There are many hysterical subjects in whom the division of hypnosis into three states cannot be traced. Many observers have pointed out these exceptions to the rule, which are indeed much more numerous than the normal cases; it is only just to add that this fact was first pointed out by the Salpêtrière school. Richet writes: "The neuromuscular phenomena of lethargy and of somnambulism are often confounded, while the cataleptic state retains its peculiar characteristics. Sometimes the confusion is still greater, and the neuro-muscular phenomena remain the same, whatever be the phase of hypnotism."
Dumontpallier, Magnin, and Bottey* have insisted on this confusion of states. They ascertained that some hysterical subjects display an aptitude for contracture throughout the periods of hypnosis. They also found that there was often a complete confusion between the
two kinds of contractures distinguished by Charcot; excitement of the skin and profound excitement of the muscles produced the same muscular phenomena in all degrees of hypnosis. This phenomenon may also occur under the slightest excitement, such as the ticking of a watch, the noise of a telephone, the wind of capillary bellows, a drop of ether or of warm water, a ray of light falling directly on the skin, or reflected from a mirror. Finally, all the peripheral excitements capable of producing contracture are also capable of putting an end to it.
Pitres has also described another deviation from the normal type in what he terms the catalepsoid state, when the eyes are closed, which he has observed in some of his hysterical patients.
We pass from hysterical hypnosis to the hypnosis of persons who are, or are assumed to be, in perfect health. We mean by these words persons who display none of the well-known signs of hysteria. Many experimenters have observed persons of both sexes, of all ages and conditions, without taking any note of their pathological antecedents, which involve such minute research, that nothing can be said about them without a careful examination.* Richet, who holds that no one is absolutely insensitive to magnetism, pursued this course as early as 1875. He hypnotizes his subjects by exerting a strong pressure on their thumbs for three or four minutes, and then by making passes in a downward direction over the head, forehead, and shoulders. After a while, this prolonged process produces what Richet terms som-
nambulism. This state is capable of presenting three degrees of intensity,*
The first degree, the period of torpor, occurs after passes have been made for a period varying from five to fifteen minutes. The subject begins by being unable to raise his eyes, and these become red and moist: sometimes the muscles show a tendency to contracture under mechanical excitement.
The second degree, or period of excitement, is not attained at once, but after a series of magnetizations; in this state the subject is asleep, yet able to answer questions. During this period, hallucinations may be produced, acts may be suggested, and there is forgetfulness on awaking.
The third degree constitutes the period of stupor; automatism prevails, together with insensibility to pain and the muscular phenomena of contracture and of catalepsy, over which the author passes too rapidly.
Some recent writers, Brémaud and Bottey, have returned to this question of the hypnotism of healthy individuals, and have more accurately defined the features of Richet's clinical description. They state that if some other processes are substituted for the passes, such as pressure on the closed eyes or on the scalp, or the prolonged and fixed gaze on some brilliant object, in short, if the means in use for hysterical hypnosis are employed, it is easy to produce in healthy individuals, not only somnambulism, but also lethargy and catalepsy, and there is no sensible difference between these states and those produced in hysterical subjects.
Brémaud was also able to produce in men presumed
to be perfectly healthy, a new state which he terms fascination. It is effected by fixing the eyes on a brilliant point; the subject appears to fall into a sort of stupor, he follows the experimenter, and servilely imitates all his movements, gestures, and words; he is also sensitive to suggestion. On the physical side contractures produced by excitement of the muscles may be observed, and cataleptic plasticity is absent.
Brémaud considers that fascination represents hypnotism in its lowest degree of intensity. This nervous state cannot be effected in women, nor in men who have been the subjects of repeated experiments. In proportion to the increase of impressionability in the subject, he over-leaps this first stage, and passes at once into catalepsy.*
These experiments are completely at variance with the results to which Bernheim, Liégeois, and Beaunis arrived. Their experiments, like the foregoing, were made on all kinds of subjects, without distinction of age, sex, and pathological condition. Their observations do not, in fact, amount to much, exclusive of the facts of suggestion.
By whatever process a subject is hypnotized, the moment arrives when his eyes are closed, and his arms fall slackly down. In this state the subject can hear the experimenter. Although motionless and with a countenance as inert as that of a mask, he hears everything, whether he remembers it or not when he awakes. Of this we have a proof in the fact that the one word “Awake!” uttered once, or repeated several times, awakes him, without touching or breathing on his eyes.
In this state the subject can receive all sorts of suggestions. If a limb is raised, and he is told that it cannot be lowered, he passively retains it in the attitude in which it has been placed. If, again, a given movement is given to his limbs, that movement goes on indefinitely until it is arrested. In most subjects there is complete anaesthesia; the skin may be pricked with a pin, and they do not appear to be aware of it. Those who remain sensible to pain may be rendered insensible to it by suggestion.
These observers have not ascertained that the act of opening or closing of the eyes, or that friction of the scalp modifies the phenomena in any way, or that it develops them in subjects in whom they cannot be produced by suggestion alone. They have only ascertained that the degree in which subjects are liable to suggestion varies with the individual. Some only close their eyes, with or without torpor; in others the limbs are relaxed, inert, or incapable of spontaneous movement; others retain the attitudes given them; contracture by suggestion and other suggested and automatic movements are displayed in other cases. Finally, automatic obedience, anaesthesia, illusions, and hallucinations mark the successive stages to which suggestion may be carried, of which somnambulism is the culminating point. It is only in this latter state, in which the phenomena of suggestion are most fully developed, that there is forgetfulness on awaking. About one hypnotic subject out of six attains to this degree of profound somnambulism.
It appears that the performers of these experiments at Nancy only observed in their subjects the phenomena of suggestion which belong to somnambulism; they hold
that all hypnotism is summed up in suggestion. Not content with explaining what they have observed, they repeatedly manifest the intention of including within the sphere of suggestion the lethargy and catalepsy described by other writers. But we may set aside the interpretation, and content ourselves with the facts. It is very strange that the observers at Nancy have not seen contracture produced in hypnotized subjects by excitement of the nerves, tendons, or muscles. Richet has often met with this common phenomenon in his experiments on healthy subjects; it has been constantly observed by Bottey; Braid himself repeatedly mentions it; and yet Bernheim, whose experiments were performed on similar subjects, is unacquainted with it. If it is true that none of his subjects, whatever be the excitements to which they are subjected, displayed any physical characteristics of hypnosis, and that everything was summed up in the phenomena of suggestion, we are compelled to infer that there is no scientific proof that his subjects were ideally hypnotized. Our disbelief is not absolute; we do not assert that these observers only had to do with impostors, nor do we throw doubt on their experiments in general, but if we had to make a medico-legal examination of one of their subjects, we should find it hard to decide whether he was truthful or a deceiver.
We are not disposed to believe that subjects at Nancy differ from those at Paris. In reality, the differences are not due to the subjects, but to the experimenters; they come from the mode of culture, and still more from the processes of study. As we have repeatedly said, the results of experiments depend on the methods by which they are carried on. If suggestion is employed as the
sole process, only the effects of suggestion will be obtained; and thus it was at Nancy. But if we apply ourselves to the study of physical characteristics, they may sometimes be observed at the outset, and they may also be gradually developed in some other subjects.