Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/616

598 the patient has awoke, and does not then relax even during the interval of normal sleep. On the other hand, the rigidity immediately gives way under the influence of gentle stroking of the skin over the contracted muscles.

By catalepsy is meant a condition of suspended psychical manifestations on the part of the subject, during which the limbs exhibit no muscular or nervous hyper-excitability, but possess the singular property, while remaining flexible, of preserving indefinitely any attitude imparted to them; hence the name of "waxy flexibility" given to this condition by old writers. Unlike the rigid spasms of the lethargic muscle, the plastic fixity of the cataleptic limb can not be relaxed by friction over the skin. The aspect of the patient in the two conditions, moreover, offers striking differences, the sleep-like immobility of lethargy contrasting vividly with the petrified attitudes of catalepsy. In both conditions, however, there often is the same absolute insensibility even to the most painful stimuli. A most remarkable phenomenon may be observed in some instances: by merely opening one eye of the lethargic patient the corresponding side of the body is cataleptized. And so in the same subject these two phases of the hypnotic sleep may coexist side by side, with the fullest display of their contrasted characteristics.

The third condition, that of somnambulism, may easily be brought about by light pressure or rubbing on the top of the head. The hysterical patient then passes into a state somewhat between the lethargic and the cataleptic condition. The muscles have lost the hyper-excitability of the former state, and do not possess the plastic adaptability of the latter. Still they react abnormally to light external stimuli; if we very gently stroke or blow upon a limb, it becomes somewhat rigid. We can not then relax it by a mere touch as we can in lethargy, and, unlike catalepsy, it offers some resistance when we attempt to move it into a different attitude. Insensibility to pain may persist, but there often is in the somnambulistic phase a singular exaltation of memory and of sensorial perception, which has caused it to be called the "lucid state," and which has been described by the devotees of mesmeric delusions as "second-sight." Our readers will recognize in this description the ordinary "magnetic" or "mesmeric" sleep into which not only hysterical, but many other individuals may be more or less completely plunged by the usual "passes" of operators.

It is especially in the somnambulistic state that the astonishing phenomena of suggestion are observed. By this we mean that the patient in whom every spontaneity is in abeyance, who does not "sleep," and who yet does not move or think, can be so impressed through some sensory channel as to enter upon some definite train of ideas or movements. He is under the control of the experimenter, whose will is his will, so to speak. He is a machine ready to go, but unable to start of itself.