The Story of the Mind

by James Mark Baldwin

Contrary Suggestion.—By this is meant a tendency of a very striking kind observable in many children, no less than in many adults, to do the contrary when any course is suggested. The very word "contrary" is used in popular talk to describe an individual who shows this type of conduct. Such a child or man is rebellious whenever rebellion is possible; he seems to kick constitutionally against the pricks.

The fact of "contrariness" in older children—especially boys—is so familiar to all who have observed school children with any care that I need not cite further details. And men and women often become so enslaved to suggestions of the contrary that they seem only to wait for indications of the wishes of others in order to oppose and thwart them.

Contrary suggestions are to be explained as exaggerated instances of control. It is easy to see that the checks and counter-checks already spoken of as constituting the method of control of muscular movement may themselves become so habitual and intense as to dominate the reactions which they should only regulate. The associations between the muscular series and the visual series, let us say, which controls it, comes to work backward, so that the drift of the organic processes is toward certain contrary reverse movements.

In the higher reaches of conduct and life we find interesting cases of very refined contrary suggestion. In the man of ascetic temperament, the duty of self-denial takes the form of a regular contrary suggestion in opposition to every invitation to self-indulgence, however innocent. The over-scrupulous mind, like the over-precise, is a prey to the eternal remonstrances from the contrary which intrude their advice into all his decisions. In matters of thought and belief also cases are common of stubborn opposition to evidence, and persistence in opinion, which are in no way due to the cogency of the contrary arguments or to real force of conviction.

Hypnotic Suggestion.—The facts upon which the current theories of hypnotism are based may be summed up under a few headings, and the recital of them will serve to bring this class of phenomena into the general lines of classification drawn out in this chapter.

The Facts.—When by any cause the attention is held fixed upon an object, say a bright button, for a sufficient time without distraction, the subject begins to lose consciousness in a peculiar way. Generalizing this simple experiment, we may say that any method or device which serves to secure undivided and prolonged attention to any sort of Suggestion—be it object, idea, anything that is clear and striking—brings on what is called Hypnosis to a person normally constituted.

The Paris school of interpreters find three stages of progress in the hypnotic sleep: First, Catalepsy, characterized by rigid fixity of the muscles in any position in which the limbs may be put by the experimenter, with great Suggestibility on the side of consciousness, and Anæsthesia (lack of sensation) in certain areas of the skin and in certain of the special senses; second, Lethargy, in which consciousness seems to disappear entirely; the subject not being sensitive to any stimulations by eye, ear, skin, etc., and the body being flabby and pliable as in natural sleep; third, Somnambulism, so called from its analogies to the ordinary sleep-walking condition to which many persons are subject. This last covers the phenomena of ordinary mesmeric exhibitions at which travelling mesmerists "control" persons before audiences and make them obey their commands. While other scientists properly deny that these three stages are really distinct, they may yet be taken as representing extreme instances of the phenomena, and serve as points of departure for further description.

On the mental side the general characteristics of hypnotic Somnambulism are as follows:

1. The impairment of memory in a peculiar way. In the hypnotic condition all affairs of the ordinary life are forgotten; on the other hand, after waking the events of the hypnotic condition are forgotten. Further, in any subsequent period of Hypnosis the events of the former similar periods are remembered. So a person who is frequently hypnotized has two continuous memories: one for the events of his normal life, exercised only when he is normal; and one for the events of his hypnotic periods, exercised only when he is hypnotized.

2. Suggestibility to a remarkable degree. By this is meant the tendency of the subject to have in reality any mental condition which is suggested to him. He is subject to Suggestions both on the side of his sensations and ideas and also on the side of his actions. He will see, hear, remember, believe, refuse to see, hear, etc., anything, with some doubtful exceptions, which may be suggested to him by word or deed, or even by the slightest and perhaps unconscious indications of those about him. On the side of conduct his suggestibility is equally remarkable. Not only will he act in harmony with the illusions of sight, etc., into which he is led, but he will carry out, like an automaton, the actions suggested to him. Further, pain and pleasure, with their organic accompaniments may be produced by Suggestion. The skin may be actually scarred with a lead pencil if the patient be told that it is red-hot iron. The suggested pain brings about vasomotor and other bodily changes that prove, as similar tests in the other cases prove, that simulation is impossible and the phenomena are real. These truths and those given below are no longer based on the mere reports of the "mesmerists," but are the recognised property of legitimate psychology.