232 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



could have suggested them, save that he had heard when a child 

 of a young woman having been strangled by her lover on the site 

 of his father's barn, out in the country. There was no knife in 

 that case, however, and he was sure it could have nothing to do 

 with the apparitions. I then hypnotized him, and he at once told 

 me the whole story. I had to question him somewhat, but I was 

 keenly alive to the danger of asking leading questions, and am 

 convinced that the story was told spontaneously. The girl had 

 had her throat cut, he said ; a coachman had claimed to have seen 

 her ghost in the barn and had told him of it. After that, four or 

 five coachmen in succession declared they had seen the ghost, and 



left the employ of M 's father rather than sleep in the barn. 



M was greatly frightened and began dreaming about it. After 



the lapse of some years the dreams ceased, but about two years 

 ago they began again. He never saw the apparition, he said, ex- 

 cept when he had been dreaming about the murder. I told him he 

 would never have such a dream again and would never see the 

 ghosts. That was in August last, and in November he told me he 

 had had no recurrence. I have not seen him recently. Another 



most interesting fact in this case was that, although M had 



totally forgotten all this in his waking state before being hyp- 

 notized, and although after being awakened he had not the slight- 

 est recollection of anything that passed while he was hypnotized, 

 he did then remember most of the facts he had just been talking 

 of and told me them again, expressing surprise that he could not 

 do it when I first asked him. 



Now, here we have a true posthypnotic phenomenon. It is 

 precisely parallel to those cases in which the hypnotized patient 

 is told that at a certain time and place, while awake, he will see 

 John Smith, who will say this or that to him ; the time comes ; a 

 phantom John Smith walks into the room and does what is ex- 

 pected of him. But the state which in M *s case survived the 



shock of waking was not a suggested state in the common sense, 

 nor was it revived upon the occurrence of some appointed condi- 

 tion or signal. The story is of interest as showing how purely 

 arbitrary is the line which some writers would draw between the 

 " normal " and " abnormal " in this field. 



There are three especially interesting problems connected with 

 posthypnotic suggestion : 1. What is the relation of the suggestion 

 to the signal ? 2. In what form does the suggestion exist between 

 the time of awaking, when it is usually unknown to the upper 

 consciousness, and the moment of execution ? 3. What is its rela- 

 tion to the upper consciousness in which it reappears ? 



To the first of these questions no very clear answer can be 

 given. We can say that the suggestion is " associated " with the 

 signal, and it of course is, but that does not explain to my mind 



