FOOTNOTE:

Still behind the tread I hearOf my life companion, Fear,Still a shadow, deep and vastFrom my westering feet is cast;Wavering, doubtful, undefined,Never shapen, nor outlined.From myself the Fear has grown,And the shadow is my own.

Still behind the tread I hear

Of my life companion, Fear,

Still a shadow, deep and vast

From my westering feet is cast;

Wavering, doubtful, undefined,

Never shapen, nor outlined.

From myself the Fear has grown,

And the shadow is my own.

FOOTNOTE:[4]The experimental work was carried on by me at the physiological laboratory, Harvard Medical School, and in my private laboratory, and published in my work on “Sleep.”

[4]The experimental work was carried on by me at the physiological laboratory, Harvard Medical School, and in my private laboratory, and published in my work on “Sleep.”

While health cannot be separated from disease by a sharp line, the two are relative and fluctuating. Still, on the whole, the two can be differentiated by the criterion of hurt and dissolution. Any process or state conducive to hurt, and tending to dissolution of the organism may be regarded as pathological or abnormal. The same criterion should be applied, when differentiating the healthy, normal states of instincts and emotions from abnormal and morbid states of instinctive and emotional activities. Those states that further life activities are healthy, normal; those that hinder life are morbid.

The same holds true of the fear instinct. Every form of fear which, instead of helping or furthering vigor of life, instead of stimulating living energy, instead of being a protection, becomes a hindrance, a menace to the organism, is accompanied with suffering and distress, and ultimately leads to destruction, should be regarded as essentially morbid.

The following are the chief characteristics of morbid instinctive and emotional states:

I. When they aredisproportionateto the cause.

II. When they are chronic.

III. When their feeling-tone ispainful,distressing.

IV. When they arenon-adaptiveto the stimulations.

V. When the reactions arenot adjustedto the external environment.

VI. When they areuncontrollable.

VII. When coming inrecurrentorperiodic attacks.

VIII. When the physical and mental reactions are ofgreat intensity.

IX. When they aredissociative.

X. When they lead todissolution.

Fear is not a matter of belief. To regard fear as a form of belief, is fallacious, dangerous, and suicidal. It is as dangerous as to consider smallpox and cholera the result of faith. We must never forget that fear is one of the most fundamental of animal instincts having its roots deep down in animal life existence. To ignore this fact is suicidal.

According to the great anthropologist, Galton: “Every antelope in South Africa has to run for its life every one or two days, and the antelope starts and gallops under the influence of a false alarm many times a day. Fear is a fundamental condition of animal existence.”

The fear instinct in its healthy normal state is aprotection and defense. As Ribot puts it: “The basis of fear exists in the organism, forms part of the constitution of animals and man, and helps them to live by a defensive adaptation:” In fact, we may even go to the point of affirming that the fear instinct, like all other healthy, normal instincts, is absolutely requisite in the total economy of animal and human life.

In man, however, fear should not be at the mercy of blind animal instincts and reflexes, but should be guided and controlled by reason, by reflection, by scientific, medical measures, by scientific sanitation, by physical and mental hygiene, and by the rational cultivation and development of all human functions and faculties.

One of the greatest Greek thinkers well puts it: “Imbeciles, fools, and the mad alone have no understanding of fear. True education, true reason, and true courage consist in the knowledge of what to fear and what not to fear.”

Mysticism, occultism, and credulity act like virulent germs, fatal to man. “Metaphysical” cults anesthetize the intellect, put judgment into lethargic sleep from which there is no awaking. Mysticism kills the most precious essence of man’s life,—the critical sense of human personality.

Occultism, mysticism,et id genus omnedeclare that “fear is a false belief, an error of the mortal mind.” Mystics claim the “unreality” of the materialfear instinct of which they are in “reality” in “mortal” terror. This zealous negation of fear is its strongest affirmation.

As a matter of fact, fear is one of the most stern realities of life. The neurotic in denying disease, evil, and fear is like the proverbial ostrich which on perceiving danger hides its head in the sand.The “Love” of mysticism is the Fear of death.

Man’s nerve cell organization may be classified into two main systems:

(I)The inferior, the reflex, the instinctive, the automatic centers.

(II)The superior, the controlling, selective, and inhibitory brain-centers of the cortex.

The double systems of nerve-centers have correspondingly a double mental activity, or double-consciousness as it is sometimes called, the inferior, the organic, the instinctive, the automatic, the reflex consciousness, or briefly termed thesubconsciousness, consciousness below the threshold of self-consciousness; and the superior, the choosing, the willing, the critical, thewill-consciousness. This controlling will-consciousness may also be characterized as the guardian-consciousness of the individual.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we can well realize the biological function or importance of this guardian-consciousness. The external world bombards the living organism with innumerable stimuli.From all sides thousands of impressions come crowding upon the senses of the individual. Each neuron system with its appropriate receptors has its corresponding system of reactions which, if not modified or counteracted, may end in some harmful or fatal result.

It is not of advantage to an individual of a complex organization to respond with reaction to all impressions coming from the external environment. Hence, that organism will succeed best in the struggle for existence that possesses some selective, critical, inhibitory “choice and will” centers. The more organized and the more sensitive and delicate those centers are, the better will the organism succeed in its life existence.

The guardian-consciousness wards off, so far as it is possible, the harmful blows given by the stimuli of the external environment. In man, this same guardian consciousness keeps on constructing, by a series of elimination and selection, a new environment, individual and social, which leads to an ever higher and more perfect development and realization of the inner powers of individuality and personality.

Under normal conditions man’s superior and inferior centers with their corresponding upper, critical, controlling consciousness together with the inferior automatic, reflex centers and their concomitant subconscious consciousness, keep on functioning in full harmony. The upper and lower consciousnessform one organic unity,—one conscious, active personality.

Under certain abnormal conditions, however, the two systems of nerve-centers with their corresponding mental activities may become dissociated. The superior nerve-centers with their critical, controlling consciousness may become inhibited, split off from the rest of the nervous system. The reflex, automatic, instinctive, subconscious centers with their mental functions are laid bare, thus becoming directly accessible to the stimuli of the outside world; they fall a prey to the influences of external surroundings, influences termedsuggestions.

The critical, controlling, guardian-consciousness, being cut off and absent, the reduced individuality lacks the rational guidance and orientation given by the upper choice- and will-centers, and becomes the helpless plaything of all sorts of suggestions, sinking into thetrance states of the subconscious. It is this subconscious that forms the highway of suggestions.Suggestibility is the essential characteristic of the subconscious.

The subconscious rises to the surface of consciousness, so to say, whenever there is a weakening, paralysis, or inhibition of the upper, controlling will and choice-centers. In other words, whenever there is a disaggregation of the superior from the inferior nerve-centers, there follows an increase of ideo-sensory, ideo-motor, sensori-secretory, reflex excitability;and ideationally, or rationally there is present an abnormal intensity of suggestibility.[6]

FOOTNOTES:[5]The theory of the subconscious was first developed by me in my volume “The Psychology of Suggestion,” 1898.[6]I object to the term “Subliminal,” because it is understood in a cosmic, or metaphysical sense. The term “co-conscious” is limited and refers to independently functioning, contemporaneous personalities, or mental systems. The term “Unconscious” ismisleading, because it may refer to the metaphysics of Hartmann. At best it simply means nervous processes which, as such, belong to neurology, physiology, but not to the domain of abnormal psychology.The term “subconscious,” used by me in “The Psychology of Suggestion,” meanstracts of mental states which may or may not function in the total mental reaction of the individual.

[5]The theory of the subconscious was first developed by me in my volume “The Psychology of Suggestion,” 1898.

[6]I object to the term “Subliminal,” because it is understood in a cosmic, or metaphysical sense. The term “co-conscious” is limited and refers to independently functioning, contemporaneous personalities, or mental systems. The term “Unconscious” ismisleading, because it may refer to the metaphysics of Hartmann. At best it simply means nervous processes which, as such, belong to neurology, physiology, but not to the domain of abnormal psychology.The term “subconscious,” used by me in “The Psychology of Suggestion,” meanstracts of mental states which may or may not function in the total mental reaction of the individual.

The term “subconscious,” used by me in “The Psychology of Suggestion,” meanstracts of mental states which may or may not function in the total mental reaction of the individual.

In order to bring to the fore subconscious activities with their reflex, automatic psycho-motor reactions by removal of the upper consciousness I have found requisite, in my investigations, the following conditions:

Normal Suggestibility,—Suggestibility in the Normal, Waking State.

(1) Fixation of the Attention.

(2) Distraction of the Attention.

(3) Monotony.

(4) Limitation of Voluntary Activity.

(5) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness.

(6) Inhibition.

(7) Immediate Execution of the Suggestion.

Abnormal Suggestibility,—Suggestibility in Hypnotic and Trance States:

(1) Fixation of the Attention.

(2) Monotony.

(3) Limitation of Voluntary Activity.

(4) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness.

(5) Inhibition.

The nature of abnormal suggestibility, the result of my investigations, is a disaggregation of consciousness, a cleavage of the mind, a cleft that may become ever deeper and wider, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling guardian-consciousness from the automatic, reflex, subconscious consciousness....

Normal suggestibility is of like nature,—it is a cleft in the mind. Only here the cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as in hypnosis or in the other subconscious trance states. The split is but momentary. The mental cleavage, or the psycho-physiological disaggregation of the superior from the inferior centers with their concomitant psychic activities is evanescent, fleeting, often disappearing at the moment of its appearance.

The following laws of suggestibility were formulated by me:

I.Normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion and inversely as direct suggestion.

II.Abnormal suggestibility varies as direct suggestion and inversely as indirect suggestion.

A comparison of the conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility is valuable, since it reveals the nature of suggestibility, and discloses its fundamental law. An examination of the two sets of conditions shows that in abnormal suggestibility two conditions, distraction of attention and immediate execution are absent, otherwise the conditions arethe same. This sameness of conditions clearly indicates the fact that both normal and abnormal suggestibility flow from some one common source, that they are of like nature, and due to similar causes.

Now a previous study led us to the conclusion that the nature of abnormal suggestibility is a disaggregation of consciousness, a slit produced in the mind, a crack that may become wider and deeper, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling consciousness from the reflex consciousness. Normal suggestibility is of a like nature. It is a cleft in the mind. The cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as it is in hypnosis, or in the state of abnormal suggestibility. The split is but momentary, disappearing almost at the very moment of its appearance.

This fleeting, evanescent character of the split explains why suggestion in the normal state, why normal suggestibility requires immediate execution as one of its indispensable conditions. We must take the opportunity of the momentary ebb of the controlling consciousness and hastily plant our suggestion in the soil of reflex consciousness. We must watch for this favorable moment, not let it slip by, otherwise the suggestion is a failure. Furthermore, we must be careful to keep in abeyance, for the moment, the ever active waves of the controlling consciousness. We must find for them work in some other direction, we must divert, we must distract them. That is why normal suggestibility requiresthe additional conditions of distraction and immediate execution. For in the waking state the waking, controlling consciousness is always on its guard, and when enticed away, leaves its ground only for a moment.

In normal suggestibility the psychic split is but faint; the lesion, effected in the body consciousness, is superficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnormal suggestibility, on the contrary, the slit is deep and lasting,—it is a severe gash. In both cases, however, we have a removal, a dissociation of the waking from the subwaking, reflex consciousness, suggestion becoming effected only through the latter. For suggestibility is the attribute of the subwaking, reflex consciousness.

A comparison of the two laws discloses the same relation. The two laws are the reverse of each other, thus clearly indicating the presence of a controlling, inhibiting, conscious element in one case, and its absence in the other. In the normal state we must guard against the inhibitory, waking consciousness, and we have to make our suggestion as indirect as possible. In the abnormal state, on the contrary, no circumspection is needed; the controlling, inhibitory, waking consciousness is more or less absent. The subwaking, reflex consciousness is exposed to external stimuli, and our suggestions are therefore the more effective, the more direct we make them.

Suggestibility is a function of disaggregation ofconsciousness, a disaggregation in which the subwaking, reflex consciousness enters into direct communication with the external world. The general law of suggestibility is:

Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and inversely as the unification of consciousness.

The problem that interested me most was to come into close contact with the subwaking self. What is its fundamental nature? What are the main traits of its character? Since in hypnosis the subwaking self is freed from its chains, is untrammeled by the shackles of the upper, controlling self, since in hypnosis the underground self is more or less exposed to our view, it is plain that experimentation on the hypnotic self will introduce us into the secret life of the subwaking self. For, as we pointed out, the two are identical.

I have made all kinds of experiments, bringing subjects into catalepsy, somnambulism, giving illusions, hallucinations, post-hypnotic suggestions, etc. As a result of my work one central truth stands out clear, and that is theextraordinary plasticity of the subwaking self.

If you can only in some way or other succeed in separating the primary controlling consciousness from the lower one, the waking from the subwaking self, so that they should no longer keep company, you can do anything you please with the subwakingself. You can make its legs, its hands, any limb you like perfectly rigid; you can make it eat pepper for sugar; you can make it drink water for wine; feel cold or warm; hear delightful stories in the absence of all sounds; feel pain or pleasure, see oranges where there is nothing; you can make it eat them and enjoy their taste. In short, you can do with the subwaking self anything you like. The subwaking consciousness is in your power, like clay in the hands of the potter. The plasticity of the subconscious is revealed by its extreme suggestibility.

I wanted to get an insight into the very nature of the subwaking self; I wished to make a personal acquaintance with it. “What is itspersonalcharacter?” I asked. How surprised I was when, after a close interrogation, the answer came to me that there cannot possibly be any personal acquaintance with it,—forthe subwaking self lacks personality.

Under certain conditions a cleavage may occur between the two selves, and then the subwaking self may rapidly grow, develop, and attain, apparently, the plane of self-consciousness, get crystallized into a person, and give itself a name, imaginary, or borrowed from history. This accounts for the spiritualistic phenomena of personality, guides, controls, and communications by dead personalities, or spirits coming from another world, such as have been observed in the case of Mrs. Piper and other mediums of like types; it accounts for all the phenomena ofmultiple personality, simulating the dead or the living, or formed anew out of the matrix of the subconscious.

All such personality metamorphoses can be easily developed, under favorable conditions in any psychopathological laboratory. They can be easily formed, by suggestion in trance, hypnotic, and waking states. The newly crystallized personality is, as a rule, extremely unstable, ephemeral, shadowy in its outlines, spirit-like, ghost-like, tends to become amorphous, being formed again and again under the influence of favorable conditions and suggestions, rising to the surface of consciousness, then sinking into the subconsciousness, and disappearing, only to give rise to new personality-metamorphoses, bursting like so many bubbles on the surface of the upper stream of consciousness.

There are cases when the personality of the individual is changed, or more personalities are formed. This metamorphosis may be brought aboutartificially, by suggestion, either direct or indirect. This is often brought about in a state of hypnosis when any number of personalities may be formed at the will of the hypnotizer who may create them deliberately; or they may become formed by subtle indirect suggestion, coming from the hypnotizer, of which he himself is not fully conscious; or the personalities may be formed by auto-suggestions. Suchphenomena may be regarded as theartefacts of Psychopathology.

There are again cases which are no play-personalities depending on hypnotic suggestion, or suggestion in waking life, but which are really due to pathological agencies. The former, due to suggestion, aresuggestion-personalities, the latter, due to pathological agencies, arepathological personalities. The formation of multiple personality by means of suggestion does not belong to our present subject.

I have discussed these facts of suggestion personalities in my volume, “The Psychology of Suggestion,” and other works. The pathological multiple personalities are of immense interest from many standpoints which we need not go into just at present, since our object is rather the causation, not the nature and character of the personalities themselves.[7]

The subwaking self is extremely credulous; it lacks all sense of the true and rational. “Two and two make five.” “Yes.” Anything is accepted, if sufficiently emphasized by the hypnotizer. The suggestibility and imitativeness of the subwaking self were discussed by me at great length. What I should like to point out here is the extremeservilityandcowardlinessof that self. Show hesitation, andit will show fight; command authoritatively, and it will obey slavishly.

The subwaking self is devoid of all morality.It will steal without the least scruple; it will poison; it will stab; it will assassinate its best friends unhesitatingly. When completely cut off from the waking person, it is precluded from conscience.

FOOTNOTE:[7]The subject of pathological multiple personalities is discussed in my work, “Multiple Personality.”

[7]The subject of pathological multiple personalities is discussed in my work, “Multiple Personality.”

In “The Psychology of Suggestion,” I pointed out the conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility. Among these conditions, monotony and the limitation of voluntary movements play an important rôle. Any arrangement of external circumstances, tending to produce monotony and limitation of voluntary movements, brings about a subconscious state of suggestibility in which the patient’s mental life can be influenced with ease.

I find that in the subconscious hypnoidal state consciousness is vague and memory is diffused, so that experiences apparently forgotten come in bits and scraps to the foreground of consciousness. Emotional excitement is calmed, voluntary activity is somewhat passive, and suggestions meet with little resistance.

The induced subconscious hypnoidal state is a rest state, a state of physical and mental relaxation. It is a state of rest and relaxation that is specially amenable to psychotherapeutic influences. The important results obtained by me led to a closer studyof what I then thought was a peculiar mental state designated by me as thesubwaking, or thehypnoidalstate.

The subwaking, or the hypnoidal state is essentially an intermediary state belonging apparently to the borderland of mental life. On the one hand, the hypnoidal state touches on the waking condition; on the other it merges into sleep and hypnosis.A close study of the hypnoidal state shows that it differs from the hypnotic state proper and that it can by no means be identified with light hypnosis.

In my years of work on patients and subjects, I have observed the presence of the hypnoidal state before the development of hypnosis and also before the onset of sleep. When again the hypnotic or sleep state passes into waking, the hypnoidal state reappears. The hypnoidal state then may be regarded as an intermediate and transitional state.

A somewhat related state has been long known in psychological literature as the hypnagogic state which precedes the oncome of sleep and is rich in hallucinations known under the term ofhypnagogichallucinations. In coming out of sleep, a closely related state may be observed, a state which I have termedhypnapagogic. In both states, hypnagogic and hypnapagogic, dream-hallucinations hold sway.

The hypnagogic and hypnapagogic states do not belong to light hypnosis, as it can hardly be claimedthat men fall into light hypnosis twice, or possibly more than that, every day of their life. We do not go into light hypnosis with every nap we take. We do, however, go into the hypnoidal state when we pass into sleep or come out of sleep. Every drowsy state has the hypnoidal state as one of its constituents; every sleep state is preceded and followed by the hypnoidal state.

Hypnosis may be regarded as belonging to the abnormal mental states, while the hypnoidal state is more closely allied to waking and sleep, and belongs to the normal, physiological, mental states. At first, I regarded the hypnoidal state as peculiar, but as I proceeded with my observations and experiments I could not help coming to the conclusion that the hypnoidal state is found in all the representatives of animal life and is as normal as waking and sleep.

The hypnoidal state may be said to partake not only of the nature of waking and sleep, but also to possess some characteristics of hypnosis, namely,suggestibility. It is clear that, from the very nature of its mixed symptomatology, the hypnoidal state is variable and highly unstable. The hypnoidal state may be regarded in the light of an equivalent of sleep. Like sleep, the hypnoidal state has many levels of depth. It differs, however, from sleep in the rapidity of oscillation from level to level.

In the experiments of various investigators, the depth of sleep is found to be represented by a rapidlyrising curve during the first couple of hours, and by a gradually descending curve during the rest of the hours of sleep. No such regularity of curve can be found in the hypnoidal state. The depth of the hypnoidal state changes very rapidly, and with it the passive condition and suggestibility of the patient.

For many years investigations of the hypnoidal state were carried out by me on subjects and patients, adults, and children. The work was entirely limited to the study of such states as found in man. Having found that during the hypnoidal state the condition of suggestibility is quite pronounced for therapeutic purposes, and having effected many cures of severe psychopathic maladies ranging throughout the whole domain of hysterical affections, neurasthenia, obsessions, drug habits, especially alcoholic ones, the hypnoidal state has become, in my practice, quite an important therapeutic agent. Other investigators have obtained some excellent results with the hypnoidal state in their treatment of various functional, psychopathic maladies.

Thus far, the work with the hypnoidal state has been confined entirely to observations and experiments on human subjects and patients, and also to the treatment of man’s psychopathic ailments. I undertook a series of experiments on sleep, both from a phylogenetic and ontogenetic standpoint, following up the conditions and manifestations of sleepin the ascending scale of animal life, from the frog and the guinea pig, through the cat, the dog, to the infant and the adult.

My experiments clearly prove that the hypnoidal state is by no means confined to man, but is also present in animals. This is important since it indubitably shows how widely spread the hypnoidal state is throughout the domain of animal life. Moreover, the experiments clearly prove that the further down we descend in the scale of animal organization, the more prominent, the more essential, does the hypnoidal state become.

The conclusion is forced upon me thatthe hypnoidal state is the primitive rest-state out of which sleep has arisen in the later stages of evolution. We may say that sleep and hypnosis take their origin in the hypnoidal state.[8]Sleep and hypnosis are highly differentiated states; they have evolved out of the primitive, undifferentiated, hypnoidal state which is essentially a subwaking rest-state characteristic of early and lowly-organized animal life.The hypnoidal state is the primordial sleep state.

The development of the hypnoidal state into sleep has proven itself useful in the struggle for existence of the higher animals; it has, therefore, become fixed as the rest-state, characteristic of the higher representatives of animal life. Hypnosis and othertrance-states, variations of the primitive hypnoidal rest-state, have become eliminated as useless and possibly harmful to the normal life adjustments of the higher animals and can only be induced under artificial conditions in but a fraction of the human race.

The hypnoidal state is the normal rest-state of the lower vertebrates and invertebrates. The rest or sleep state of the lower animals is a sort of passive waking state,—a subwaking state which has survived in man as the hypnoidal state. Of course, the state has been largely modified in man by the course of evolution, but it can still be clearly detected, just as the tail of the simian can be discerned in the human coccyx, or as the structure of the prehensile hand of the quadrumana can be still clearly traced in the foot of man. Waking, hypnoidal, and sleep-states may be termednormalstates, whilehypnosisand various other trance-states may be termedsub-normalstates.

The relation of the hypnoidal state to waking, sleep, hypnosis, and other subconscious states may be represented by the diagram onfollowing page.

The hypnoidal state is normal, it is present in all representatives of animal life.

Sleep, hypnosis, and trance-states are variations of the fundamental hypnoidal state. The sleep-state has proven useful and has become normal in the higher animals, while hypnosis like animal “cataplexy” and the various forms of trance-states, likewisevariations of the fundamental hypnoidal state, characteristic of man, have not proven of vital value, and have fallen below the normal stream of consciousness with its concomitant adaptive reactions.

DIAGRAM II

The hypnoidal state is brief, variable, and unstable. They who have observed the rest-states of the lower metazoa can form a clear idea of the nature as well as of the biological significance of the hypnoidal state in the life of the lower animals. The animal is at rest for a brief period of time as long as it remains undisturbed by external conditions of its environment, or by internal conditions, such as hunger, sexual impulses, or other internal disturbances. Soon the animal begins to move, sluggishly at first, and then more quickly, and if there are nodisturbing stimulations, comes to rest, to be again disturbed from its rest-equilibrium by the varying conditions of its environment.

The resting state is brief, irregular, differing from the waking state in but slight relaxation, in comparatively slow reactions to stimulations, and in a passive condition of the muscular system. Respiration is regular, and diminished in rate. The heart beat is slightly decreased, and general katabolic activity is somewhat reduced.

The animal, however, is quite alive to what is going on.The animal rests, watching for danger.

Resting and active states alternate periodically, if possible, but usually are irregular. The resting state is but a passive condition in which the animal may be considered to hover between waking and what we describe in the case of the higher animals as sleep. Sleep, in its proper sense, does not exist among the lower representatives of animal life.

This state of hovering between waking and sleeping, the characteristic of the hypnoidal state, is no doubt of paramount importance in the life-existence of the lower animals, considering the numerous dangers to which they are continually exposed. The animal must always be on the watch, either for food or for foe. It can only rest or “sleep” with its eyes wide open. The hypnoidal “sleep” can be best characterized as asubwaking, “twilight” rest-state.

I demonstrated in my experiments that the animal,while in the hypnoidal, subwaking rest-state, is apt to fall into a cataleptic state, especially when the movements are suddenly and forcibly inhibited. This cataleptic state, which reminds one of the hypnotic state, may be observed in the lower animals, such as the frog, the snake, the lobster, the bird, and, to a slighter degree, even in the higher animals, such as the guinea pig, the cat, the dog, especially in the young ones, such as the kitten, the puppy, and the infant.

There is little doubt that the cataleptic state into which animals fall during the hypnoidal rest-state is of some protective value in their life. The animal “freezes,” “feigns death,” and is thus either enabled to remain undetected by the animal on which it feeds or, what is still more important, is enabled to remain unnoticed by its enemy and thus escape certain death. The subwaking, hypnoidal state may be regarded as the fundamental rest-state of lower animals, and is characterized by a mixed symptomatology of waking, sleep, and hypnosis.

The hypnoidal state is a powerful instrument in the tracing of the past history of the growth and development of the symptoms of psychopathic or neurotic cases; and practically is of far greater value, inasmuch as the hypnoidal state has proven to be an easy agency in effecting a cure, and bringing about beneficial results in otherwise uncontrollable cases.

For the present, we can only say that the hypnoidal state is found in man but in a rudimentary condition. It is a vestige of man’s primitive, animal ancestors. The hypnoidal state is brief, variable, forming the entrance and exit of repose,—the portals of sleep. The primordial rest-state has shrunk to a transitory, momentary stage in the alternation of waking and sleep.The subwaking, hypnoidal rest-state shrinks with the increase of security of life.

FOOTNOTE:[8]Prof. Ed. Claperèdé of Geneva University, Switzerland, and Anastay seem to favor some similar view.

[8]Prof. Ed. Claperèdé of Geneva University, Switzerland, and Anastay seem to favor some similar view.

Once the hypnoidal state is induced by any of the various methods of hypnoidization, we can either attempt to follow up the history of the development of the malady, or we may chiefly work for therapeutic effects. It is, however, advisable, from a purely practical, therapeutic purpose to combine the two procedures; the cure is then effective and far more stable. When the history of the origin and development of the disease can not be traced, on account of the age or unintelligence of the patient, the therapeutic effects alone of the hypnoidal states have been utilized.

The getting access to subconscious experiences, lost to the patient’s personal consciousness, makes the hypnoidal state a valuable instrument in the tracing of the origin and development of the symptoms of the psychopathic malady.

From a practical standpoint, however, the therapeutic value of the hypnoidal state is most important. Our experiments have revealed to us the significant fact that the hypnoidal state is the primordialrest-state; sleep is but a derivative form. In many conditions of disease it is advisable to have the patient revert to a simple and primitive mode of life. Similarly, inpsychopathic diseases a reversion to a simple, primitive state proves to be of material help to the patient.

In plunging the patient into the hypnoidal state, we have him revert to a primitive rest-state with its consequent beneficial results. The suggestibility of the state, if skillfully handled, is apt to increase the therapeutic efficacy.Relaxation of nervousstrain, rest from worry, abatement of emotional excitement are known to be of great help in the treatment of nervous troubles of the neurasthenic, or of the so-called “psychoasthenic” variety. That is what we precisely observe in the treatment of psychopathic or neurotic diseases by means of the agency of the hypnoidal state, the efficacy of which is all the greater on account of the presence of the important trait of suggestibility.

The most important fact, however, isthe access gained through the hypnoidal state to the patient’s stores of subconscious reserve neuron energy, thus helping to bring about an association of disintegrated, dissociated mental-systems.

Dr. John Donley in his article, “The Clinical Use of Hypnoidization” (Journal of Abnormal Psychology for August-September, 1908), gives the following account of the method of hypnoidization:

“The treatment of that large group of disorders, forgotten memories, and emotions is operative in the production of mental disaggregation, but also in those numerous instances where the experience causing the obsessive idea or emotion is well known to the upper consciousness.“In hypnoidal states they were made to reproduce their obsessive thoughts and images and then to describe them in words. When this had been accomplished and they had received further assurance and persuasion from the experimenter, although the purely intellectual content of their obsessions remained known to them, the insistent automatic character and disturbing emotional factors had disappeared. In this metamorphosis of emotional reaction we may observe one of the most interesting and useful attributes of the hypnoidal state.”

“In hypnoidal states they were made to reproduce their obsessive thoughts and images and then to describe them in words. When this had been accomplished and they had received further assurance and persuasion from the experimenter, although the purely intellectual content of their obsessions remained known to them, the insistent automatic character and disturbing emotional factors had disappeared. In this metamorphosis of emotional reaction we may observe one of the most interesting and useful attributes of the hypnoidal state.”

Dr. Donley gives a series of cases which he treated successfully from psychognostic and psychotherapeutic standpoints. The reader is referred to the original article.

“The value of hypnoidization,” says Dr. T. W. Mitchell, “in the resurrection of dissociated memories is that which is perhaps best established. And this applies not only to the restoration of the forgotten experiences of ordinary amnesia, but to the recovery of dissociated memories that are of pathogenic significance.... Sidis himself has insistentlytaught that the reassociation of dissociated complexes effects a cure of psychopathic disease.... My own experience, so far as it goes, tends to corroborate in every respect the claims put forward by Sidis....”

While in the hypnoidal state the patient hovers between the conscious and the subconscious, somewhat in the same way as in the half-drowsy condition one hovers between wakefulness and sleep. The patient keeps on fluctuating from moment to moment, now falling more deeply into a subconscious condition in which outlived experiences are easily aroused, and again rising to the level of the waking state. Experiences long submerged and forgotten rise to the full light of consciousness. They come in bits, in chips, in fragments, which may gradually coalesce and form a connected series of interrelated systems of experiences apparently long dead and buried. The resurrected experiences then stand out clear and distinct in the patient’s mind. The recognition is fresh, vivid, and instinct with life, as if the experiences had occurred the day before.

It cannot be insisted too much that the hypnoidal state is not a slight hypnosis.The hypnoidal state is a light sleep state, a twilight state.The hypnoidal state is the anabolic state of repose, characteristic of primitive life.

The hypnoidal state is an intermediary state between waking and sleep.Subwakingis an appropriatedescriptive term of the character of the hypnoidal state.

The subwaking hypnoidal state, like sleep and hypnosis, may be of various depth and duration; it may range from the fully waking consciousness and again may closely approach and even merge into sleep or hypnosis. The same patient may at various times reach different levels, and hence subconscious experiences which are inaccessible at one time may become revealed at some subsequent time, when the patient happens to go into a deeper hypnoidal state.

On account of the instability of the hypnoidal state, and because of the continuous fluctuation and variation of its depth, the subconscious dissociated experiences come up in bits and scraps, and often may lack the sense of familiarity and recognition. The patient often loses the train of subconscious association. There is a constant struggle to maintain this highly unstable hypnoidal state.

One has again and again to return to the same subconscious train started into activity for a brief interval of time. One must pick his way among streams of disturbing associations before the dissociated subconscious experiences can be synthesized into a whole, reproducing the original experience that has given rise to the whole train of symptoms.

The hypnoidal state may sometimes reproduce the original experience which, at first struggling up in a broken, distorted form, and finally becoming synthesized,produces a full attack. The symptoms of the malady turn out to be portions, bits and chips of past experiences which have become dissociated, giving rise to a disaggregated subconsciousness.

The method of hypnoidization, and the hypnoidal states induced by it, enable us to trace the history and etiology of the symptoms, and also to effect a synthesis and a cure. The hypnoidal state may not be striking and sensational in its manifestations, but it is a powerful instrument in psychopathology and psychotherapeutics.

For many years my investigations of the hypnoidal state were carried out on subjects and patients, adults and children. Having found that during the hypnoidal state the condition of mental plasticity is quite pronounced for therapeutic purposes, and having effected many cures of severe psychopathic maladies, ranging throughout the whole domain of so-called hysterical affections, neurasthenia, obsessions, drug habits, especially alcoholic ones, the hypnoidal state has become in my practice quite an important therapeutic agent. Lately, others have obtained excellent results with the hypnoidal state in their treatment of various functional, psychopathic or neurotic maladies.

Perhaps it may be opportune here for the sake of further elucidation to give a few extracts from the Presidential address on “The Hypnoidal Stateof Sidis,” given by Dr. T. W. Mitchell before the Psycho-Medical Society of Great Britain, January 26, 1911.

“The history of science,” says Dr. Mitchell in his address, “affords us many instances in which the neglect of residual phenomena in experimental research has led to the overlooking of important facts, and prevented investigators from making discoveries which, had they paid attention to their residues, they could hardly have missed. The great chemist, Cavendish, probably missed the discovery of argon, because in his estimate of nitrogen of the air he neglected a residue which his experiments showed him could not be more than1/120part of the whole. More than a hundred years afterwards this residue was accounted for by the discovery of argon.

“Now in the history of Psychotherapeutics, from its earliest beginning down to our own time, we find many cases where the circumstances under which curative results have been obtained render it difficult for us to range these results under the category of the therapeutics of suggestion.

“Such cases as these may be regarded as the residual phenomena of the therapeutics of suggestion, and just as Cavendish and his successors too readily assumed that all the so-called nitrogen of the air was the same as the nitrogen of nitre, so we may be missing some important truth, if we too readily assumethat all these therapeutic results are due solely to suggestion. The value of suggestion during hypnosis is well attested, and the possibility of effecting physiological and psychological changes by its means is supported by a large amount of experimental evidence. But evidence of this kind is lacking in regard to suggestion without hypnosis, and until it is forthcoming, we are justified in receiving with some suspicion the account of the therapeutic efficacy of suggestion in the waking state. We seem bound to consider whether some state of consciousness intermediate between waking and hypnosis may not be artificially induced and utilized for the purpose of giving therapeutic suggestion.

“The scientific investigation of states of consciousness intermediate between waking and hypnosis is a contribution to psychology and psychotherapy which we owe practically to one man—Dr. Sidis. A research into the nature of suggestibility led him to formulate certain laws and conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility....

“By keeping the patient for a short time under the conditions of normal suggestibility we induce a peculiar mental state which Sidis namedHypnoidal state. The process by which it is induced is what Sidis calls,hypnoidization.

“By the use of various methods a state of consciousness is induced which differs from full waking, but is not hypnosis or ordinary sleep.

“The hypnoidal state is an intermediary territory, on the borderland of waking, sleep and hypnosis. In the course of a valuable experimental investigation of sleep in man and the lower animals, Sidis discovered that the hypnoidal state is a phase of consciousness which is passed through in every transition from one of these states to another. In passing from the waking state to ordinary sleep or hypnosis, there is always a longer or shorter hypnoidal stage. In the practice of hypnoidization the patient sometimes drops into hypnosis, or he may fall asleep without touching on hypnosis. And so also in awaking from sleep or from hypnosis, the hypnoidal state has to be passed through. Sidis found that the further we descend in the scale of animal life, the more important does the hypnoidal state become in relation to bodily rest and recuperation, and he concludes that it is the primitive rest-state out of which both sleep and hypnosis have been evolved.

“The relation to each other of waking, sleep, hypnosis and the hypnoidal state, may be represented in a diagram in which the primitive hypnoidal state is represented as a nucleus from which the segments of the larger circle, waking, sleep and hypnosis, have arisen. The transition from one of these segments to another can take place through the central territory with which they each have relations. (See diagram onpage 110.)

“The spontaneous occurrence of the hypnoidal state in man is as a rule merely a transitory stage in the alternation of waking and sleep. From the point of view of evolution it is a vestige derived from a long race of ancestors, a rudimentary function which has been superseded by the more highly specialized rest-state, sleep. But it can be artificially induced and maintained by the methods which have been described, and it can be utilized with effect in the treatment of psychopathic disorders.

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