the door started the
Marseillaise in my ear; following up this clew, I found that at any
time different divisions of musical time being struck on the table at
will by another person, tunes would spring up and run on, getting
their cue from the measures suggested. Further, when a tune dies away,
its last notes often suggest, some time after, another having a
similar movement--just as we pass from one tune to another in a
"medley." It may also be noted that in my case the tune memories are
auditive: they run in my head when I have no words for them and have
never sung them--an experience which is consistent with the fact that
these "internal tunes" arise in childhood before the faculty of
speech. They also have distinct pitch. For example, I once found a
tune "in my head" which was perfectly familiar, but for which I could
find no words. Tested on the piano, the pitch was F-sharp and the time
was my heart beat. Finally, after much effort, I got the unworthy
words "Wait till the clouds roll by" by humming the tune over
repeatedly. The pitch is determined probably by the accidental
condition of the auditory centre in the brain or by the pitch of the
external sound which serves as stimulus to the tune.

_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 rest