Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/126

 114 EDMUND GURNEY. of the susceptibility of the pupil to light, with irresponsiveness to any voice but that of the operator. 1 But of these characteristics the only one which is invariable is the bodily torpidity. Closure of the eyes is nearly invariable ; but I myself have seen two well- marked instances where the eyes remained wide open throughout the period which, as judged by all other indications, was cer- tainly the deep stage. The irritability of the eye is sometimes only slightly affected. Insensibility to pain, though usual, is liable to still more frequent exceptions, as also is the irresponsiveness to the address of persons other than the operator. Nor are these normal features of the deep stage, even when present, entirely dis- tinctive ; as more than one of them are often also present in the alert. The irritability of the eye may at once suffer marked diminution. 2 Again not only is insensibility of a local sort in the alert stage one of the commonest phenomena of public exhibitions, when an arm or a leg is stiffened, and submitted to the audience to stick pins into or otherwise maltreat ; but even ij<-iifral insensi- bility may supervene while the ' subject ' is still open-eyed and capable of actively responding to suggestions and commands. This is especially the case if his attention is strongly directed in some particular channel : for instance, a ' subject ' who normally is sensi- tive in the alert stage, if while in the deep stage he be ordered to do some particular thing when he wakes and be then roused into the alert stage, will often prove insensitive till the tliimj /* done, Similarly I have known a ' subject,' who was quite sensitive be- fore, become insensitive after, the communication of some strong impression. Being told that his sweetheart was drowned, he ex- pressed the resolution not to survive her ; and, while in this heroic mood, he bore the severest and most continuous pinching without a sign of sensation. In such cases the nervous energy is all, so to speak, concentrated into a single channel, in the performance of the task or the contemplation of the catastrophe, and there is none left to feel with just as it has happened to soldiers in the excitement of battle to be temporarily unconscious of wounds. Insensibility to pain may also be present in the alert state, if the ' subject ' is put under the influence of such a delusion 1 How little even the most elementary distinctions lift ween the two .states have been realised by high authorities, a couple of specimens from Heidenhain may show. "The pupil of a hypnotised person contract- energetically when light falls upon the eye." It is impossible that this sweeping assertion could have been made, had Heidenhain examined eyes in any but the alert state. "Hypnotised persons never fall down." This statement, it is true, he qualifies in a note by saying that he has seen oiie person fall down. The fact, of course, is that in an enormous majority of cases (I myself have never seen an exception) the 'subject', if standing, falls down a very few seconds after closing his eyes and lapsing into the deep state. 2 See (in addition to the observations of Braid, Tamburini and Seppelli), the case recorded by Mr. Stanley Hall in Mixn XXX., p. 177.