Nervous ills, their cause and cure

by Boris Sidis

Experiments made to determine the nature of the anaesthesia produced interesting results. These experiments show that the anaesthesia is not a true one, but that impressions from the anaesthetic parts which seem not to be felt are really perceived subconsciously.

Different tests showed that the subconscious reactions to impressions from the anaesthetic hand were more delicately plastic and responsive than the conscious reactions to impressions from the normal hand. We have the so-called “psychopathic paradox” that functional anaesthesia is a subconscious hyperaesthesia.

It is evident then that there could be no inhibition of the sensory centres, or suppression of their activity, or whatever else it may be called. In spite of the apparent, profound anaesthesia, the pin pricks were felt and perceived. Stimulations gave rise to perception, cognition, to a sort of pseudo-hallucinations that showed the pin pricks were counted and localized in the hand. The results of these tests demonstrate that in psychopathic patients all sensory impressions received from anaesthetic parts, while they do not reach the personal consciousness are perceived subconsciously.

Inasmuch as the sensations are perceived, the failure of the subject to be conscious of them must be due to a failure in association. The perception of the sensation is dissociated from the personal consciousness. More than this, these dissociated sensations are capable of a certain amount of independent functioning; hence the pseudo-hallucinations, and hence the failure of psychopathic patients to be incommoded by their anaesthesia. This condition of dissociation underlies psychopathic states.

For the purpose of studying the attacks, the patient was hypnotized. He went into a deep somnambulic condition, in which, however, the anaesthesia still persisted. This showed that the dissociation of the sensory impressions was unchanged.

In hypnosis he related again the history of the onset of the trouble. His memory became broader, and he was able to give the additional information, which he could not do in his waking state, that at the time he was badly frightened, he fell on his right side. Moreover, he recalled what he did not remember when awake, that throughout the period of his attacks when he fell asleep, he had vivid dreams of an intense hallucinatory character, all relating to terror and fall.

In these dreams he lived over and over again the experience which was the beginning of his trouble. He again finds himself in his little native town, on a lonely road; he thinks some one is running after him; he becomes frightened, calls for help, falls, and then wakes up with a start, and the whole dream is forgotten. After he wakes he knows nothing of all this; there is no more fear or any emotional disturbance; he is then simply distressed by the spasms.

While testing the anaesthesia during hypnosis, an attack developed, his right arm and leg began to shake, first mildly and then with increasing intensity and frequency. His head also spasmodically turned to the right side. The movements soon became rhythmic. Arm and leg were abducted and adducted in a slow rhythmic way at the rate of about thirty-six times per minute. With the same rate and rhythm, the head turned to the right side, with chin pointing upward. The right side of the face was distorted by spasm, as if in great pain. The left side of the face was unaffected. Pressure over his right side (where he struck when he fell) elicited evidences of great pain. Respiration became deep and labored, and was synchronous with each spasm. The whole symptom-complex simulated Jacksonian epilepsy.

Consciousness persisted unimpaired, but showed a curious and unexpected alteration. When asked what was the matter, he replied in his native dialect, “I do not understand what you say.” It was found that he had lost all understanding of English, so that it was necessary to speak to him in his native dialect. His answers to our questions made it apparent that during the attack, as in his dreams, he was living through the experience which had originally excited his trouble.

The attack was hypnoidic, a fear attack, hallucinatory in character. He said that he was sixteen years old, that he was in Rovno (Russia), that he had just fallen, because he was frightened, that he was lying on the roadside near the cemetery, which in the popular superstitious fear is inhabited by ghosts. At that hour of the night the dead arise from their graves and attack the living who happen to be near.