CHAPTER III: THE STAGES OF HYPNOTISM.
Lethargy--Catalepsy--The Somnambulistic
Stage--Fascination.
We have just given some of the amusing experiments that
may be performed with subjects in one of the minor stages of hypnotism.
But there are other stages which give entirely different manifestations.
For a scientific classification of these we are indebted to Professor
Charcot, of the Salpetriere hospital in Paris, to whom, next to Mesmer and
Braid, we are indebted for the present science of hypnotism. He recognized
three distinct stages--lethargy, catalepsy and somnambulism. There is also
a condition of extreme lethargy, a sort of trance state, that lasts for
days and even weeks, and, indeed, has been known to last for years. There
is also a lighter phase than somnambulism, that is called fascination.
Some doctors, however, place it between catalepsy and somnambulism. Each
of these stages is marked by quite distinct phenomena. We give them as
described by a pupil of Dr. Charcot.
LETHARGY.
This is a state of absolute inert sleep. If the method
of Braid is used, and a bright object is held quite near the eyes, and the
eyes are fixed upon it, the subject squints, the eyes become moist and
bright, the look fixed, and the pupils dilated. This is the cataleptic
stage. If the object is left before the eyes, lethargy is produced. There
are also many other ways of producing lethargy, as we have seen in the
chapter "How to Hypnotize."
One of the marked characteristics of this stage of
hypnotism is the tendency of the muscles to contract, under the influence
of the slightest touch, friction, pressure or massage, or even that of a
magnet placed at a distance. The contraction disappears only by the
repetition of that identical means that called it into action. Dr.
Courmelles gives the following illustration:
"If the forearm is rubbed a little above the palm of
the hand, this latter yields and bends at an acute angle. The subject may
be suspended by the hand, and the body will be held up without relaxation,
that is, without returning to the normal condition. To return to the
normal state, it suffices to rub the antagonistic muscles, or, in ordinary
terms, the part diametrically opposed to that which produced the
phenomenon; in this case, the forearm a little above the hands. It is the
same for any other part of the body."
The subject appears to be in a deep sleep, the eyes are
either closed or half closed, and the face is without expression. The body
appears to be in a state of complete collapse, the head is thrown back,
and the arms and legs hang loose, dropping heavily down. In this stage
insensibility is so complete that needles can be run into any part of the
body without producing pain, and surgical operations may be performed
without the slightest unpleasant effect.
This stage lasts usually but a short time, and the
patient, under ordinary conditions, will pass upward into the stage of
catalepsy, in which he opens his eyes. If the hypnotism is spontaneous,
that is, if it is due to a condition of the nervous organism which has
produced it without any outside aid, we have the condition of prolonged
trance, of which many cases have been reported. Until the discovery of
hypnotism these strange trances were little understood, and people were
even buried alive in them. A few instances reported by medical men will be
interesting. There is one reported in 1889 by a noted French physician.
Said he:
"There is at this moment in the hospital at Mulhouse a
most interesting case. A young girl twenty-two years of age has been
asleep here for the last twelve days. Her complexion is fresh and rosy,
her breathing quite normal, and her features unaltered.
"No organ seems attacked; all the vital functions are
performed as in the waking state. She is fed with milk, broth and wine,
which is given her in a spoon. Her mouth even sometimes opens of itself at
the contact of the spoon, and she swallows without the slightest
difficulty. At other times the gullet remains inert.
"The whole body is insensible. The forehead alone
presents, under the action of touch or of pricks, some reflex phenomena.
However, by a peculiarity, which is extremely interesting, she seems, by
the intense horror she shows for ether, to retain a certain amount of
consciousness and sensibility. If a drop of ether is put into her mouth
her face contracts and assumes an expression of disgust. At the same
moment her arms and legs are violently agitated, with the kind of
impatient motion that a child displays when made to swallow some hated
dose of medicine.
"In the intellectual relations the brain is not
absolutely obscure, for on her mother's coming to see her the subject's
face became highly colored, and tears appeared on the tips of her
eyelashes, without, however, in any other way disturbing her lethargy.
"Nothing has yet been able to rouse her from this
torpor, which will, no doubt, naturally disappear at a given moment. She
will then return to conscious life as she quitted it. It is probable that
she will not retain any recollection of her present condition, that all
notion of time will fail her, and that she will fancy it is only the day
following her usual nightly slumber, a slumber which, in this case, has
been transformed into a lethargic sleep, without any rigidity of limbs or
convulsions.
"Physically, the sleeper is of a middle size, slender,
strong and pretty, without distinctive characteristic. Mentally, she is
lively, industrious, sometimes whimsical, and subject to slight nervous
attacks."
There is a pretty well-authenticated report of a young
girl who, on May 30, 1883, after an intense fright, fell into a lethargic
condition which lasted for four years. Her parents were poor and ignorant,
but, as the fame of the case spread abroad, some physicians went to
investigate it in March, 1887. Her sleep had never been interrupted. On
raising the eyelids, the doctors found the eyes turned convulsively
upward, but, blowing upon them, produced no reflex movement of the lids.
Her jaws were closed tightly, and the attempt to open her mouth had broken
off some of the teeth level with the gums. The muscles contracted at the
least breath or touch, and the arms remained in position when uplifted.
The contraction of the muscles is a sign of the lethargic state, but the
arm, remaining in position, indicates the cataleptic state. The girl was
kept alive by liquid nourishment poured into her mouth.
There are on record a large number of cases of persons
who have slept for several months.
CATALEPSY.
The next higher stage of hypnotism is that of
catalepsy. Patients may be thrown into it directly, or patients in the
lethargic state may be brought into it by lifting the eyelids. It seems
that the light penetrating the eyes, and affecting the brain, awakens new
powers, for the cataleptic state has phenomena quite peculiar to itself.
Nearly all the means for producing hypnotism will, if
carried to just the right degree, produce catalepsy. For instance, besides
the fixing of the eye on a bright object, catalepsy may be produced by a
sudden sound, as of a Chinese gong, a tom-tom or a whistle, the vibration
of a tuning- fork, or thunder. If a solar spectrum is suddenly brought
into a dark room it may produce catalepsy, which is also produced by
looking at the sun, or a lime light, or an electric light.
In this state the patient has become perfectly rigidly
fixed in the position in which he happens to be when the effect is
produced, whether sitting, standing, kneeling, or the like; and this face
has an expression of fear. The arms or legs may be raised, but if left to
themselves will not drop, as in lethargy. The eyes are wide open, but the
look is fixed and impassive. The fixed position lasts only a few minutes,
however, when the subject returns to a position of relaxation, or drops
back into the lethargic state.
If the muscles, nerves or tendons are rubbed or
pressed, paralysis may be produced, which, however, is quickly removed by
the use of electricity, when the patient awakes. By manipulating the
muscles the most rigid contraction may be produced, until the entire body
is in such a state of corpse-like rigidity that a most startling
experiment is possible. The subject may be placed with his head upon the
back of one chair and his heels on the back of another, and a heavy man
may sit upon him without seemingly producing any effect, or even heavy
rock may be broken on the subject's body.
Messieurs Binet and Fere, pupils of the Salpetriere
school, describe the action of magnets on cataleptic subjects, as follows:
"The patient is seated near a table, on which a magnet
has been placed, the left elbow rests on the arm of the chair, the forearm
and hand vertically upraised with thumb and index finger extended, while
the other fingers remain half bent. On the right side the forearm and hand
are stretched on the table, and the magnet is placed under a linen cloth
at a distance of about two inches. After a couple of minutes the right
index begins to tremble and rise up; on the left side the extended fingers
bend down, and the hand remains limp for an instant. The right hand and
forearm rise up and assume the primitive position of the left hand, which
is now stretched out on the arm of the chair, with the waxen pliability
that pertains to the cataleptic state."
An interesting experiment may be tried by throwing a
patient into lethargy on one side and catalepsy on the other. To induce
what is called hemi-lethargy and hemi-catalepsy is not difficult. First,
the lethargic stage is induced, then one eyelid is raised, and that side
alone becomes cataleptic, and may be operated on in various interesting
ways. The arm on that side, for instance, will remain raised when lifted,
while the arm on the other side will fall heavily.
Still more interesting is the intellectual condition of
the subject. Some great man has remarked that if he wished to know what a
person was thinking of, he assumed the exact position and expression of
that person, and soon he would begin to feel and think just as the other
was thinking and feeling. Look a part and you will soon begin to feel it.
In the cataleptic subject there is a close relation
between the attitude the subject assumes and the intellectual
manifestation. In the somnambulistic stage patients are manipulated by
speaking to them; in the cataleptic stage they are equally under the will
of the operator; but now he controls them by gesture. Says Dr. Courmelles,
from his own observation: "The emotions in this stage are made at command,
in the true acceptation of the word, for they are produced, not by orders
verbally expressed, but by expressive movements. If the hands are opened
and drawn close to the mouth, as when a kiss is wafted, the mouth smiles.
If the arms are extended and half bent at the elbows, the countenance
assumes an expression of astonishment. The slightest variation of movement
is reflected in the emotions. If the fists are closed, the brow contracts
and the face expresses anger. If a lively or sad tune is played, if
amusing or depressing pictures are shown, the subject, like a faithful
mirror, at once reflects these impressions. If a smile is produced it can
be seen to diminish and disappear at the same time as the hand is moved
away, and again to reappear and increase when it is once more brought
near. Better still, a double expression can be imparted to the
physiognomy, by approaching the left hand to the left side of the mouth,
the left side of the physiognomy will smile, while at the same time, by
closing the right hand, the right eyebrow will frown. The subject can be
made to send kisses, or to turn his hands round each other indefinitely.
If the hand is brought near the nose it will blow; if the arms are
stretched out they will remain extended, while the head will be bowed with
a marked expression of pain."
Heidenhain was able to take possession of the subject's
gaze and control him by sight, through producing mimicry. He looks fixedly
at the patient till the patient is unable to take his eyes away. Then the
patient will copy every movement he makes. If he rises and goes backward
the patient will follow, and with his right hand he will imitate the
movements of the operator's left, as if he were a mirror. The attitudes of
prayer, melancholy, pain, disdain, anger or fear, may be produced in this
manner.
The experiments of Donato, a stage hypnotizer, are thus
described: "After throwing the subjects into catalepsy he causes soft
music to be played, which produces a rapturous expression. If the sound is
heightened or increased, the subjects seem to receive a shock and a
feeling of disappointment. The artistic sense developed by hypnotism is
disturbed; the faces express astonishment, stupefaction and pain. If the
same soft melody be again resumed, the same expression of rapturous bliss
reappears in the countenance. The faces become seraphic and celestial when
the subjects are by nature handsome, and when the subjects are ordinary
looking, even ugly, they are idealized as by a special kind of beauty."
The strange part of all this is, that on awaking, the
patient has no recollection of what has taken place, and careful tests
have shown that what appear to be violent emotions, such as in an ordinary
state would produce a quickened pulse and heavy breathing, create no
disturbance whatever in the cataleptic subject; only the outer mask is in
motion.
"Sometimes the subjects lean backward with all the
grace of a perfect equilibrist, freeing themselves from the ordinary
mechanical laws. The curvature will, indeed, at times be so complete that
the head will touch the floor and the body describe a regular arc.
"When a female subject assumes an attitude of devotion,
clasps her hands, turns her eyes upward and lisps out a prayer, she
presents an admirably artistic picture, and her features and expression
seem worthy of being reproduced on canvas."
We thus see what a perfect automaton the human body may
become. There appears, however, to be a sort of unconscious memory, for a
familiar object will seem to suggest spontaneously its ordinary use. Thus,
if a piece of soap is put into a cataleptic patient's hands; he will move
it around as though he thought he were washing them, and if there is any
water near he will actually wash them. The sight of an umbrella makes him
shiver as if he were in a storm. Handing such a person a pen will not make
him write, but if a letter is dictated to him out loud he will write in an
irregular hand. The subject may also be made to sing, scream or speak
different languages with which he is entirely unfamiliar. This is,
however, a verging toward the somnambulistic stage, for in deep catalepsy
the patient does not speak or hear. The state is produced by placing the
hands on the head, the forehead, or nape of the neck.
THE SOMNAMBULISTIC STAGE.
This is the stage or phase of hypnotism nearest the
waking, and is the only one that can be produced in some subjects.
Patients in the cataleptic state can be brought into the somnambulistic by
rubbing the top of the head. To all appearances, the patient is fully
awake, his eyes are open, and he answers when spoken to, but his voice
does not have the same sound as when awake. Yet, in this state the patient
is susceptible of all the hallucinations of insanity which may be induced
at the verbal command of the operator.
One of the most curious features of this stage of
hypnotism is the effect on the memory. Says Monsieur Richet: "I send
V------ to sleep. I recite some verses to her, and then I awake her. She
remembers nothing. I again send her to sleep, and she remembers perfectly
the verses I recited. I awake her, and she has again forgotten
everything."
It appears, however, that if commanded to remember on
awaking, a patient may remember.
The active sense, and the memory as well, appears to be
in an exalted state of activity during this phase of hypnotism. Says M.
Richet: "M---- -, who will sing the air of the second act of the Africaine
in her sleep, is incapable of remembering a single note of it when awake."
Another patient, while under this hypnotic influence, could remember all
he had eaten for several days past, but when awake could remember very
little. Binet and Fere caused one of their subjects to remember the whole
of his repasts for eight days past, though when awake he could remember
nothing beyond two or three days. A patient of Dr. Charcot, who when she
was two years old had seen Dr. Parrot in the children's hospital, but had
not seen him since, and when awake could not remember him, named him at
once when he entered during her hypnotic sleep. M. Delboeuf tells of an
experiment he tried, in which the patient did remember what had taken
place during the hypnotic condition, when he suddenly awakened her in the
midst of the hallucination; as, for instance, he told her the ashes from
the cigar he was smoking had fallen on her handkerchief and had set it on
fire, whereupon she at once rose and threw the handkerchief into the
water. Then, suddenly awakened, she remembered the whole performance.
In the somnambulistic stage the patient is no longer an
automaton merely, but a real personality, "an individual with his own
character, his likes and dislikes." The tone of the voice of the operator
seems to have quite as much effect as his words. If he speaks in a grave
and solemn tone, for instance, even if what he utters is nonsense, the
effect is that of a deeply tragic story.
The will of another is not so easily implanted as has
been claimed. While a patient will follow almost any suggestion that may
be offered, he readily obeys only commands which are in keeping with his
character. If he is commanded to do something he dislikes or which in the
waking state would be very repugnant to him, he hesitates, does it very
reluctantly, and in extreme cases refuses altogether, often going into
hysterics. It was found at the Charity hospital that one patient
absolutely refused to accept a cassock and become a priest. One of
Monsieur Richet's patients screamed with pain the moment an amputation was
suggested, but almost immediately recognized that it was only a
suggestion, and laughed in the midst of her tears. Probably, however, this
patient was not completely hypnotized.
Dr. Dumontpallier was able to produce a very curious
phenomenon. He suggested to a female patient that with the right eye she
could see a picture on a blank card. On awakening she could, indeed, see
the picture with the right eye, but the left eye told her the card was
blank. While she was in the somnambulistic state he told her in her right
ear that the weather was very fine, and at the same time another person
whispered in her left ear that it was raining. On the right side of her
face she had a smile, while the left angle of her lip dropped as if she
were depressed by the thought of the rain. Again, he describes a dance and
gay party in one ear, and another person mimics the barking of a dog in
the other. One side of her face in that case wears an amused expression,
while the other shows signs of alarm.
Dr. Charcot thus describes a curious experiment: "A
portrait is suggested to a subject as existing on a blank card, which is
then mixed with a dozen others; to all appearance they are similar cards.
The subject, being awakened, is requested to look over the packet, and
does so without knowing the reason of the request, but when he perceives
the card on which the portrait was suggested, he at once recognizes the
imaginary portrait. It is probable that some insignificant mark has, owing
to his visual hyperacuity, fixed the image in the subject's brain."
FASCINATION.
Says a recent French writer: "Dr. Bremand, a naval
doctor, has obtained in men supposed to be perfectly healthy a new
condition, which he calls fascination. The inventor considers that this is
hypnotism in its mildest form, which, after repeated experiments, might
become catalepsy. The subject fascinated by Dr. Bremaud--fascination being
induced by the contemplation of a bright spot--falls into a state of
stupor. He follows the operator and servilely imitates his movements,
gestures and words; he obeys suggestions, and a stimulation of the nerves
induces contraction, but the cataleptic pliability does not exist."
A noted public hypnotizer in Paris some years ago
produced fascination in the following manner: He would cause the subject
to lean on his hands, thus fatiguing the muscles. The excitement produced
by the concentrated gaze of a large audience also assisted in weakening
the nervous resistance. At last the operator would suddenly call out:
"Look at me!" The subject would look up and gaze steadily into the
operator's eyes, who would stare steadily back with round, glaring eyes,
and in most cases subdue his victim. |
