Rudolf Heidenhain

“ As the hypnotic's faculty of perceiving a sensation declines, his power of being conscious of it diminishes in a corresponding degree. Then, sensorial impressions which do not excite consciousness give way to movements which are accomplished almost without our control. A person walking in the street, absorbed in his thoughts, receives the visual impression of the passers-by on his retina without paying attention to them, and unconsciously performs the movements necessary to avoid hitting them. ”

“ As long as consciousness is not obscured, the excitation of the motive apparatus by special sensations does not take place; but when consciousness disappears, the sensorial excitation becomes predominant. So profound states of unconsciousness may be produced that all traces of sensorial perceptions, and the possibility of executing automatic acts of imitation, will disappear. A more advanced symptom of hypnotism is painlessness. Sensibility returns with the cessation of the sleep. The exaggeration of the reflex excitation of the striated muscles is also striking and of surprising duration. ”

“ Fixing the sight upon bright objects is attended by peculiar phenomena. The dazzling effect, the flow of tears, and the fatigue of the retina cause the images on the edges of the field of vision to disappear. ”

“ Rigidity, if it is not intense, ceases on the application of a cold body; a piece of money, a bit of glass, is enough to dispel it. If we touch the forehead or eyes of a hypnotic with a small piece of glass, he will open his eyes and mouth while sleep continues. ”

“ If we cause a person to sit with his back against a table on which a watch has been put, and tell him to listen to its ticking, he will in a few minutes fall into the hypnotic sleep, and will then imitate unconsciously the motions of the operator. The effect is especially prompt if the eyes are kept shut. Light and continuous excitations on the surface of the skin exert a similar effect. This is the property on which depend the manipulations of touch and the passes which the magnetizer makes along the face of the person whom he wishes to put to sleep. ”

“ Sensorial perceptions take place even in the most complete hypnotism, but the power of transforming them into conscious representations, and consequently of fixing them in the memory, is absent. Have we not often had experience in the waking state of external perceptions which did not pass the threshold of consciousness because our attention was absorbed or distracted at the time? ”

“ Hallucinations are produced only if the provoked sleep is light. The hypnotic symptoms may be dissipated by suddenly changing the excitation. If the magnetic state has been produced by passes before the chin, it can be made to disappear by reversing them. The contraction of the arm caused by rubbing the inside of the thumb ceases when the direction of the current is changed. A new sensation dissipates the effect of a previous excitation. It is not, then, a matter of indifference whether we change the direction of the passes: we should persevere in the one which was adopted in the beginning. ”

“ Some acts of imitation, such as yawning, laughing, crying, etc., take place even in the normal condition; generally the idea of a movement determines the action, but in induced sleep the contrary takes place, and the unconscious perception of a movement leads to its accomplishment. This relation explains the facility with which hypnotics are made to execute movements of which what we may call the sensation has been communicated to them in advance. ”

“ A person who has been hypnotized preserves the reflex irritability for whole days and weeks after he has returned to the normal state. When this excitation is light, the contraction is limited to the superficial muscles. In this condition it is easy to induce certain groups of muscles to contract. By passing the finger several times over the fleshy part of the thumb we may cause it to bend toward the palm of the hand; we may cause the head to assume the position known as that of a wry neck by exciting the skin over the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle with a few light passes. ”

“ One of the essential symptoms of the hypnotic sleep is the more or less complete loss of consciousness. It is only in a complete state of hypnotism that persons subjected to the experiment preserve a remembrance of what has passed during their sleep. ”

“ We have only to tell a person who has been recently hypnotized that he will go to sleep at a certain hour, or in a certain place, or while doing a certain thing, for the phenomenon to be produced naturally. ”

“ Great prudence is necessary in these experiments lest they be carried too far, and the respiratory muscles be affected. The rigidity of the muscles may be made so great in robust persons that it becomes extremely difficult to change the position of the limbs. They are stiff as a plank, and it is possible to rest an hypnotic by his head and feet alone on two chairs, and carry him around without his body bending. ”

“ It has been asked if we can not obtain semilateral hypnotic phenomena by acting on half the face or head. In fact, by pressing along one side of the forehead or the crown of the head, we may diminish or suspend the influence of the will on the extremities of the opposite side. Light pressures on the left side of the head have produced immobility of the right arm and leg. ”