The difference between suggestion and attention lies thus only in this: the motor response in attention aims towards a fuller clearness of the idea, for instance, by fixating, listening, observing, searching; while the motor response in suggestion aims towards the practical action in which the object of the idea is accepted as real. In attention, we change the object in making it clearer; in suggestion, we change ourselves in adapting ourselves to the new situation in which we believe. If you consider attention as a psychophysical process open to physiological explanation, you have surely no reason to seek anything mysterious in the process of suggestion; and no new principle is involved, if we come from the effect of the smallest suggestive hint to the complex and powerful suggestions which overwhelm the whole personality.
The two great types of suggestion, the suggestion of actions and the suggestion of ideas, have now come nearer together since we have seen that the suggestion of ideas is really a suggestion of the practical acceptance of ideas, and that means, of a preparation towards a certain line of action. In the one case I suggest the idea of a certain action and this motor idea leads to the action itself, and in the other case I suggest a certain preparatory setting for action and that will lead to the appropriate action whenever the time for action comes. Every suggestion is thus ultimately a suggestion of activity. The most effective suggestion for an action results, of course, if both methods are combined, that is, if we suggest not only the will to perform the action, but at the same time the belief that the end of the action will be real. Suggestion reaches us usually from without. Yet there is again no new principle involved, when the new motor setting results from one's own associations and emotions. Then we speak of auto-suggestion. It is the same difference which exists between the attention called forth through an outer impression and the attention directed by our own will. Loud noise demands our attention, and even a whispered word may awaken associations which stir up the attention. In both cases the channels for adjustment become opened without our intention. But if we are expecting something of importance, if we start to watch a certain development and to find something which we seek, we open the channels by our own effort beforehand and produce our own settings thus through a voluntary attention. In this way suggestion too may start from without,—by a spoken word, by a movement, by a hint; or may start within us and may give us our caprices and our prejudices.
We must not neglect one other feature of the suggestion. Not every proposition to action or to belief can be called a suggestion. Essential too remains the other side of it, the overcoming of the resistance. A mere request, "Please hand me the book on the table," or a mere communication, "It rains," may produce and will produce the fit motor response, the movement towards handing over the book or opening of the umbrella, and yet there may be no suggestive element involved. We have a right to speak of suggestion only if a resistance is to be broken down, that is, if the antagonistic impulse, or the motor setting for the antagonistic action is relatively strong. If I say to the boy, "Hand me the book," when he was anxious to hide the book from my eyes and thus had the wish not to hand it to me and the tone of my request overwhelmed his own intention, then to be sure suggestion is at work. The stronger the resistance, the greater the degree of suggestive power which is needed to overcome the motor setting. If I say to the normal man, "It rains," while he sees the blue sky and the dry street, his impression will be stronger than my suggestion; but if he is suggestible and I tell him that it will rain, he may accept it and take an umbrella on his walk, even if no indication makes a change of weather probable. The present impression of the dry street was strong enough to resist the suggestion, the imaginative idea of that which is to be expected in the next hour was too weak, and was overwhelmed by the suggestion of the weather prophecy.
It is clear that the whole suggestive effect, being one of a new motor setting, depends thus entirely on the equilibrium of the personality which receives the suggestion. Every element which reaches the mind through sense organs or through associations must have influence in helping the one or the other side, that is, in opening the channels of action in the suggested direction or in the antagonistic one. The results appear surprising only if we forget how endlessly complex this psychomotor apparatus really is. If we disregard this complexity we may easily have the feeling that one person has an unexplainable influence over another, as if the will of the one could control in a mysterious way the will of the other. But as soon as we see that every action is the result of the coöperation of hundreds of thousands of psychomotor impulses which are in definite relation to antagonistic energies, and that the result depends upon the struggling and balancing of this most complex apparatus, then we understand more easily how outer influences may help the one or the other side to preponderance: as soon as the balance turns to the one side, a completely new adjustment must set in. And we understand especially that there is nowhere a sharp demarcation line between receiving communications and receiving suggestions. By small steps suggestion shades over into the ordinary exchange of ideas, propositions, and impressions, just as attention shades over into a neutral perception.
To be suggestible means thus to be provided with a psychophysical apparatus in which new propositions for actions close easily the channels for antagonistic activity. Such an apparatus carries with it the disadvantage that the personality may too easily be guided contrary to his own knowledge and experience. He will be carried away by every new proposition and will accept beliefs which his own thoughts ought to reject. On the other hand, it has the advantage that he will be open to new ideas, be ready to follow good examples, never stubbornly close his mind to the unaccustomed and the uncomfortable. It is easy to determine the degree of suggestibility. Take this case. I draw on the blackboard of a classroom two circles of an equal size, and write in the one the number fourteen and in the other the number eighty-nine, and ask the children which is the larger circle. The suggestible ones will believe that the circle with the higher number in it is really larger than the other, the unsuggestible children will follow the advice of their senses and call both equal, and there may be a few children with negative suggestibility who would call the circle with the higher number the smaller circle. What happened to the suggestible ones was that the higher number brought about a motor attitude which faced that whole complex as being more imposing and this new motor setting was with them strong enough to overcome the motor adjustment which the circles alone produced. Such experiments of the psychological laboratory can be varied a thousandfold, and it might not be unwise to introduce them into many practical fields. Everybody knows for instance how much may depend upon the suggestibility of the witness in court. The suggestible witness believes himself to have seen and heard what the lawyer suggests. The memory picture which such a witness has in mind offers, of course, much less resistance to the opposite action and attitude and belief than the immediate impression. If I show the witness a colored picture of a room and close the book and ask him whether there were three or four chairs in the picture and whether the curtain was green or red, the suggestible man will decide for one or the other proposition, even if there were only two chairs and a blue curtain. The perception would have resisted the suggestion, the fading memory image cannot resist it. Thus suggestibility is really a practical factor in every walk of life. And it is in the highest interests of psychotherapy that this intimate connection between suggestion and ordinary talk and intercourse, between suggestion and ordinary choice of motives, between suggestion and attention be steadily kept in view and that suggestion is not transformed into a kind of mysterious agency.
To be sure, the importance of suggestion for psychotherapy is not confined to these suggestive processes of daily life. They play a rôle there, as we shall see, and we shall claim that even the mere presence of the physician may have its suggestive power and so may every remedy which he applies. But no doubt many of his suggestive effects depend on a power which far transcends the suggestions of our daily life. Yet the psychologist must insist again that no new principle is involved, that even in the strongest forms of suggestion, in hypnotism, nothing depends upon any special influence emanating from the mind of the hypnotizer or upon any special power flowing over from brain to brain; but that everything results from the change of equilibrium in the psychomotor processes of the hypnotized, and thus upon the interplay of his own mental functions. All that is needed is a higher degree of suggestibility than is found in the normal life. In a more suggestible mind even the direct sense impressions may be overwhelmed by the proposition for an untrue belief and the strongest desires may yield to the new propositions of action. This library may then become a garden where the hypnotized person picks flowers from the floor, and the wise man stands on one leg and repeats the alphabet, if the hypnotizer asks him to do so. Let us consider at first this extreme case. By a few manipulations I have brought a man into a deep hypnotic state. He is now unable to resist any suggestion, either suggestion of impulse or suggestion of belief, and as every one of the hypnotic phenomena can be explained in this way, we may claim that the hypnotic state is in its very nature a state of reënforced suggestibility. Whether I say, "You will not move your arm," or whether I say, "You cannot move your arm," awakening in the one case the impulse to the suppression of the movement, in the other case the belief in the impossibility of the movement, in either case the result is the same; the arm remains stiff and any effort of his to move it is inhibited. I may go to the extreme and tell him that our friend by my side has left the room; he will not see him, he will not even hear a word which the friend speaks. If I take a hat in my hand and put it on the friend's head, the hat appears to hang in the air. Every impression of sound or sight or touch which comes from the friend is entirely inhibited. The direct sense impression of eye and ear is thus completely overwhelmed by the suggestion.
What has happened? Are the manipulations which I applied sufficient to produce the changes by their physical influence? Certainly not; they are of the most different kinds and yet all may have the same effect. Perhaps I may have used the easy method of making the subject stare at a shining button held in front of his forehead. Or I may have used slight tactual impressions, while he was lying with closed eyes, or I may have produced the abnormal state by monotonous noises of falling waterdrops, or I may have simply spoken to him and asked him to think of sleep and to relax and to feel tired, while I held my hand on his forehead or while I held his hand in mine. Or I may have relied upon mild talking without touching him at all; and yet every time the result was reached in the same degree. There is thus certainly no special physical energy which like a magnetic force flows over. It cannot even be said that my will is engaged. I have often hypnotized without even thinking of the subject before me, going through adjusted manipulations while my thoughts were engaged in something else. I have even hypnotized over the telephone; and a written note may be substituted with the same result. I write to the patient that two minutes after receiving this letter by mail, he will fall into hypnotic sleep. The effect sets in; and yet at that time, I may not remember sending the note at all.
It is thus entirely evident that the hypnotic effect results only from the mental conditions of the subject. Whatever may stimulate his mind to the right kind of reaction will produce the desired result. The increased suggestibility thus sets in by his own imagination which may be stirred up by slight visual or tactual or acoustic stimuli or by monotonous words or by feelings of relaxation and especially by words which encourage sleep. But just because it is the play of his own imagination, the most essential factor certainly is the will and expectation of the subject. No one can really be hypnotized against his own will. And to expect strong hypnotic effect from a certain hypnotist is often in itself sufficient to produce hypnotic sleep. Thus there is no special personal power necessary to produce hypnotism. Everybody can hypnotize. And almost with the same sweeping statement it may be said everybody can be hypnotized, provided that he is willing to enter into this play of imagination. The young child or the insane person is therefore unfit.
Of course, not everybody can be hypnotized to the same degree. Just as the normal suggestibility showed itself very different with different persons, the degree of artificial reënforcement varies still more. Practically everybody can be brought to that breakdown of the resistance in which he can no longer open the eyes against the order of the hypnotist, but rather few can be brought to the point of seeing extended hallucinations, or accepting the disappearance of persons who are speaking, or of yielding to the impulse to a dangerous action. The highest reported degree, in which even criminal actions are performed by honest men, exists in my opinion only in the imagination of amateurs; it is certainly not difficult to produce sham crimes for performance sake, with paper daggers and toy pistols, but that is no proof at all that the hypnotized person would commit a crime under conditions under which he has the conviction that he faces a real criminal situation. But if we abstract from real crime, we certainly have to acknowledge that actions can be performed which appear in striking contrast with the habits and character of the normal personality, upset his knowledge, and are based on beliefs which would be immediately rejected under ordinary conditions. These higher degrees of hypnotic state are easily followed by complete loss of memory for all that happened during the abnormal state.
How have we to interpret such a surprising alteration of mind? It lies near to compare it with sleep. The brain seems powerless to produce its normal ideas, the associations do not arise, the normal impulses have disappeared and a general ineffectiveness has set in; in short, the brain cells seem unable to function. Of course, the explanation of sleep itself may offer difficulties. Is it a chemical substance which poisons the brain during the sleep, or are the brain cells contracted so that the excitement cannot run over from the branches of one nerve cell into those of another? Or are the blood-vessels contracted so that an anæmic state makes their normal function impossible? But whatever the physical condition of sleep may be, have we really a right to emphasize the similarity between sleep and hypnosis? After all that we have discussed, we ought rather to recognize that the hypnotic state too comes much nearer to the process of attention than to the process of sleep. We saw that in every act of attention the process of inhibition is essential. All that is not in harmony with the attended idea is suppressed. Yet we should hesitate to say that in attention parts of our brain are asleep.