An Experimental Study In The Domain Of Hypnotism (Hypnosis and Altered States of Consciousness)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONCLUSIONS. The person used in the foregoing hypnotic experiments, on account of her neurosis (jiystcria, gravis), and her peculiar condition, is in a high degree capable of transfer to hypnotic states. As such, a state of catalepto-somnambulism (II.) and one of auto-hypnosis may be produced experimentally at any time. (III.) In the relatively normal and lucid state (I.) the patient presents the symptomatic picture and condition of hysteria gravis, with its usual neurotic and psychical functional disturbances. By means of certain procedures it is very easy to transfer the patient to state II. These procedures (stroking of the forehead, pressure on the eyes, fixed gaze, simple command, etc.) must depend upon suggestion (sensory, auditory), and primarily, for their effect, rest upon a purely psychical impression. This is only possible when the patient is in accord with the experimenter's will. It is remarkable that at the occurrence of hypnotic influence she usually raises her eyes to the experimenter, taking his image, so to speak, into the darkness of the unknown hypnotic state. If the purely mental and suggestive manner of origin of II. be thus shown, it is still more clearly demonstrated when it is remembered that the intensity of II. and the experimenter's domination of the subject of the experiments depend entirely on the intimateness of accord between subject and experimenter. In this way is explained the imperfect result in the case of inadequate procedures in the attempt to induce hypnosis (stroking with a brush, instead of with the hand); in case of accidental or intentional failure to gaze at the experimenter; the difficulty of production of II. for others, and the incompleteness of the influence of such a one in comparison with that of the usual experimen...

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