Effects on, the voluntary muscles seem to be those most easily got; and the ordinary routine of hypnotizing consists in provoking them first.Tell the patient that he cannot open his eyes or his mouth, cannot unclasp his hands or lower his raised arm, cannot rise from his seat, or pickup a certain object from the floor, and he will be immediately smitten with absolute impotence in these regards.The effect here is generally due to the involuntary contraction of antagonizing muscles.But one can equally well suggest paralysis , of an arm for example, in which case it will hang perfectly placid by the subject's side.Cataleptic and tetanic rigidity are easily produced by suggestion, aided by handling the parts.One of the favorite shows at public exhibitions is that of a subject stretched stiff as a board with his head on one chair and his heels on another.The cataleptic retention of impressed attitudes differs from voluntary assumption of the same attitude.An arm voluntarily held out straight will drop from fatigue after a quarter of an hour at the at most, and before it falls the agent's distress will be made manifest by oscillations in the arm, disturbances in the breathing, etc.But Charcot has shown that an arm held out in hypnotic catalepsy, though it may as soon descend, yet does so slowly and with no accompanying vibration, whilst the breathing remains entirely calm.He rightly points out that this shows a profound physiological change, and is proof positive against simulation, as far as this symptom is concerned.A cataleptic attitude, moreover, may be held for many hours.-- Sometimes an expressive attitude, clinching of the fist, contraction of the brows, will gradually set up a sympathetic action of the other muscles of the body, so that at last a tableau vivant of fear, anger, disdain, prayer, or other emotional condition, is produced with rare perfection.This effect would seem to be due to the suggestion of the mental state by the first contraction.Stammering, aphasia, or inability to utter certain words, pronounce certain letters, are readily producible by suggestion.
Hallucinations of all the senses and delusions of every conceivable kind can be easily suggested to good subjects.The emotional effects are then often so lively, and the pantomimic display so expressive, that it is hard not to believe in a certain 'psychic hyper-excitability,'
as one of the concomitants of the hypnotic condition.You call make the subject think that he is freezing or burning, itching or covered with dirt, or wet; you can make him eat a potato for a peach, or drink a cup of vinegar for a glass of champagne; ammonia will smell to him like cologne water;
a chair will be a lion, a broom-stick a beautiful woman, a noise in the street will be an orchestral music, etc., etc., with no limit except your powers of invention and the patience of the lookers on. Illusions and hallucinations form the pieces de résistance at public exhibitions.
The comic effect is at its climax when it is successfully suggested to the subject that his personality is changed into that of a baby, of a street boy, of a young lady dressing for a party, of a stump orator, or of Napoleon the Great.He may even be transformed into a beast, or an inanimate thing like a chair or a carpet, and in every case will act out all the details of the part with a sincerity and intensity seldom seen at the theatre.
The excellence of the performance is in these cases the best reply to the suspicion that the subject may be shamming -- so skilful a shammer must long since have found his true function in life upon the stage.Hallucinations and histrionic delusions generally go with a certain depth of the trance, and are followed by complete forgetfulness.The subject awakens from them at the command of the operator with a sudden start of surprise, and may seem for a while a little dazed.
Subjects in this condition will receive and execute suggestions of crime, and act out a theft, forgery, arson, or murder.A girl will believe that she is married to her hypnotizer, etc.It is unfair, however, to say that in these cases the subject is a pure puppet with no spontaneity.His spontaneity is certainly not in abeyance so far as things go which are harmoniously associated with the suggestion given him.He takes the text from his operator;
