Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

by Richard A. Proctor

We shall be better able now to understand the phenomena of artificial somnambulism in the case of human beings. If the circumstances observed by Kircher, Czermak, Lewissohn, and others, suggest, as I think they do, that animal hypnotism is a form of the phenomenon sometimes called fascination, we may be led to regard the possibility of artificial somnambulism in men as a survival of a property playing in all probability an important and valuable part in the economy of animal life. It is in this direction, at present, that the evidence seems to tend.

The most remarkable circumstance about the completely hypnotised subject is the seemingly complete control of the will of the 'subject' and even of his opinions. Even the mere suggestions of the operator, not expressed verbally or by signs, but by movements imparted to the body of the subject, are at once responded to, as though, to use Dr. Garth Wilkinson's expression, the whole man were given to each perception. Thus, 'if the hand be placed,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'upon the top of the head, the somnambulist will frequently, of his own accord, draw up his body to its fullest height, and throw his head slightly back; his countenance then assumes an expression of the most lofty pride, and his whole mind is obviously possessed by that feeling. When the first action does not of itself call forth the rest, it is sufficient for the operator to straighten the legs and spine, and to throw the head somewhat back, to arouse that feeling and the corresponding expression to its fullest intensity. During the most complete domination of this emotion, let the head be bent forward, and the body and limbs gently flexed; and the most profound humility then instantaneously takes its place.' Of course in some cases we may well believe that the expressions thus described by Dr. Carpenter have been simulated by the subject. But there can be no reason to doubt the reality of the operator's control in many cases. Dr. Carpenter says that he has not only been an eye-witness of them on various occasions, but that he places full reliance on the testimony of an intelligent friend, who submitted himself to Mr. Braid's manipulations, but retained sufficient self-consciousness and voluntary power to endeavour to exercise some resistance to their influence at the time, and subsequently to retrace his course of thought and feeling. 'This gentleman declares,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'that, although accustomed to the study of character and to self-observation, he could not have conceived that the whole mental state should have undergone so instantaneous and complete a metamorphosis, as he remembers it to have done, when his head and body were bent forward in the attitude of humility, after having been drawn to their full height in that of self-esteem.'

A most graphic description of the phenomena of hypnotism is given by Dr. Garth Wilkinson:—'The preliminary state is that of abstraction, produced by fixed gaze upon some unexciting and empty thing (for poverty of object engenders abstraction), and this abstraction is the logical premiss of what follows. Abstraction tends to become more and more abstract, narrower and narrower; it tends to unity and afterwards to nullity. There, then, the patient is, at the summit of attention, with no object left, a mere statue of attention, a listening, expectant life; a perfectly undistracted faculty, dreaming of a lessening and lessening mathematical point: the end of his mind sharpened away to nothing. What happens? Any sensation that appeals is met by this brilliant attention, and receives its diamond glare; being perceived with a force of leisure of which our distracted life affords only the rudiments. External influences are sensated, sympathised with, to an extraordinary degree; harmonious music sways the body into graces the most affecting; discords jars it, as though they would tear it limb from limb. Cold and heat are perceived with similar exaltation; so also smells and touches. In short, the whole man appears to be given to each perception. The body trembles like down with the wafts of the atmosphere; the world plays upon it as upon a spiritual instrument finely attuned.'

This state, which may be called the natural hypnotic state, may be artificially modified. 'The power of suggestion over the patient,' says Dr. Garth Wilkinson, 'is excessive. If you say, "What animal is it?" the patient will tell you it is a lamb, or a rabbit, or any other. "Does he see it?" "Yes." "What animal is it now?" putting depth and gloom into the tone of now, and thereby suggesting a difference. "Oh!" with a shudder, "it is a wolf!" "What colour is it?" still glooming the phrase. "Black." "What colour is it now?" giving the now a cheerful air. "Oh! a beautiful blue!" (rather an unusual colour for a wolf, I would suggest), spoken with the utmost delight (and no wonder! especially if the hypnotic subject were a naturalist). And so you lead the subject through any dreams you please, by variations of questions and of inflections of the voice! and he sees and feels all as real.'

We have seen how the patient's mind can be influenced by changing the posture of his body. Dr. Wilkinson gives very remarkable evidence on this point. 'Double his fist and pull up his arm, if you dare,' he says, of the subject, 'for you will have the strength of your ribs rudely tested. Put him on his knees and clasp his hands, and the saints and devotees of the artists will pale before the trueness of his devout actings. Raise his head while in prayer, and his lips pour forth exulting glorifications, as he sees heaven opened, and the majesty of God raising him to his place; then in a moment depress the head, and he is in dust and ashes, an unworthy sinner, with the pit of hell yawning at his feet. Or compress the forehead, so as to wrinkle it vertically, and thorny-toothed clouds contract in from the very horizon' (in the subject's imagination, it will be understood); 'and what is remarkable, the smallest pinch and wrinkle, such as will lie between your nipping nails, is sufficient nucleus to crystallise the man into that shape, and to make him all foreboding, as, again, the smallest expansion in a moment brings the opposite state, with a full breathing of delight.'

Some will perhaps think the next instance the most remarkable of all, perfectly natural though one half of the performance may have been. The subject being a young lady, the operator asks whether she or another is the prettier, raising her head as he puts the question. 'Observe,' says Dr. Wilkinson, 'the inexpressible hauteur, and the puff sneers let off from the lips' (see Darwin's treatise on the 'Expression of the Emotions,' plate IV. i, and plate V. i) 'which indicate a conclusion too certain to need utterance. Depress the head, and repeat the question, and mark the self-abasement with which she now says "She is," as hardly worthy to make the comparison.'

In this state, in fact, 'whatever posture of any passion is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises the body accordingly.'

It might seem that there must of necessity be some degree of exaggeration in this description, simply because the power of adequately expressing any given emotion is not possessed by all. Some can in a moment bring any expression into the face, or even simulate at once the expression and the aspect of another person, while many persons, probably most, possess scarcely any power of the sort, and fail ridiculously even in attempting to reproduce the expressions corresponding to the commonest emotions. But it is abundantly clear that the hypnotised subject possesses for the time being abnormal powers. No doubt this is due to the circumstance that for the time being 'the whole man is given to each perception.' The stories illustrative of this peculiarity of the hypnotised state are so remarkable that they have been rejected as utterly incredible by many who are not acquainted with the amount of evidence we have upon this point.

The instances above cited by Dr. Garth Wilkinson, remarkable though they may be, are surpassed altogether in interest by a case which Dr. Carpenter mentions,—of a factory girl, whose musical powers had received little cultivation, and who could scarcely speak her own language correctly, who nevertheless exactly imitated both the words and the music of vocal performances by Jenny Lind. Dr. Carpenter was assured by witnesses in whom he could place implicit reliance, that this girl, in the hypnotised state, followed the Swedish nightingale's songs in different languages 'so instantaneously and correctly, as to both words and music, that it was difficult to distinguish the two voices. In order to test the powers of the somnambulist to the utmost, Mademoiselle Lind extemporised a long and elaborate chromatic exercise, which the girl imitated with no less precision, though in her waking state she durst not even attempt anything of the sort.'

The exaltation of the senses of hypnotised subjects is an equally wonderful phenomenon. Dr. Carpenter relates many very remarkable instances as occurring within his own experience. He has 'known a youth, in the hypnotised state,' he says, 'to find out, by the sense of smell, the owner of a glove which was placed in his hand, from amongst a party of more than sixty persons, scenting at each of them one after the other until he came to the right individual. In another case, the owner of a ring was unhesitatingly found out from amongst a company of twelve, the ring having been withdrawn from the finger before the somnambule was introduced.' The sense of touch has, in other cases, been singularly intensified, insomuch that slight differences of heat, which to ordinary feeling were quite inappreciable, would be at once detected, while such differences as can be but just perceived in the ordinary state would produce intense distress.