HYPNOTISM. 606 



by complete forgetfulness. The subject awakens from 

 them at the command of the operator with a sudden start 

 of surprise, and may seem for a while a little dazed. 



Subjects in this condition will receive and execute sug- 

 gestions of crime, and act out a theft, forgery, arson, or 

 murder. A girl will believe that she is married to her 

 hypnotizer, etc. It is unfair, however, to say that in these 

 cases the subject is a pure pujjpet with no spontaneity. 

 His spontaneity is certainly not in abeyance so far as 

 things go which are harmoniously associated with the sug- 

 gestion given him. He takes the text from his operator ; 

 but he may amplify and develop it enormously as he acts 

 it out. His spontaneity is lost only for those systems of 

 ideas which conflict with the suggested delusion. The latter 

 is thus ' systematized ' ; the rest of consciousness is shut 

 off, excluded, dissociated from it. In extreme cases the 

 rest of the mind would seem to be actually abolished and 

 the hypnotic subject to be literally a changed personality, 

 a being in one of those * second ' states which we studied 

 in Chapter X. But the reign of the delusion is often 

 not as absolute as this. If the thing suggested be too in- 

 timately repugnant, the subject may strenuously resist and 

 get nervously excited in consequence, even to the point of 

 having an hysterical attack. Tlie conflicting ideas slumber 

 in the background and merely permit those in the fore- 

 ground to have their way until a real emergency arises ; 

 then they assert their rights. As M. Delboeuf says, the 

 subject surrenders himself good-naturedly to the perform- 

 ance, stabs with the pasteboard dagger you give him be- 

 cause he knows what it is, and fires off the pistol because he 

 knows it has no ball ; but for a real murder he would not 

 be your man. It is undoubtedly true that subjects are 

 often well aware that they are acting a part. They know 

 that what they do is absurd. They know that the halluci- 

 nation which they see, describe, and act upon, is not really 

 there. They may laugh at themselves ; and they always 

 recognize the abnormality of their state when asked about 

 it, and call it ' sleep.' One often notices a sort of mocking 

 smile upon them, as if they were playing a comedy, and 

 they may even say on ' coming to ' that they were sham- 



