Once the hypnoidal state is induced by any of the various methods of hypnoidization, we can either attempt to follow up the history of the development of the malady, or we may chiefly work for therapeutic effects. It is, however, advisable, from a purely practical, therapeutic purpose to combine the two procedures; the cure is then effective and far more stable. When the history of the origin and development of the disease can not be traced, on account of the age or unintelligence of the patient, the therapeutic effects alone of the hypnoidal states have been utilized.

The getting access to subconscious experiences, lost to the patient’s personal consciousness, makes the hypnoidal state a valuable instrument in the tracing of the origin and development of the symptoms of the psychopathic malady.

From a practical standpoint, however, the therapeutic value of the hypnoidal state is most important. Our experiments have revealed to us the significant fact that the hypnoidal state is the primordial[102] rest-state; sleep is but a derivative form. In many conditions of disease it is advisable to have the patient revert to a simple and primitive mode of life. Similarly, in psychopathic diseases a reversion to a simple, primitive state proves to be of material help to the patient.

In plunging the patient into the hypnoidal state, we have him revert to a primitive rest-state with its consequent beneficial results. The suggestibility of the state, if skillfully handled, is apt to increase the therapeutic efficacy. Relaxation of nervous strain, rest from worry, abatement of emotional excitement are known to be of great help in the treatment of nervous troubles of the neurasthenic, or of the so-called “psychoasthenic” variety. That is what we precisely observe in the treatment of psychopathic or neurotic diseases by means of the agency of the hypnoidal state, the efficacy of which is all the greater on account of the presence of the important trait of suggestibility.

The most important fact, however, is the access gained through the hypnoidal state to the patient’s stores of subconscious reserve neuron energy, thus helping to bring about an association of disintegrated, dissociated mental-systems.

Dr. John Donley in his article, “The Clinical Use of Hypnoidization” (Journal of Abnormal Psychology for August-September, 1908), gives the following account of the method of hypnoidization:

[103]

“The treatment of that large group of disorders, forgotten memories, and emotions is operative in the production of mental disaggregation, but also in those numerous instances where the experience causing the obsessive idea or emotion is well known to the upper consciousness.

“In hypnoidal states they were made to reproduce their obsessive thoughts and images and then to describe them in words. When this had been accomplished and they had received further assurance and persuasion from the experimenter, although the purely intellectual content of their obsessions remained known to them, the insistent automatic character and disturbing emotional factors had disappeared. In this metamorphosis of emotional reaction we may observe one of the most interesting and useful attributes of the hypnoidal state.”

Dr. Donley gives a series of cases which he treated successfully from psychognostic and psychotherapeutic standpoints. The reader is referred to the original article.

“The value of hypnoidization,” says Dr. T. W. Mitchell, “in the resurrection of dissociated memories is that which is perhaps best established. And this applies not only to the restoration of the forgotten experiences of ordinary amnesia, but to the recovery of dissociated memories that are of pathogenic significance.... Sidis himself has insistently[104] taught that the reassociation of dissociated complexes effects a cure of psychopathic disease.... My own experience, so far as it goes, tends to corroborate in every respect the claims put forward by Sidis....”

While in the hypnoidal state the patient hovers between the conscious and the subconscious, somewhat in the same way as in the half-drowsy condition one hovers between wakefulness and sleep. The patient keeps on fluctuating from moment to moment, now falling more deeply into a subconscious condition in which outlived experiences are easily aroused, and again rising to the level of the waking state. Experiences long submerged and forgotten rise to the full light of consciousness. They come in bits, in chips, in fragments, which may gradually coalesce and form a connected series of interrelated systems of experiences apparently long dead and buried. The resurrected experiences then stand out clear and distinct in the patient’s mind. The recognition is fresh, vivid, and instinct with life, as if the experiences had occurred the day before.

It cannot be insisted too much that the hypnoidal state is not a slight hypnosis. The hypnoidal state is a light sleep state, a twilight state. The hypnoidal state is the anabolic state of repose, characteristic of primitive life.

The hypnoidal state is an intermediary state between waking and sleep. Subwaking is an appropriate[105] descriptive term of the character of the hypnoidal state.

The subwaking hypnoidal state, like sleep and hypnosis, may be of various depth and duration; it may range from the fully waking consciousness and again may closely approach and even merge into sleep or hypnosis. The same patient may at various times reach different levels, and hence subconscious experiences which are inaccessible at one time may become revealed at some subsequent time, when the patient happens to go into a deeper hypnoidal state.

On account of the instability of the hypnoidal state, and because of the continuous fluctuation and variation of its depth, the subconscious dissociated experiences come up in bits and scraps, and often may lack the sense of familiarity and recognition. The patient often loses the train of subconscious association. There is a constant struggle to maintain this highly unstable hypnoidal state.

One has again and again to return to the same subconscious train started into activity for a brief interval of time. One must pick his way among streams of disturbing associations before the dissociated subconscious experiences can be synthesized into a whole, reproducing the original experience that has given rise to the whole train of symptoms.

The hypnoidal state may sometimes reproduce the original experience which, at first struggling up in a broken, distorted form, and finally becoming synthesized,[106] produces a full attack. The symptoms of the malady turn out to be portions, bits and chips of past experiences which have become dissociated, giving rise to a disaggregated subconsciousness.

The method of hypnoidization, and the hypnoidal states induced by it, enable us to trace the history and etiology of the symptoms, and also to effect a synthesis and a cure. The hypnoidal state may not be striking and sensational in its manifestations, but it is a powerful instrument in psychopathology and psychotherapeutics.

For many years my investigations of the hypnoidal state were carried out on subjects and patients, adults and children. Having found that during the hypnoidal state the condition of mental plasticity is quite pronounced for therapeutic purposes, and having effected many cures of severe psychopathic maladies, ranging throughout the whole domain of so-called hysterical affections, neurasthenia, obsessions, drug habits, especially alcoholic ones, the hypnoidal state has become in my practice quite an important therapeutic agent. Lately, others have obtained excellent results with the hypnoidal state in their treatment of various functional, psychopathic or neurotic maladies.

Perhaps it may be opportune here for the sake of further elucidation to give a few extracts from the Presidential address on “The Hypnoidal State[107] of Sidis,” given by Dr. T. W. Mitchell before the Psycho-Medical Society of Great Britain, January 26, 1911.

“The history of science,” says Dr. Mitchell in his address, “affords us many instances in which the neglect of residual phenomena in experimental research has led to the overlooking of important facts, and prevented investigators from making discoveries which, had they paid attention to their residues, they could hardly have missed. The great chemist, Cavendish, probably missed the discovery of argon, because in his estimate of nitrogen of the air he neglected a residue which his experiments showed him could not be more than 1/120 part of the whole. More than a hundred years afterwards............