Occasionally, as in Victor’s case, the patient quickly and spontaneously emerges from the state of trance-sleep into trance half-waking—a rapidity of development which I am persuaded occurs much more frequently among the French than with the English or Germans. English patients, especially, for the most part require a long course of education, many sittings, to have the same powers drawn out. And these are by far the most interesting cases. I will describe, from Mr. Williamson’s account, the course he has usually followed in developing his patient’s powers, and the order in which they have manifested themselves.
On the first day, perhaps, nothing can be elicited. But after some minutes, the stupor seems, as it were, less embarrassing to the patient, who appears less heavily slumbrous, and breathes lighter again: or it may be the reverse, particularly if the patient is epileptic; after a little, the breathing may be deeper, the state one of less composure. Pointing with the hands to the pit of the stomach, laying the hands upon the shoulders, and slowly moving them along the arms down to the hands, the whole with the utmost quietude and composure on the part of the operator, will dispel this oppression.
And the interest of the first sitting is confined to the process of awakening the patient, which is one of the most marvellous phenomena of the whole. The operator lays his two thumbs on the space between the eyebrows, and as it were vigorously smooths or irons the eyebrows, rubbing them from within outwards seven or eight times. Upon this, the patient probably raises his head and his eyebrows, and draws a deeper breath, as if he would yawn; he is half awake, and blowing upon the eyelids, or the repetition of the previous operation, or dusting the forehead by smart transverse wavings of the hand, or blowing upon it, causes the patient’s countenance to become animated; the eyelids open, he looks about him, recognises you, and begins to speak. If any feeling of heaviness remains, any weight or pain of the forehead, another repetition of the same manipulations sets all right. And yet this patient would not have been awakened if a gun had been fired at his ear, or his arm had been cut off.