<606 PSYCHOLOGY. 



nunj:^ all the while. These facts have misled ultra-skepti- 

 cal people so far as to make them doubt the genuineness 

 of any hypnotic phenomena at alL But, save the con- 

 sciousness of ' sleep,' they do not occur in the deeper con- 

 ditions ; and when they do occur they are only a natural 

 'Consequence of the fact that the ' mouoideism ' is incom- 

 plete. The background-thoughts still exist, and have the 

 power of comment on the suggestions, but no power to iu- 

 liibit their motor and associative effects. A similar condi- 

 tion is frequent enough in the waking state, when an 

 impulse carries us away and our ' will ' looks on wonder- 

 ingly like an impotent spectator. These ' shammers ' con- 

 tinue to sham in just the same way, every new time you 

 hypnotize them, until at last they are forced to admit that 

 if shamming there be, it is something very different from 

 the free voluntary shamming of waking hours. 



Beal sensations may he aholislied as well as false ones 

 •suggested. Legs and breasts may be amputated, children 

 born, teeth extracted, in short the most painful experi- 

 •ences undergone, with no other anesthetic than the hypno- 

 tizer's assurance that no pain shall be felt. Similarly 

 anorbid pains may be annihilated, neuralgias, toothaches, 

 Theumatisms cured. The sensation of hunger has thus 

 been abolished, so that a patient took no nourishment for 

 fourteen days. The most interesting of these suggested 

 anaesthesias are those limited to certain objects of percep- 

 tion. Thus a subject may be made blind to a certain per- 

 son and to him alone, or deaf to certain words but to no 

 others.* In this case the anesthesia (or negative hallttcina- 

 tion, as it has been called) is apt to become systematized. 

 Other things related to the person to wdiom one has 

 been made blind may also be shut out of consciousness. 

 What he says is not heard, his contact is not felt, objects 

 ■which he takes from his pocket are not seen, etc. Objects 

 which he screens are seen as if he were transparent. Facts 

 about him are forgotten, his name is not recognized when 

 pronounced. Of course there is great A^ariety in the com- 



* M. Liegeois explains the common exhibition-trick of malving the sub- 

 ject unable to get his arms into his coat-sleeves again after he has takea 

 his coat off, by an ansssthesia to the necessary parts of the coat. 



