_Normal Auto-Suggestion._--A further class of Suggestions, which fall under the general phrase Auto-suggestion, or Self-suggestion of a normal type, may be illustrated. In experimenting upon the possibility of suggesting sleep to another I have found certain strong reactive influences upon my own mental condition. Such an effort, which involves the picturing of another as asleep, is a strong Auto-suggestion of sleep, taking effect in my own case in about five minutes if the conditions be kept constant. The more clearly the patient's sleep is pictured the stronger becomes the subjective feeling of drowsiness. After about ten minutes the ability to give strong concentration seems to disintegrate, attention is renewed only by fits and starts and in the presence of great, mental inertia, and the oncoming of sleep is almost overpowering. An unfailing cure for insomnia, speaking for myself, is the persistent effort to put some one else asleep by hard thinking of the end in view, with a continued gentle movement, such as stroking the other with the hand.
On the other hand, it is impossible to bring on a state of drowsiness by imagining myself asleep. The first effort at this, indeed, is promising, for it leads to a state of restfulness and ease akin to the mental composure which is the usual preliminary to sleep; but it goes no further. It is succeeded by a state of steady wakefulness, which effort of attention or effort not to attend only intensifies. If the victim of insomnia could only forget that he is thus afflicted, could forget himself altogether, his case would be more hopeful. The contrast between this condition and that already described shows that it is the Self-idea, with the emotions it awakens,[11] which prevents the suggestion from realizing itself and probably accounts for many cases of insomnia.
[Footnote 11: A friend informs me that when he pictures himself dead he can not help feeling gratified that he makes so handsome a corpse.]
_Sense Exaltation._--Recent discussions of Hypnotism have shown the remarkable "exaltation" which the senses may attain in somnambulism, together with a corresponding refinement in the interpretative faculty. This is described more fully below. Events, etc., quite subconscious, usually become suggestions of direct influence upon the subject. Unintended gestures, habitual with the experimenter, may suffice to hypnotize his accustomed subject. The possibility of such training of the senses in the normal state has not had sufficient emphasis. The young child's subtle discriminations of facial and other personal indications are remarkable. The prolonged experience of putting H. to sleep--extending over a period of more than six months, during which I slept beside her bed--served to make me alive to a certain class of suggestions otherwise quite beyond notice. It is well known that mothers are awake to the needs of their infants when they are asleep to everything else.