HYSTERIA AND DEM ONI SM. 383 



The moment of awakening presents curious features ; most fre- 

 quently, somnambulists on waking are in a deep stupefaction ; they 

 look at the persons around them without being able to believe the 

 truth of what they are told ; they have preserved no recollection of 

 what has passed while they were in sleep ; and, since, in a psychologi- 

 cal point of view, time is measured only by the remembrance of ideas, 

 they have wholly lost the notion of time. The moment when they 

 were put to sleep is confounded with the moment of waking. It also 

 happens that what took place during sleep returns to their memory 

 when they are newly put to sleep ; and this probably furnishes an ex- 

 planation of the doubling of the personality of which some of the mag- 

 netizers speak. It is what we may call the collection of our memories 

 that constitutes the I ; and, when we find that certain memories are 

 reserved for a special physical condition, we almost have a right to 

 say that the personality is doubled, because it recalls a whole series 

 of acts in sleep of which it is absolutely ignorant in the waking 

 state. 



The hysterical patients of the Salpetriere can be put to sleep with 

 the greatest ease. Anything that will powerfully excite the senses is 

 sufficient to induce the somnambulic paroxysm as, for instance, the 

 flash of the electric light, or the metallic, harsh noise produced by sud- 

 denly striking the tomtom or the Chinese gong. Sleep comes right 

 on, with such rapidity that the subjects do not even preserve the mem- 

 ory of the shock which has for a time destroyed the consciousness of 

 their existence. If the gong is sounded while the patients are together 

 in one of the courts of the hospital, the greater part of them will stop 

 short with their eyes open and their limbs fixed in an attitude indicat- 

 ing stupefaction mingled with fright. This condition of sleep pro- 

 voked by a violent shock to the nerves is not at all identical with the 

 somnambulism which is induced by passes. The sleep is deeper, more 

 animal, and, we might say, more pathological ; the functions of the 

 nervous system and the muscular system are more gravely disturbed. 

 Insensibility is complete, and the patient, if some one does not wake 

 her up, will remain for hours as if she were annihilated in a sleep 

 without a dream. If the eyes are open, there is catalepsy that is, the 

 muscles will retain indefinitely the position that has been given them. 

 If, for example, the arm has been lifted into the air and put into an 

 unnatural position, it will continue raised in the attitude that has been 

 imposed upon it. If, on the contrary, the eyes are closed, other phe- 

 nomena will be brought out. The nerves will have become extremely 

 excitable, so that any muscle may be made to contract by merely placing 

 the finger across the nerve which produces that action. The muscles 

 themselves are also extremely excitable, so that we may make them con- 

 tract and even draw up by simply touching them. If we insist, we can 

 cause them to draw up closely, and make the fingers double up upon 

 the hand, and the forearm upon the arm. If we waken the patient with- 



