HYPNOTIC STATES, TRANCE, AND ECSTASY. 813 



sensation is lost while the power of movement remains, I know of 

 no illustration. But the earlier experience of Ansel Bourne comes 

 very near it. He was walking down a road and felt slightly 

 dizzy ; went and seated himself upon a stone. " In an instant, ... it 

 seemed as though some powerful hand drew something down over 

 his head, and then over his face, and finally over his whole body ; 

 depriving him of his sight, his hearing, and his speech, and ren- 

 dering him perfectly helpless. Yet he had as perfect power of 

 thought as at any time in his life." In his case all was gone ex- 

 cept touch and the power of voluntary movement with the excep- 

 tion of speech. The details of this classical case can be found in 

 Dr. Richard Hodgson's article, in the Proceedings of the So- 

 ciety for Psychical Research, vol. vii, page 221. 



The converse, loss of movement without loss of sensation, is 

 not uncommon ; indeed, is probably only too common. A case is 

 given by Alexander Crichton, M. D., in his work on Mental De- 

 rangement, vol. ii, page 87 : "A young lady, an attendant upon 



the Princess of , after having been confined to her bed for a 



great length of time with a violent nervous disorder, was at last, 

 to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips were quite pale, her 

 countenance resembled the countenance of a dead person, and her 

 body grew cold. She was removed from the room in which she 

 died, was laid in a coffin, and the day of her funeral was fixed 

 upon. The day arrived, and, according to the custom of the 

 country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the door. 

 Just as the people were about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a 

 kind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of her 

 body. It grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of con- 

 vulsive motion was observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. 

 A few minutes after, during which time fresh signs of returning 

 life appeared, she at once opened her eyes and uttered a most piti- 

 able shriek. Physicians were quickly procured, and in the course 

 of a few days she was considerably restored and is probably alive 

 at this day. The description which she herself gave of her situ- 

 ation is extremely remarkable, and forms a curious and authentic 

 addition to psychology. She said it seemed to her, as if in a 

 dream, that she was really dead ; yet she was perfectly conscious 

 of all that happened around her in this dreadful state. She dis- 

 tinctly heard her friends speaking and lamenting her death at the 

 side of her coffin. She felt them pull on the dead-clothes and lay 

 her in them. This feeling .produced a mental anxiety which is 

 indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power, 

 and could not act upon her body. She had the contradictory feel- 

 ing as if she were in her own body and yet not in it, at one and the 

 same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her 

 arm or to open her eyes as to cry, although she continually en- 



