236 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



patient of this type an alarming suggestion, for the terror which 

 it inspires may do more mischief than the operator can readily 

 undo. 



Sometimes while the upper consciousness is apparently unaf- 

 fected it will be found that the performance of the suggestion is 

 either forgotten or entirely unnoticed. Prof. Janet says of his 

 patient Lucie : " She seemed at the moment quite normal, talked 

 and kept record well enough of the acts she performed spontane- 

 ously, but in the midst of all these normal acts she also performed 

 as if by distraction the acts commanded in sleep. Not only did 

 she forget them when performed like most subjects, but she did 

 not seem to be conscious of them the moment she did them. I tell 

 her to raise her arms over her head after waking. Scarcely is she 

 in her normal condition before she raises her arms above her head, 

 but she does not inconvenience herself thereby. She goes, comes, 

 talks, and all the while keeps her arms overhead. If asked what 

 her arms are doing, she is astonished at such a question and says : 

 ' My hands are doing nothing at all ; they are like yours.' By 

 this method I make her put her fingers to her nose and walk 

 across the room. I command her to cry, and upon awaking she 

 actually sobs, but in the midst of her tears talks of the most cheer- 

 ful matters. The sobs over, there remains not a trace of her 

 grief ; indeed, she seems to have been unconscious of it." 



These may be regarded as the extreme types, the posthypnotic 

 suggestion in the one case coalescing with the upper conscious- 

 ness, and in the other remaining absolutely dissociated from it. 

 There remains a third type in which the suggestion emerges into 

 the upper consciousness, but in so doing seems to disordinate it to 

 a greater or less degree, thus reducing the patient to a condition 

 analogous to that in which he was when the suggestion was 

 given. 



The disturbance is often very slight and it is then not easy to 

 detect or define it. It may be limited to a transient look of ab- 

 straction, of vacancy, as if a cloud were passing over the mind. 

 What I have described as failure to coalesce may be conceived as 

 a form of interference in which the suggested state expels from 

 consciousness all inconsistent states without much afi'ecting the 

 balance. At other times if one gives a suggestion the execution 

 of which takes some time, the patient will be found sensitive to 

 fresh suggestions while the first is being executed, or will be found 

 to recollect at that time previous states of somnambulism which 

 are forgotten in his normal condition and are again forgotten, to- 

 gether with the act just performed, a moment afterward. Some- 

 times the disturbance of the upper consciousness goes further and 

 results in complete disordination or " unconsciousness." I have 

 often seen this as the result of giving suggestions which were too 



