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364 visitor does any hesitation or difficulty result. But the man's sense of his own identity does not change, because it is not a part of the dominant idea that it should. When by suggestion an idea of such change enters his mind, identity changes at once.

In perfect subjects there is no consciousness of constraint. It is only when the hypnosis is imperfect that side-ideas are roused enough to suggest the possibility of acting otherwise. The subject then becomes dimly aware of compulsion, without, however, having any definite conception of what that compulsion consists. He simply feels that he must do so and so; and he does it.

In waking life, a fixed idea will often mask itself in the same manner. We feel that we must act in a certain way, often in a very trivial way, against our will, as we say, yet without questioning for an instant that it is we who act. As a matter of fact, it is the idea that for the moment is the I; and the faint remonstrance of which we are conscious is due to such faint side-ideas as are roused by its action.

But in the possession trance the dominant idea consists consciously in a change of