Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/122

 110 EDMUND GUKNEY. THE STAGES OF HYPNOTISM. By EDMUND GUKNEY. One of the first things which strikes the student of what is often loosely called the ' hypnotic ' or ' mesmeric ' state is this that even the simplest manifestations of hypnotism are wont to present not one state but two, distinguished from one another by very marked characteristics. But the distinction, as usually drawn, has been of a very rough kind. As a rule, it has been noticed that good ' subjects ' first get into a state in which many of them show great acuteness of sensibility, and in which all of them can be made to do or imagine very odd things ; and that from this they gradually merge into a state of profound sleep or even coma. Such were the stages as originally observed by Braid, and subsequent investigation has done little to define them further. I am going to point out what appear to me grave deficiencies in this distinc- tion of states, and to attempt to draw a much more precise one. But, before doing so, it is necessary to refer to another mode of distinction, which, if not cleared out of the way, might greatly con- fuse us. In discussions on hypnotism we continually find three t>ii>i'x of condition recognised the cataleptic, the lethargic, and the somnambulic : the cataleptic being the condition where the limbs will remain in any position in which they may be placed, without effort on the ' subject's ' part ; the lethargic being the condition where the muscles are relaxed, but abnormally liable to con- tractions and spasms under gentle stimulation ; the somnambulic being the condition in which the ' subject ' exhibits the singular eccentricities of conduct associated with public entertainments. But though these are all real and important conditions, they do not the least represent distinct states of the individual, or distinct stages of hypnotism. For the peculiarities of muscular condition may quite well coexist with that peculiar mental state which is described as somnambulic. The cataleptic state, moreover, does not belong to normal hypnotism at all, but is a decidedly excep- tional phenomenon, and can only be considered otherwise by confusing it with the mere ordinary rigidity of the limbs ; and again the effects of muscular irritability may be locally produced, by hypnotic processes, in various parts of the body, while the ' subject ' remains in his normal waking state. On the whole, then, this mixing up of physical and mental and of constant and occasional characteristics, in a list which professes to sum up the fundamental forms of hypnotism, seems extremely misleading ; and in what follows I shall speak only of cases where the mind of the ' subject ' is to some extent affected, and shall base my distinctions primarily on the constant features which that mental affection displays. If, then, the ' subject ' the conscious individual and not merely a part of his body has succumbed to the hypnotic influence, if