There is a class of hypnotic memory phenomena which acquire additional importance because of the bearing they have upon the psycho-genesis of certain pathological conditions. They show the conservation of the details of an episode in their original chronological order with an exactness that is beyond the powers of voluntary memory to reproduce. These phenomena consist of the realistic reproduction of certain emotional episodes which as a whole may or may not be forgotten. The reproduction is realistic in the sense that the episodes are acted over again by the individual as if once more he were actually experiencing them. Apparently every detail is reproduced, including the emotion with its facial expressions and its other physiological manifestations, and pathological disturbances like pain, paralysis, anesthesia, movements, etc. I will cite the following three examples:
M——l, a Russian, living in this country, suffers from psycholeptic attacks dating from an episode which occurred seven years previously and which he has completely forgotten. At that time he was living in Russia. It happened that after returning from a ball he was sent back late at night by his employer, a woman, to look for a ring which she had lost in the ballroom. His way led over a lonely road by a graveyard. As he was passing this place he heard footsteps behind him and became frightened. Overcome with terror he fell, partially unconscious, and his whole right side became affected with spasms and paralysis. He was picked up in this condition and taken to a hospital. Each year since that time he has had recurring attacks of spasms and paralysis.[[14]]
In hypnosis he remembers and relates a dream. This dream is one which recurs periodically but is forgotten after waking from sleep. This is the dream: He is back in his native land; it is the night of the ball; he sees his employer with outstretched hand commanding him to go search for the ring. Once more he makes his way along the lonely road; he hears footsteps; he becomes frightened, falls, and then awakes, with entire oblivion for the dream, to find his right side paralyzed and in spasms.
The following experiment is now made. By suggestion in hypnosis he is made to believe that he is fifteen years of age. As a consequence in his hypnotic dream he is once more living in Russia before he had learned English. It is now found that he has spontaneously lost all knowledge of the English language and can speak only Russian. He is told it is the night of the ball and, as in a dream, he is carried successively through the different events of that night. Finally he returns in search of the ring, passes again over the lonely road, hears the footsteps and becomes frightened. At this point his face is suddenly contorted with an expression of fright, the whole right side becomes paralyzed and anesthetic, and the muscles of face, arm, and leg affected with clonic spasms. At the same time he moans with pain which he experiences in his side, which he hurt when he fell. Though consciousness is confused he answers questions and describes the pain which he feels. On being awakened all passes off.
Mrs. W. on her return to Boston after an absence in Europe happened to pass by a certain house on her way to her hotel; the house (a private hospital) was one with which she had very distressing associations. On leaving the steamer she took a street car which she left a block distant from the hotel. She walked this distance and as she passed the house she was seized with a sudden attack of fear, dizziness, palpitation, etc. Although it is beside the point I may say that she had not noticed the locality and did not consciously recognize the house until the attack developed. The attack was, therefore, induced by a subconscious perception.[[15]] She recalls the incident and describes the attack, remembers that it occurred at this particular spot, but without further detail.
Now in hypnosis she is taken back to the day of her arrival on the steamship. In imagination, as in a sort of dream, she is living over again that day; she disembarks from the ship, enters the street car in which she rides a certain distance; she leaves the car at the point nearest her destination and proceeds to walk the remainder of the distance; suddenly her face exhibits the liveliest emotion; she becomes strongly agitated and her respiration is short and quick; her head and eyes turn toward the left and upward, as if in search of a cause, and she exclaims, “Yes, that’s it, that’s it,” as she recognizes in imagination the house which had been the scene of her previous distress. Then the attack subsides as she passes by, continuing her way toward her hotel.
Mrs. E. B. suffers from traumatic hysteria as the result of a slight but emotional accident—a fall—when alighting from a railway train. The accident resulted in a sprained shoulder and neuritis of the arm. She fully remembers the accident and describes it as any one might.
When put into hypnosis, however, the memory assumes a different character. She is taken back in imagination to the scene of the accident. Once more the train is entering the station; she leaves the car, steps from the platform upon a truck; then, unawares, steps off the truck and falls to the ground. As she falls her face suddenly becomes distorted with fear; tears stream down her cheeks, which become suffused; her heart palpitates; she suffers again acute pain in her arm, and so on. Her physical and mental anguish is painful to look upon. Though I try to persuade her that she is not hurt and that the accident is a delusion my effort is not very successful.
In this experiment, as in the others, there is substantially a reproduction in all its details of the content of consciousness which obtained at the time of the accident, and also of the emotion and its physiological manifestations—all were faithfully conserved. Further, each event follows in the same chronological sequence as in the original experience.
But in these observations the reproduction differs somewhat from that of ordinary memory. It is in the form of a dream, hypnotic or normal, and the subject goes back to the time of the experience, which he thinks is the present, and actually lives over again the original episode. Unlike the conditions of ordinary memory the whole content of his consciousness is practically limited to that which originally was present, all else, the present and the intervening past, being dissociated and excluded. The original psychological processes and their psycho-physiological accompaniments (pain, paralysis, anesthesia, spasms, etc.) repeat themselves as if the present were the past. Plainly, for such a reproduction, the original episode must have left conserved dispositions of some kind which when excited were capable of reënacting the episode in all its psycho-physiological details. From a consideration of such phenomena it is easy to understand how certain psycho-neuroses may be properly regarded as memories of certain past experiences. The experiences are conserved and under certain conditions reproduced from time to time.