NORMAL AND HEIGHTENED SUGGESTIBILITY. 647 



mind without running the risk of encountering a mass of ideas 

 which either are antagonistic to it or overcome it by sheer weight 

 of numbers. Furthermore, most persons who closely watch their 

 mental life can detect in it that at present mysterious activity of 

 the " self " to which I alluded in my first article. We must con- 

 ceive it as in some way originated by and dependent upon our 

 past experience, and in it we see, as I have elsewhere expressed it, 

 the present conscious representative of the net resultant of our 

 past experience, brought to bear upon the nascent mental state. 

 Its function in our life may be compared to that of the rudder on 

 the ship : it serves to hold us steadily to the course already laid 

 out, and makes our present and our future symmetrical with our 

 past. 



It is evident, then, that, if we would restore primitive suggest- 

 ibility in an adult, we must either break up the consciousness of 

 self, or weaken its power of control. If we can do that, we have 

 removed from the path of the suggested state the most formi- 

 dable possible impediment to. its free progress and development. 

 But to give it full liberty we must abolish or enfeeble all other 

 sensations and ideas as well. These would be, from the psycho- 

 logical point of view, the conditions of heightened suggestibility. 



In many cases it is, unfortunately, impossible to get any evi- 

 dence as to the mental condition of the patient, but such evidence 

 as we have goes to support this hypothesis. The hypnotized 

 patient, if asked what he is thinking about usually says, " Noth- 

 ing." Sometimes you find that he is dreaming and will tell his 

 dreams, but, like other dreams, they are readily guided or dissi- 

 pated by the least sensory suggestion. In the few cases in which 

 the patient remembers his experiences upon awaking, he says he 

 felt drowsy, dull, or weak. One of my patients told me that it 

 seemed to him as if the motor suggestions I gave him were exe- 

 cuted by his body, mechanically, without his own concurrence. 

 He did not feel disposed to resist, but, when he did, he either 

 found himself helpless, or could overcome the suggestion by the 

 most strenuous resistance only. 



But the suggestibility thus produced differs widely from that 

 observed in children. The consciousness of the child is so rudi- 

 mentary in character that complex thoughts can not be awakened 

 in it by any means ; its suggestibility, therefore, is limited to the 

 performance of relatively simple acts. But in the complex brain 

 of the adult, with its myriad ramifications, the range of suggesti- 

 bility, when once it is established, is far greater and its phenom- 

 ena more striking. In language we possess an instrument which, 

 although intangible, is as much physical as an axe, a saw, or a 

 knife, and with it, as with an adjustable stamp, we can impress 

 upon the still sensitive brain what modifications we will. Once 



