Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/501

THE PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. our formula is not that the psychic activities are abnormal, but that they are reflex ; it is not the mere subjection of the mind to a single idea or set of ideas, but the certain produc- tion and alteration of that condition ab extra. In the second place, results are often loosely set down to the ' dominance of an idea,' where, if we enquire what the particular idea is, we fail to find it. A hypnotised boy is told that he may have a 5 note if he can pick it up. To suit the theory, the dominant idea must be that of the impossibility of the act ; but even if we allow this idea a momentary dominance, in what sense can it be held to continue dominant during a struggle in which every word and gesture express the strongest determination and incredulity? It may, perhaps, be suggested that the words and gestures express no more than an ineffectual effort to resist a nevertheless dominant idea ; but to this suggestion we may often oppose the ' subject's ' subsequent description of his experience. And lastly, there remains the large class of cases which do not belong to what I have called the ' alert stage ' of hypnotism at all ; and where the attention-theory can only be applied by the des- perate assumption that unusual deadness of sensibility in one direction necessarily involves unusual concentration in another. If a jet of gas is seen burning specially brightly, it is doubtless reasonable to connect this condition with the fact that the other jets in the chandelier are turned off ; l but if no light at all can be perceived, the natural hypothesis surely is, not that some jet is burning brilliantly somewhere out of sight, but that all the jets are turned off. The energy of attention is not a fixed quantity, bound to be always in operation in one direction or another ; nor does the human mind, any more truly than Nature, abhor a vacuum. Even in the ' alert stage,' when the ' subject ' can be made by an occasional word to enact scene after scene with astonishing veracity and vigour, the indications, if he be left alone, are of blankness not of concentration. He knows where he is, and will answer if spoken to ; but otherwise he sits inert and listless, if asked what he is thinking about will usually 1 A propos of this metaphor, which is often of course an entirely just one, the following instance may be worth recording. A hypnotised*' sub- ject' who strongly resented being even slightly pinched was impre. c'l with the idea that a person to whom he was attached had died. He showed considerable emotion, and was now completely indifferent to the most savage pinching. Again, several ' subjects ' who were sensitive to pain in the alert state, were thrown into the deep state, and impressed with a com- mand which was to be executed when they emerged again into the alert state : when the emergence came, they showed entire insensitivene&s until the command was duly performed.