis. Thus, a lady, after reading once a poem of a hundred and two lines, was hypnotised, and reproduced it correctly in automatic writing. The same lady, who was an excellent musician, when hypnotised, played from memory with perfect execution an overture of eight or ten pages to a new opera, which she had played through only once the day before.