Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/889

Rh disordinated elements may persistently refuse to effect union with the upper consciousness. A friend of mine, on awaking a patient, found her unable to speak or swallow, and some anxious hours slipped by before he succeeded in restoring her power over the paralyzed muscles. Altogether hypnosis is decidedly a dangerous thing to meddle with.

Many typical trance states are brought about, it would seem, by what may be described as the hypertrophy of some perception or sensation or system of ideas. This abnormal growth may be in either or both of two directions. In the first place, it may be an actual increase in intensity and complexity. This is not uncommon in all forms of disordination; thus. Dr. Cocke says that when he tried to hypnotize himself, he first noticed a ringing in the ears, then this "noise in my ears grew louder and louder. The roar became deafening. It crackled like a mighty fire. . . . I heard above the roar reports which sounded like artillery or musketry. Then, above the din or the noise, a musical chord. I seemed to be absorbed in this chord. I knew nothing else. The world existed for me only in the tones of this mighty chord." But the development of the state may be not merely a development in intensity and complexity, but also in its importance considered as an element of consciousness. I have shown in my previous papers that consciousness tends to assume a certain form in which some one group is more clear and distinct than the others. This is what we call the "center of attention" or "focus" of consciousness. I have also shown that when any one group becomes focal all others become less clear and distinct, and may even be driven out of consciousness altogether. Now, in trance states this seems often to happen. In the hypnotic states the element upon which attention is fixed itself disappears; in trances, it and its associated states take possession of the focus, drive out all other states, and serve as the starting point for dreams, hallucinations, and visions of the most complex kind. For the same reason, suggestibility is seldom found in trance. There is no awareness of the hypnotizer to serve as a center of activity and the hypertrophied state usually proves strong enough to resist interference from without.

The close relation between hypnosis and trance is well shown by the case of M. He is about twenty-five years of age; by profession a bookkeeper, he has proved himself capable and efficient, and, although he has always been of somewhat delicate health, he is quiet in his demeanor, and not in the least hysterical in the vulgar sense of the word. Once, when a child, he was playing with a toy locomotive; the alcohol used to generate steam was spilled upon the floor and caught fire; in great terror he ran away, seized the doorknob, and then became fixed and motionless,