HYPNOTISM. 109 



of a single word in a sentence. Thus, for instance, if a line of poetry- 

 is read to a patient during his sleep, the whole line may sometimes be 

 recalled to his memory, when awake, by repeating a single word of the 

 line. Again, we know from daily experience that the most compli- 

 cated neuro-muscular actions such as those required for piano-play- 

 ing become by frequent repetition " mechanical," or performed with- 

 out consciousness of the processes by which the result is achieved. So 

 it is in the case of hypnotism. Actions which have been previously- 

 rendered mechanical by long habit are, in the gtate of hypnotism, per- 

 formed automatically in response to their appropriate stimuli. There 

 being a strong tendency to imitate movements, these appropriate stim- 

 uli may consist in the operator himself performing the movements. 

 Thus when Heidenhain held his fist before his hypnotized subject's 

 face, his subject immediately imitated the movement ; when he opened 

 his hand his subject did the same, provided that his hand was visible 

 to his subject at the time. Also, when he clattered his teeth, the 

 hypnotized patient repeated the movement, even though the patient 

 could only hear, and not see, the movement ; similarly, the patient 

 would follow him about the room, providing that in walking he made 

 sufficient noise to constitute a stimulus to automatic walking on the 

 part of his patient. In order to constitute stimuli to such automatic 

 movements, the sounds or gestures must stand in some such customary- 

 relation to the movements that the occurrence of the former naturally 

 suggests the latter. 



Another characteristic of the hypnotic state is that of an extraor- 

 dinary exaltation of sensibility, so that stimuli of various kinds, al- 

 though much too feeble to evoke any response in the ordinary condi- 

 tion of the nervous system, are effective as stimuli in the hypnotic 

 condition. It is remarkable that this state of exalted sensibility should 

 be accompanied by what appears to be a lowered, or even a dormant, 

 state of consciousness. It is also remarkable that this exaltation of 

 sensibility does not appear to take place with what may be called a 

 proportional reference to all kinds of stimuli. Indeed, far from there 

 being any such proportional reference, the greatly exalted state of sen- 

 sibility toward slight stimuli is accompanied by a greatly diminished 

 state of excitability toward strong stimuli. Thus, deeply hypnotized 

 persons will allow themselves to be cut, or burned, or to have pins 

 stuck into their flesh, without showing the smallest signs of discom- 

 fort. Heidenhain is careful to point out the interesting similarity, if 

 not identity, between this condition and that which sometimes occurs 

 in certain pathological derangements of the central nervous system, as 

 well as in a certain stage of anaesthesia, wherein the patient is able to 

 feel the contact of the surgical instruments, while quite insensible to 

 any pain produced by the cutting of his flesh. Reflex sensibility, or 

 sensibility conducing to reflex movements, also undergoes a change, 

 and it does so in the direction of increase, as might be expected from 



