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How to Hypnotize

Waking the Subject

This is comparatively easy in moot cases. Most persons will awake
naturally at the end of a few minutes, or will fall into a natural sleep
from which in an hour or two they will awake refreshed. Usually the
operator simply says to the subject, "All right, wake up now," and claps
his hands or makes some other decided noise. In some cases it is
sufficient to say, "You will wake up in five minutes"; or tell a subject
to count twelve and when he gets to ten say, "Wake up."

Persons in the lethargic state are not susceptible to verbal
suggestions, but may be awakened by lifting both eyelids.

It is said that pressure on certain regions will wake the subject, just
as pressure in certain other places will put the subject to sleep. Among
these places for awakening are the ovarian regions.

Some writers recommend the application of cold water to awaken subjects,
but this is rarely necessary. In olden times a burning coal was brought
near.

If hypnotism was produced by passes, then wakening may be brought about
by passes in the opposite direction, or with the back of the hand toward
the subject.

The only danger is likely to be found in hysterical persons. They will,
if aroused, often fall off again into a helpless state, and continue to
do so for some time to come. It is dangerous to hypnotize such subjects.

Care should be taken to awaken the subject very thoroughly before
leaving him, else headache, nausea, or the like may follow, with other
unpleasant effects. In all cases subjects should be treated gently and
with the utmost consideration, as if the subject and operator were the
most intimate friends.

It is better that the person who induces hypnotic sleep should awaken
the subject. Others cannot do it so easily, though as we have said,
subjects usually awaken themselves after a short time.

Further description of the method of producing hypnotism need not be
given; but it is proper to add that in addition to the fact that not
more than one person out of three can be hypnotized at all, even by an
experienced operator, to effect hypnotization except in a few cases
requires a great deal of patience, both on the part of the operator and
of the subject. It may require half a dozen or more trials before any
effect at all can be produced, although in some cases the effect will
come within a minute or two.

After a person has been once hypnotized,
hypnotization is much easier. The most startling results are to be
obtained only after a long process of training on the part of the
subject. Public hypnotic entertainments, and even those given at the
hospitals in Paris, would be quite impossible if trained subjects were
not at hand; and in the case of the public hypnotizer, the proper
subjects are hired and placed in the audience for the express purpose of
coming forward when called for. The success of such an entertainment
could not otherwise be guaranteed. In many cases, also, this training of
subjects makes them deceivers. They learn to imitate what they see, and
since their living depends upon it, they must prove hypnotic subjects
who can always be depended upon to do just what is wanted. We may add,
however, that what they do is no more than an imitation of the real
thing. There is no grotesque manifestation on the stage, even if it is a
pure fake, which could not be matched by more startling facts taken from
undoubted scientific experience.

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