ger signal ought to be
displayed. Interference with the natural sleep by outer influences
creates abnormal conditions which cannot be removed at will. The chances
are great that many unintended bad effects slip in and that not a few
hysterias may be created by a method at the first glance so startling.
Much less objectionable is it to make use of the effect of that period
of half-sleep which precedes the natural sleep, and which is for many a
period of increased suggestibility for autosuggestions. A resolution or
the formulation of a belief which would be ineffective in a wide-awake
state seems to get an accentuated effect on the mind, if it is
repeatedly expressed in this transitional state. The psychasthenic who
in such a half-dozing stage assures himself that he will no longer be
afraid of going over a bridge or hearing a thunderstorm or will feel a
disgust for whiskey or will have the energy for work, has a certain
chance that such autosuggestions become reality the next morning. With
many others there seems no effect to be obtained and not a few seem
unable to catch the right moment. As soon as they begin to speak they
become wide awake or fall asleep before they talk.

Incomparably more value belongs to the artificial sleep, the mesmeric
state of earlier days, the hypnotism of our time. We have discussed its
theory and recognized that an abnormally increased suggestibility is
indeed its chief feature. We know hypnotism in most various degrees; the
lowest can be reached practically by everyone, the highest by rather
few. It is almost arbitrary to decide where those waking states with
high tension of suggestibility end and the hypnotic states begin, and
not less arbitrary to call the higher degrees only hypnotism and to
designate the lower degrees as hypnoid states. If we do it, we certainly
should acknowledge from the start that the hypnoid states are for
therapeutic purposes not a bit less important than the full hypnotic
states. Certainly the hypnoid states do not allow complex hallucinations
and absurd post-hypnotic actions, but they offer excellent starting
points for the removal of light obsessions and phobias and for the
reenforcement of desirable impulses, volitions, and emotions. Many
persons cannot under any circumstances be brought beyond such a hypnoid
degree. The physician who has not theoretical experiments but practical
success in view ought therefore never to trouble himself with the
inquiry exactly