Revival: Medical Psychology and Psychical Research (1922)

Thomas Walker Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138556720
• eBook ISBN: 9781351339124
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book deals with those branches of Medical Psychology which have thrown most light on the problems of Psychical Research, namely, Hypnotism, Hysteria, and Multiple Personality. The greater part of the contents had already been published in the forms of papers contributed to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research between 1910 and 1922 when the book was first released.

MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

CHAPTER I

THE APPRECIATION OF TIME BY SOMNAMBULES

I

MANY classifications of the different stages of hypnosis have been put forward, and it is difficult to find two authors who are in agreement as to how many stages may be recognized, or by what names they are to be known. All hypnotic subjects, however, may be divided into two great groups, according to whether the events of hypnosis are forgotten or not in the waking state; and the term “somnambule” has been very generally used to describe those who, when hypnosis is terminated, are totally amnesic for all that has happened during the trance.

Although some interesting observations in regard to appreciation of time may be made in the lighter stages of hypnosis, it is in somnambules that this power is most strikingly shown and may be most conveniently studied. All the observations recorded or referred to in this paper were made on somnambules, and with regard to my own cases I can declare with the greatest certainty that in every instance post-hypnotic amnesia was complete.

Every one who has done much practical hypnotic work must have observed the accuracy with which somnambules estimate time-intervals. If a somnambule is told in hypnosis to sleep for five minutes, ten minutes, or half an hour, and then wake up, it is found that awakening takes place exactly at the time mentioned, or that, if there is an error in the time-estimation, it is generally a very small one. It is also well known that this power of estimating time-intervals may persist into post-hypnotic life, so that an action suggested in hypnosis, to be performed in waking life after a certain interval, is generally fulfilled at the appointed time, notwithstanding that all knowledge of the suggestion is absent from the waking consciousness during the intervening period.

Although this association with the hypnotic state of what appears to be a supernormal power is well worthy of investigation, we possess very few detailed records of observations which might help us in elucidating the many difficulties which confront us when we try to bring the facts into line with our ordinary psychological beliefs. In the early days of the study of hypnotic phenomena, so much that appeared marvellous and inexplicable was found that the appreciation of time by somnambules must have seemed to be a very minor wonder. Even when the attention of the Nancy investigators was turned towards the subject, they seemed to be more surprised by the length of time which may elapse between the giving of a suggestion and its fulfilment than by the extraordinary accuracy with which time-intervals of less extent are estimated. One of Liégeois’ subjects fulfilled a suggestion given in hypnosis a year previously,¹ and Beaunis produced, in one of his somnambules, a visual hallucination after an interval of 172 days.² In both cases the date on which the suggestion was to be fulfilled was given to the subject. Liégeois’ suggestion was given, on October 12th, as falling due on “the same day next year” and the exact date was given by Beaunis in his suggestion.

It was soon realized that such cases, however interesting and remarkable they may be from another point of view, have very little to do with any supposed power on the part of somnambules of unconsciously reckoning duration. Both Delboeuf and Edmund Gurney insisted on the distinction that must be made between cases in which a date is named and cases in which simply a length of time is given. For, in the former case, the fulfilment of the suggestion may be dependent on the ordinary laws of association, whilst in the latter it would seen to imply, as Paul Janet said, some “unknown faculty” of measuring time. It is, of course, a commonplace of hypnotic experimentation that a suggestion will be fulfilled, either in hypnosis or in post-hypnosis, on the giving of a pre-arranged signal. So, if a subject in hypnosis be told to do something on the first of January, the arrival of that day may suffice to revive the dormant memory of the command, and thus lead to its fulfilment. But if he be told to perform an act on the “sixty-ninth day from this” what is there about the sixty-ninth day to revive the hypnotic command? The day, when it comes, as Gurney said, “carries no more sixty-ninthness about it than any other day”; and unless we are to suppose some form of conscious watching and counting of the days as they pass, or some form of conscious calculation, whereby the terminal day is arrived at, and then fixed in the mind, the fulfilment of such a command seems inexplicable.

At the time when Beaunis and Liégeois recorded their observations, the possibility of subconscious mentation had not been distinctly formulated. The germs of the modern doctrine of the subliminal consciousness may now be seen to have been latent in the speculations of certain philosophers such as Fechner and Du Prel; but the extravagant applications of the principle of the “Unconscious” by Eduard von Hartmann probably alienated the minds of scientific men from all consideration of a concept apparently so directly at variance with their empirical beliefs. So we find that the earliest explanations of the accurate fulfilment of post-hypnotic actions at a given time, or after a given interval, tended towards some hypothesis of “physiological” time-reckoning rather than towards the supposition that some form of consciousness which watches and counts the days as they pass may be concerned. Thus Beaunis imagined that some cerebral mechanism exists in men and animals which can somehow be set like a clock so as to produce a movement at a given time. It is, he said, owing to this mechanism that some people are able to wake up at a predetermined hour, and that an animal knows when it is feeding time.

Although the last word in the controversy has not yet been said, I think there is no need at present to re-argue this point of view. Notwithstanding the adherence of such eminent authorities as Münsterberg and Ribot to the view that all subconscious activity is merely physiological, it is now very widely admitted that the working of the cerebral mechanism concerned in the fulfilment of post-hypnotic acts has a psychical concomitant, existing, it may be, submerged in the depths of the stream of consciousness, and not to be discovered on introspection during waking life, yet capable in many instances of being brought to the surface by certain artifices, such as re-hypnotization, so that its existence and its persistence may be known by the subject, and may be made apparent to the most casual or most sceptical observer. It is, I think, no longer possible to doubt the reality of subconscious mentation, or to evade the implications which this admission entails.

In discussing phenomena which have been observed only in hypnotic somnambules, we need not take into consideration the different opinions which have been put forward in regard to the existence of a true subliminal self in all human beings; nor need we define the terms subliminal and subconscious so carefully as may be necessary in the examination of those wider problems which have arisen around the modern conception of human personality. Taking for granted the possibility, in somnambules, of mentation going on without the knowledge or attention of the waking consciousness—and evidence of this will be abundantly shown in the course of our investigation—it will suffice for our purpose to class all such mentation as subconscious or subliminal. And in doing so we need not bind ourselves to any particular beliefs which, on other grounds, may be held in regard to the higher problems that meet us at every step when we try to penetrate into those hidden recesses of man’s being to which his subconscious mental life may seem to be the gateway.

That post-hypnotic reckoning of time-intervals is not merely physiological, but entails some concomitant mental action, was clearly shown by Gurney.¹ On March 3rd a suggestion to be fulfilled in thirty-nine days was given to one of his subjects during hypnosis. No reference to the command was made till March 19th, when he was suddenly asked, in the trance, how many days had elapsed since it was given. He instantly said 16, and added that there were 23 more to run. It was evident “that he was in some way actually counting the days as they passed” In another case an account of this process was obtained. The subject said that he generally thought about it in the morning early. Something seemed to say to him, “You’ve got to count.” On being asked if that happened every day, he replied: “No, not every day—perhaps more like every other day. It goes from my mind; I never think of it during the day. I only know it’s got to be done.”

Gurney concluded from these cases that a somnambule who is told to perform a post-hypnotic act at the end of a certain number of days, subconsciously watches and counts the days as they pass. Notwithstanding that he himself had made many experiments which proved that somnambules are able to make subconscious calculations, Gurney did not think that in these cases of time-watching any calculation was made by which the terminal day was arrived at, and then fixed in the mind.

I have repeated Gurney’s experiments on several somnambules, and I find that there is considerable variation in the methods used by them for ensuring the fulfilment of the act on the proper day. The method used by any particular subject seems to depend on various circumstances. In the first place, it will depend on his standard of education. If in the waking state he is not good at mental arithmetic, or if mental arithmetic is distasteful to him, he will probably use the most elementary method of arriving at the correct day, namely, simply counting the days as they pass. But if he can do sums mentally without difficulty he will generally make some calculation, either in hypnosis or subconsciously in post-hypnosis, so as to arrive at the terminal day, and then fix it in his mind. More important, however, than his arithmetical capacity, or his love for figures in the waking state, is the extent to which his subconscious mind has been trained by similar experiments. When such problems are given to a subject who has already made use of subconscious calculation in the solving of more difficult problems of a somewhat similar nature, he will unfailingly resort to the same method even when the accurate fulfilment of the suggestion could be ensured by simply counting the days as they passed. The following examples will illustrate these points.

I may state, with regard to all the experiments recorded in this paper, that I always took short notes at the time, in the subject’s presence—in shorthand when anything more than figures was necessary—and these were invariably written out in full two or three hours afterwards. In nearly all the experiments the time-intervals suggested were chosen at random. In the earlier ones I sometimes worked out the calculations before making the suggestions, sometimes immediately after doing so, and sometimes later in the day when writing out my notes. In most of the later experiments I made no calculation until after the subject had fulfilled the suggestion, or had told me her solution of the problems. When the suggestions were given in Nos. 21, 22, and 23 of the series tabulated on page 19, Miss A., a friend of the subject, was present. In no other instance in that series did any third person know anything about the suggestions. Only very exceptionally in the other experiments was there anyone present when the suggestions were given except the subject and myself. All the subjects were good somnambules before the experiments were begun, and there was not at any time the slightest doubt as to the completeness of post-hypnotic amnesia.

In conducting experiments with hypnotized subjects, certain precautions are necessary. Some of these are very obvious to anyone having knowledge of the peculiarities of hypnotic and post-hypnotic states. Others are less obvious, and considerable ingenuity is sometimes necessary to avoid falling into error.

The more obvious precautions are those which must be taken to ensure that the subject does not obtain through ordinary sensory channels any information which the experimenter wishes him not to have. The subject must always be looked upon as being wide awake, or rather as being in a state in which sensory impressions of all kinds are more readily perceived than they are in the waking state. The fact that his eyes are closed, or apparently closed, must never be taken as a proof that he cannot see what is going on. A possible hyperæsthesia of all the senses must be allowed for; and it is much better to overdo the precautions taken than to be careless on any point, however unimportant it may at first sight appear to be.

From the beginning of the experiments which I am about to record I made it a rule never to write down in the subject’s presence anything which she could possibly see by any normal means. In making calculations in the presence of the subject, I either went behind her or interposed some opaque body between her face and the paper on which I was writing. I also used a very soft sharp-pointed pencil, and made the figures very small so as to avoid giving any information through the sense of hearing. Such precautions may probably be quite unnecessary; but some of the recorded evidence relating to sensory hyperæsthesia during hypnosis is so extraordinary that we have no right to imperil the exactness of our results by failing to allow for every possible source of error.

Throughout the series of observations which I am about to record I lay great stress on the importance of the information given by the subject, during hypnosis, in response to questions regarding her mental states and processes at various times. The framing of the questions put to the subject is to my mind the most important and the most difficult feature in connexion with experiments of this description. The difficulty of putting a question in such a way that no inkling is given of the answer you desire or expect is sometimes almost insuperable; and the way in which the response of the subject may be modified by the merest change of intonation on the part of the operator can be appreciated only by those who have had some experience in this form of investigation. How to obtain the truth from a person whose every pulse of thought is to some extent at the mercy of the faintest suggestion of the operator is a problem which demands the greatest care and ingenuity. When every precaution is taken, and when there is no doubt as to the honesty of the hypnotized subject, the danger of falsification of the subject’s memory by unconscious suggestions is the chief source of error which the investigator has to guard against when trying to obtain a trustworthy account of the mental processes which go on at the hypnotic level of consciousness. This is the main reason why it is advisable, whenever possible, to have a verbatim report of all questions which are put to the hypnotised subject; for unless the questions are carefully prepared beforehand it will often be found that information which may have had some influence in moulding the answer obtained has been conveyed by the wording of the question. In my own experiments I preferred preparing the questions beforehand. When this was not possible I took them down in shorthand at the time.

One of my subjects, Mrs. C., is a fairly well educated woman, but she greatly dislikes mental arithmetic, and indeed, figures generally. In the waking state, the simplest of sums in mental addition or multiplication distress her exceedingly. She is a good somnambule, can be hypnotized and awakened instantaneously, and post-hypnotic amnesia is complete. Yet when given any sum to be worked out subconsciously in post-hypnosis, there always seems to be some subliminal invasion of the waking consciousness which leads to supraliminal knowledge that she is “doing figures in her head,” although she never knows what they mean.

On March 5th, 1907, I asked her, in hypnosis, to make a cross on a piece of paper, on “the 39th day from this.” The matter was not referred to again until March 21st. On being asked in the waking state if she had been doing any sums, she said that she thought she had, but that they seemed to be “very little ones.” She had had the feeling that she had been “adding on one every day,” but she did not know how far she had got, or to what end she was counting. I said to her “Sleep ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• I The Appreciation of Time by Somnambules
• II A Study in Hysteria
• III Multiple Personality
• IV Multiple Personality (Continued)
• V The Doris Fischer Case of Multiple Personality
• VI Body And Soul in Multiple Personality
• Index