difficult to produce under hypnosis. The phlegmatic person may become choleric, the reserved person become flippant and rude, the irreligious become pious, etc. Commonly, if the hypnotic sleep has been deep, there is, upon awakening, little or no memory of what has occurred during the trance. But all the facts can usually be recalled during a subsequent hypnotisation. A curious phenomenon is that of post-hyp- notic suggestion. A person told to perform some action after awakening may have no recollection of the injunction upon arousing from the hypnotic slumber, but with few exceptions he will at the time designated faithfully execute the act. Facts of this kind have led to a good deal of need- less alarm as to the dangers of hypnotism. In point of fact it is practically impossible to force a person to do anything seriously offensive to his moral or æsthetic sense of the right and the decent. Moreover, persons of normal make-up can not be hypnotised against their wills -- at all events not until the process has been performed so often as to become more or less habitual. A thing much more to be feared in our day is the auto-suggestion of a hypnotic character by virtue of which mobs and great crowds give way to the wildest and most beastly excesses, as often occurs in lynchings. Although hypnotism undoubtedly has therapeutic value, it should not be indiscriminately cultivated by untrained persons. The same statement holds true only in less degree of "suggestion" used as a medical method without actual hypnotising. Of its value there can be no question, for it has been demonstrated repeatedly from the dawn of time to the present day, and every successful general practitioner inevitably makes more or less use of it. But it must be intelligently employed, otherwise it may prove harmful. C. Dreams and Sleep. -- Dreams afford a familiar instance of disturbed personality. Sometimes this is manifested sim- ply in the ridiculous judgments which we pass upon dream situations, and the absurd sentiments which they call forth. -453- |