Hypnotism

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 mes¬merism, 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 con¬dition purely. It is claimed even that it is an entirely natural condition. In hyp¬notic 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, hypno¬tism, to apply it to the mental influence exerted or thought to be exerted by one indi¬vidual 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 hyp¬notic 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.
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