It will be remembered that for convenience' sake I have discussed the dynamogenic effect of suggestion first upon the external senses, then upon the internal sensibility,—the mind's eye, the mind's ear, and the imagination generally;—and now I am turning to similar effects exercised upon that central power which reasons upon the ideas and images which external and internal senses supply, which chooses between them, and which reacts according to its choice. These are "highest-level centres," which I began by saying that the hypnotist could rarely hope to reach;—since those spontaneous somnambulisms which the hypnotic trance imitates and develops do so seldom reach them. We have, however, already found a good deal of intelligence of a certain kind in hypnotic phenomena; what we do here is to pass from one stage to another and higher stage of consciousness of intelligent action.
To explain this statement, let us dwell for a moment upon the degree of intelligence which is sometimes displayed in those modifications of the organism which suggestion effects. Take, for instance, the formation of a cruciform blister, as recorded by Dr. Biggs, of Lima.[84] In this experiment the hypnotised subject was told that a red cross would appear on her chest every Friday during a period of four months. For the carrying out of this suggestion an unusual combination of capacities was needed;—the capacity of directing physiological changes in a new way, and also, and combined therewith, the capacity of recognising and imitating an abstract, arbitrary, non-physiological idea, such as that of cruciformity.
All this, in my view, is the expression of subliminal control over the organism—more potent and profound than supraliminal, and exercised neither blindly nor wisely, but with intelligent caprice.
Bearing this in mind as we go on to suggestions more directly affecting central faculty, in which highest-level centres begin to be involved, we need not be surprised to find an intermediate stage in which high faculties are used in obedience to suggestion, for purely capricious ends.
I speak of calculations subliminally performed in the carrying out of post-hypnotic suggestions.
These suggestions à échéance—commands, given in the trance, to do something under certain contingent circumstances, or after a certain time has elapsed—form a very convenient mode of testing the amount of mentation which can be started and carried out without the intervention of the supraliminal consciousness. Experiments have been made in this direction by three men especially who have in recent times done some of the best work on the psychological side of hypnotism, namely, Edmund Gurney, Delbœuf, and Milne Bramwell.
Dr. Milne Bramwell's experiments[85] (to mention these as a sample of the rest) were post-hypnotic suggestions involving arithmetical calculations; the entranced subject, for instance, being told to make a cross when 20,180 minutes had elapsed from the moment of the order. Their primary importance lay in showing that a subliminal or hypnotic memory persisted across the intervening gulf of time,—days and nights of ordinary life,—and prompted obedience to the order when at last it fell due. But incidentally, as I say, it became clear that the subject, whose arithmetical capacity in common life was small, worked out these sums subliminally a good deal better than she could work them out by her normal waking intelligence.
Of course, all that was needed for such simple calculations was close attention to easy rules; but this was just what the waking mind was unable to give, at least without the help of pencil and paper. If we lay this long and careful experiment side by side with the accounts already given of the solution of problems in somnambulic states, it seems clear that there is yet much to be done in the education of subliminal memory and acumen as a help to supraliminal work.
Important in this connection is Dr. Dufay's account of help given to an actress in the representation of her rôles by hypnotisation.[86] It seems obvious that stage-fright is just the kind of nervous annoyance from which hypnotisation should give relief. Somewhat similarly I believe some persons can secure a cheap substitute for genius on stage or platform, evoking by suggestion or self-suggestion a helpful subliminal uprush. Here again, the hypnotisation is a kind of extension of "secondary automatism,"—of the familiar lapse from ordinary consciousness of movements (walking, pianoforte-playing, etc.), which have been very frequently performed. The possibilities thus opened up are very great: no less than the combination by mankind of the stability of instinct with the plasticity of reason. There seems no reason why man's range of automatism should not thus be largely increased in two main ways: many things now unpleasant to do might be done with indifference, and many things now difficult to do might be done with ease.
And now let us pass on from these specialised influences of suggestion on certain kinds of attention to its influence on attention generally, as needed, for instance, in education. If we can arrest the shifting of the mental focus to undesired ideational centres in at all the same way as we can arrest the choreic or fidgety shiftings of motor impulse to undesired motor centres, we shall have done perhaps as much for the world's ordinary work as if we had raised the average man's actual intelligence a step higher in the scale. We shall have checked waste, although we may not have improved quality. The well-known case of Dr. Forel's warders,[87] who were enabled by hypnotic suggestion to sleep soundly by the side of the patients they had to watch, and wake only when the patients required to be restrained, shows us how by this means the attention may be concentrated on selected impressions and waste of energy be avoided in a way that could hardly be compassed by any ordinary exercise of the will.