her
inter-somnolent moments. The case seems to me to be typical with respect
to the genesis of ghosts, and of the reputation of haunted houses.

* * * * *

NOTE.

THE HYPNOTIC CONDITION.

I have not in this chapter discussed the relation of dreaming to
hypnotism, or the state of artificially produced quasi-sleep, because
the nature of this last is still but very imperfectly understood. In
this condition, which is induced in a number of ways by keeping the
attention fixed on some non-exciting object, and by weak continuous and
monotonous stimulation, as stroking the skin, the patient can be made to
act conformably to the verbal or other suggestion of the operator, or to
the bodily position which he is made to assume. Thus, for example, if a
glass containing ink is given to him, with the command to drink, he
proceeds to drink. If his hands are folded, he proceeds to act as if he
were in church, and so on.

Braid, the writer who did so much to get at the facts of hypnotism, and
Dr. Carpenter who has helped to make known Braid's careful researches,
regard the actions of the hypnotized subject as analogous to ideomotor
movements; that is to say, the movements due to the tendency of an idea
to act itself out apart from volition. On the other hand, one of the
latest inquirers into the subject, Professor Heidenhain, of Breslau,
appears to regard these actions as the outcome of "unconscious
perceptions" (_Animal Magnetism_, English translation, p. 43, etc.).

In the absence of certain knowledge, it seems allowable to argue from
the analogy of natural sleep that the actions of the hypnotized patient
are accompanied with the lower forms of consciousness, including
sensation and perception, and that they involve dream-like
hallucinations respecting the external circumstances of the moment.
Regarding them in this light, the points of resemblance between
hypnotism and dreaming are numerous and striking. Thus, Dr. Heidenhain
tells us that the threshold or liminal value of stimulation is lowered
just as in ordinary sleep sense-activity as a whole is lowered.
According to Professor Weinhold, the hypnotic condition begins in a
gradual loss of taste, touch, and the sense of temperature; then sight
is gradually impaired, while hearing remains throughout the least
interfered with.[102] In this way, the mind of the patient is largely
cut off from the external world, as in sleep, and the power of
orie