Fig. 1.—Range of object to induce hypnotic sleep.
Fig. 1a.—Gazing with eyelids open to widest extent.
It is not essential that a glittering object be used. It has been found that the finger of the operator, moved gradually, is as successful a means as any object. Should the hypnotizer desire to enforce slumber, he may accompany his action with suggestions that the subject is extremely tired and longing for sleep.
“You are worn-out. Your head is heavy. Your limbs are fatigued. You need rest. Sleep is essential. You are gradually falling asleep.”
Before hypnotism can take place, the patient makes his mind a perfect blank, and concentrates his whole being and vision on the button, coin, glass, or crystal held before him. It will now be seen that his eyes begin to water, the pupils undergoing a series of changes, contracting, dilating, and recontracting, as if he were succumbing to natural slumber. His sight becomes gradually insensible to the light, and in a few moments he is unconscious.
The state of hypnotism begins with the second narrowing of the pupil, and is accompanied by a quickening or retarding of the pulse, rigidity of body and heaviness of brain, which becomes chaotic and wildly confused before the final stage is reached. The will is entirely surrendered to the hypnotizer, and the subject is powerless to move, speak, or feel, except at his suggestion.
A sure test that the individual experimented upon is really oblivious to everything about him is shown when the operator gently moves his arms from his side in a horizontal position and lifts his eyelid. When the arms remain rigidly outstretched and the eyeball is fixed and glassy, the exponent is assured that his subject is completely at his mercy ([Fig. 2]).
In order to bring about this condition successfully, the hypnotizer must possess no small amount of cultured will-power and concentration. His mind must be absorbed in the experiment as wholly as the subject’s faculties are concentrated upon him. He is now forcing his brain to act at his dictation, not only upon his own movements, but upon those of the individual chained to him by his exertion of hypnotic influence. One mind operates them both, and, during his subject’s trance, he has as complete a sway over his nervous system as if he possessed two bodies and a double supply of arms and legs.