hs. Any
advertisement in the newspaper referring to food, anything in a
shop window referring to ladies' dresses, any household utensils
related to a meal, and especially the meals themselves, forced the
visual image into the centre and captured the attention to such a
degree that a confusing distraction from the real surroundings
resulted. The struggle against the idea became more and more
exasperating, made life a torture, almost suggested despair, even
faint thoughts of suicide, and especially a growing fear that it
was a symptom of the beginning of insanity.

When he came to me, a number of physical cures, especially bromides
and electricity, had been tried in vain by the physician. Some
weeks in the country had not changed the distress. He came to me
with the direct request as a last resort to try hypnotic treatment.
I found in spite of the fact that he and his physician had
constantly spoken of visual hallucinations that the visual image
had no hallucinatory character at all, that is, he never believed
that he saw the image of that woman as if it were actually present,
he never took the product of his imagination for reality, nor had
it the vividness and character of reality. It was hardly more vivid
than any landscape which he tried to remember, only that it
controlled the interplay of ideas in such a persistent way. I found
that he was a strong visualizer and easily suggestible. I told him
beforehand that I should hypnotize him only to a slight degree,
that he would not lose consciousness, that he would remember
everything which I told him. Then I asked him to lie down and had
him gaze on a crystal only for half a minute, then close the eyes.
I asked him to relax and to think of sleep. With the two blunt
points of a compass, I touched his two cheeks at corresponding
places, then his forehead. And now I told him that I would begin
with the hypnotic influence. I put my hand on his forehead and
spoke to him in a monotonous way, saying that he felt a fatigue in
his shoulders, and in his arms, creeping over his whole body and
assured him that he was now fully hypnotized. To what degree he
really was hypnotized cannot be said as no effort was made to test
it by any experiments, thus avoiding any possible reaction against
the feeling of submi