Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory

 

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and methods employed producing a normal or abnormal state of sleep instead of the hypnosis which was expected. The sleep may set in with loud snoring. Such persons cannot be influenced by suggestion, and wake either spontaneously with a terrified start, or when spoken to gently. In another group of cases the awakening is not so easy because the subjects are in a deep, unconscious sleep exactly like the pathological sleep which is also observed to occur spontaneously in hysteria. Awakening is difficult, as even strong stimuli produce no impression.

(3). The hystero-hypnoid state, as Hirschlaff terms certain conditions, basing his contention on Freud and Breuer, though he uses the term in a somewhat different sense to those authors. In this case instead of normal hypnosis the hypnosigenic measures produce more or less severe hysterical conditions, palpitation of the heart, hiccoughs, convulsive screaming and crying, attacks of hysteria of the severest nature, cataleptic and lethargic states accompanied by loss of memory. Occasionally these phenomena only appear as a complication of hypnosis.

(q.) Spontaneous somnambulism. Here the hypnosis is apparently normal at first ; then there is a more or less sudden, spontaneous, but circumscribed outburst of excitement, generally of an erotic cast, in which

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the subject often refers to some remote event that had at one time occupied his mind and caused him great mental excitement.

According to IIirschlaff, all these abnormal states are only met with in hystericals. The chief changes which differentiate these from normal deep hypnosis are, (a) decrease or entire cessation of suggestibility, (b) the spontaneous appearance of certain phenomena, (c) increased difficulty in awakening the subject, and (d) post-hypnotic malaise, an almost invariable result.

I myself believe that some of the states which Hirschlaff ascribes to abnormal hypnosis have nothing whatever to do with hypnosis, even if they do occur in hypnotic experiments. For a person who is being hypnotized to have an attack of hysteria (Hirschlafi's third group), or to fall into a lethargic state, or

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