Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory |
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is drawn. It may very well happen in such cases that the subject is not clearly
conscious of drawing his conclusions from these details. This phenomenon is
very common in normal life. How often it happens that at first sight one person
draws a conclusion as to the character of another, and is at the same time unaware
of the details from which he draws it. We often divine the meaning of a face
without knowing how; we think that it is a clever or a stupid face; we recognize
an expression of happiness or sadness at once, without realizing the details
of our impression. Thought-transference, of which I shall speak later, may often
be explained in this way; the subject reads the wish and thought of the experimenter
even in a gesture, in the direction of his eyes, in the involuntary movement
of his lips (Carpenter), particularly when he has had some training in this
line. The prophecies and predictions of somnambules and other such persons often depend upon the logical utilization of such insignificant impressions. A peculiar mental quickness is not always necessary, as is shown in the case of a man who was told by a soothsayer that he had lately suffered a loss in his family. This was true. The man was astonished till a friend drew his attention to the fact that he was wearing crape—a fact which gave the soothsayer a clue (Fonvielle). In hypnosis, just as in the normal state, mental activity depends upon the attention paid by the subject; indeed, in the deep hypnoses the subject's attention plays a particular part, being easily diverted from the experimenter. In deep hypnosis the subject's attention is first directed to one point only—i.e., to the experimenter, so that other objects hardly exist for him. When this phenomenon is clearly marked, we speak of rapport; or of isolated rapport when the subject is in hypnotic connection with only one individual. This is an important phenomenon of hypnosis. We saw in the fourth experiment (p. 35) that the subject only answered me, and apparently ignored the other persons present. Isolated rapport is a common phenomenon of deep
SYMPTOMS OF HYPNOSIS. 135 hypnosis. It can undoubtedly be induced by suggestion; whether it can only arise in this manner or may be brought about by other means, is to be questioned. D011ken only once saw a case of isolated rapport without the necessary suggestion being made. I have often seen cases of this kind in which I do not think I lent any assistance either by word or deed. It may of course be objected that in |
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