Hypnotism is an artificial sleep or artificial somnambulism. It resembles sleep in that the person hypnotized appears unconscious, is insensible to most sense impressions, and, on being aroused, remembers little or nothing of what has occurred while he was in the hypnotic state. Hypnosis is, of course, an abnormal condition. Hypnotism closely resembles mesmerism, and the terms are used often synonymously; but hypnotism, as understood at the present time, differs theoretically from mesmerism, whose supporters claimed that the mesmeric condition was induced upon the subject by an emanation, called animal magnetism, from the person of the operator. Of late years extended researches in the subject of hypnotism have satisfied investigators that no magnetism or force of any kind is transmitted to the subject from the operator, but that hypnosis is a mental condition purely. It is claimed even that it is an entirely natural condition. In hypnotic sleep, while apparently unconscious and to a degree insensible, the mind of the subject is more or less active, and the nervous system keenly susceptible to certain impressions. The operator controls to a great extent the volition of the subject. He may influence him to play an assumed part. the subject acting apparently in the firm belief that he is in reality the individual he has been told to represent. It is, however, an entirely incorrect use of the word, hypnotism, to apply it to the mental influence exerted or thought to be exerted by one individual over another while both are in a normal condition. Hypnotism implies sleep. The human mind is always more or less susceptible to suggestion. In ths hypnotic state, it is peculiarly so. When awake, the will controls measurably the effect of any suggestion the mind receives. While in the hypnotic state the will is dormant, and the suggestion seems to make its impression without any influence from the will of the subject.
Hypnotists recognize as many as nine degrees of hypnosis. As the sleep deepens, the self control of the subject decreases; but usually the patient is more susceptible to suggestion in the lighter than in the deeper degrees of sleep. Authorities claim that no person can be hypnotized against his own will, and that there is no danger of a patient becoming permanently subject to the will of the operator, nor of an operator being able to induce a subject to acts of crime by hypnotic suggestion. It is certain. however, that an operator can more easily induce hypnotic sleep the second or third time in any patient than he can at the first attempt. Beyond question, in the first instance, such sleep cannot be induced without the patient's consent.
The method by which hypnosis is induced varies somewhat. It is usually verbal, Sometimes the subject is asked to fix his eyes on a bright object, as a light above his head. Often the operator uses his hands to make slight passes before the eyes of the subject. Hypnotism is used by many reputable physicians to relieve pain and to cure cases of intemperance and the drug and tobacco habits. Undoubtedly, it is, in the hands of a skilled operator, a safe and beneficent form of cure. It is as unsafe for an amateur to experiment with hypnotism, as for an uninformed person to experiment with drugs.
