, let us quote Dr. Cocke's
experiment in hypnotizing himself. It will be remembered that a
professional hypnotizer or magnetizer had hypnotized him by telling him
to fix his mind on the number twenty-six and holding up his hand. Says
the doctor:

"In my room that evening it occurred to me to try the same experiment. I
did so. I kept the number twenty-six in my mind. In a few minutes I felt
the sensation of terror, but in a different way. I was intensely cold.
My heart seemed to stand still. I had ringing in my ears. My hair seemed
to rise upon my scalp. I persisted in the effort, and the previously
mentioned noise in my ears grew louder and louder. The roar became
deafening. It crackled like a mighty fire. I was fearfully conscious of
myself. Having read vivid accounts of dreams, visions, etc., it occurred
to me that I would experience them. I felt in a vague way that there
were beings all about me but could not hear their voices. I felt as
though every muscle in my body was fixed and rigid. The roar in my ears
grew louder still, and I heard, above the roar, reports which sounded
like artillery and musketry. Then above the din of the noise a musical
chord. I seemed to be absorbed in this chord. I knew nothing else. The
world existed for me only in the tones of the mighty chord. Then I had a
sensation as though I were expanding. The sound in my ears died away,
and yet I was not conscious of silence. Then all consciousness was lost.
The next thing I experienced was a sensation of intense cold, and of
someone roughly shaking me. Then I heard the voice of my jolly landlord
calling me by name."

The landlord had found the doctor "as white as a ghost and as limp as a
rag," and thought he was dead. He says it took him ten minutes to arouse
the sleeper. During the time a physician had been summoned.

As to the causes of this condition as produced Dr. Cocke says: "I firmly
believed that something would happen when the attempt was made to
hypnotize me. Secondly, I wished to be hypnotized. These, together with
a vivid imagination and strained attention, brought on the states which
occurred."

It is interesting to compare the effects of hypnotization with those of
opium or other narcotic. Dr. Cocke asserts that there is a difference.
His descriptions of dreams bear a wonderful likeness to De Quincey's
dreams, such as those described in "The English Mail-Coach," "De
Profundis," and "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater," al