Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/87

Rh Kept wandering to and fro. Horrible, awful. I thought to myself, 'I'll get into bed.' It looked so savage it quite unnerved me." Here the reciprocal interference seems quite clear, and the subconscious state, instead of evolving on the lines laid down by the suggestion, has been perturbed and developed into a vague dream.

Another good case of interference is given by Prof. Janet: "M came to me one evening complaining of sundry troubles, and after putting her into her second state I talked to her and gave her some advice, then wakened her without thinking of repeating the same advice in her waking state. Some days later she wrote me the following letter: 'I can not make out what is the matter with me. I must be very queer. I understand with difficulty, and it seems to me that everybody is looking at me, perhaps because I express myself badly. I feel absolutely nothing, and I let nearly everything fall, which makes me seem very stupid. I can not work, and if any one in the house should notice it I should be the loser. I may be wrong, but I have a dim idea that I ought to do something. For two days I have tried in every way to discover what it can be.' " All this annoyance was easily removed by destroying the subconscious suggestion.

Upon this conception of the interference between the two states without coalescence and without the formation of a memory bond, Prof. Janet has based a most interesting and important theory as to the origin of the hysterical and nervous troubles which so often follow a severe accident or fright where no actual injury can be detected. It is well known that such an experience often becomes a conscious fixed idea, and "haunts" one. But sometimes where there is no conscious "haunting," and even where the experience is forgotten, the same results are traceable. In these cases he believes that the fixed idea exists subconsciously as a continuous or frequently recurring dream.

Thus, Vel is a young man of twenty-four. About every five minutes while awake and often while asleep he expels his breath violently through the left nostril and the muscles of the right cheek are contracted. He has had this spasm for eight years and can not explain why. He thinks it may be connected with a severe hæmorrhage from the nose which he had as a child. He is easily hypnotized and then affirms most positively that there is an obstruction in his nose which he must get rid of. "No matter when he is put to sleep, he makes the same statement; it is probable that this idea has existed more or less clearly in the patient's mind, and in any case unknown to him, for eight years. This dream was modified and suppressed very easily in the somnambulic state."