Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/128

116 EDMUND GURNEY. First, then, as to the ' subject's ' memory, when completely awakened from the alert state, of what has taken place during that state. The degree of it varies with the number of times that he has been under the hypnotic influence. (1) A ' subject ' who is quite fresh to hypnotism has frequently some remembrance, on waking, of ci.ll that he has gone through. Of such actions as are usually exhibited on platforms imitative movements, sneezing, laughing, jumping and the like his re- membrance is distinct ; and he perfectly recalls not only the actions but the feelings of passive acquiescence, or of surprise, or of repugnance, with which he performed them. A not uncommon description is that he felt as if he had two selves, one of which was looking on at the involuntary performances of the other, without thinking it worth while to interfere. He also perfectly remembers such simple mental operations as the effort to recall his name. Of performances which have involved more complex menial idm*, and where his mind has been at the mercy of some concrete form of delusion, his remembrance is dimmer. But still he will give some account of parts played by him in imaginary scenes, or even when under the impression that he was some one or some- thing other than himself. It is probable that the delusive im- pression in such cases has not been quite complete. For instance, a ' subject ' who, when awakened to his normal state, remem- bered the fact of having been put to flight by a white ghost, described himself as having in a sort of way known that it was only a handkerchief which the operator was flourishing, and yet as unable to resist the ghostly terror. (2) After a very short course of hypnotisatioii, these illusory changes of scene or of identity, and even the simple mental operation of trying to recall some familiar fact, are found to have left no trace on waking ; but the ' subject ' can still perfectly recollect the imitative and other actions which he has performed in proprid persona, and the sort of feelings which accompanied them. It will be observed how curiously fatal this fact is to Professor Heidenhain's theory that the actions of imitation, and of what he calls automatic ' obedience,' which a hypnotised per- son performs, are purely reflex and unconscious. For it is just of these actions that the clearest remembrance is retained ; and in fact, if the ' subject ' has been made to perform a few of them after being thrown into a light trance-condition, and is then brought back to the normal state, there has been absolutely no breach whatever in the continuous stream of his consciousness. He has passed through a strange experience, and that is all. The memory of the events of the alert hypnotic state finds its precise parallel in certain cases of natural somnambulism a condition in which all actions are of course performed in prop r It persona, and without any externally-induced illusion. Somnam- bulism is, as a rule, a decidedly deeper state than the lighter stage of hypnotism ; and memoiy, on waking, of what has oc-