LECTURE  XXII

§ L Dreams. § II. Sleep-walking. § III. Hypnotism and Sugges¬
tion. § IV. Autosuggestion and Post-hypnotic Influence.
§ V. Errors of the ' Hypnotism-psychology.' § VI. Theory
OF Hypnotism and Suggestion.

§   I

WE have seen that a person of sound mind is able of his
own will to give himself up to the play of association,
and so induce a state of mind which more or less resembles
the ideational condition of the insane. That is not all, however.
We are all of us normally subject to experiences which bring
us still closer to a realisation of mental disturbance. One such
condition of what we may call normal temporary insanity is
that of dreaming.

In every relation of life we find the omne ignotum pro mag-
nifico borne witness to. Mankind tends always to regard the
unaccustomed as more wonderful than the usual and normal.
The glamour of mystery surrounds the unfamiliar, just because
it is unfamiliar; while the commonest phenomena, which so
often present the really most difficult problems, are looked
upon as matters of course. F'ormer ages regarded the insane
as favoured of Heaven and illuminated above their fellows, or
as possessed of devils,—according as the pendulum of circum¬
stance swung. And even to-day the subjective ideas of these
unfortunates are at times affected by such thoughts : thoughts
which arose in the first place from the contemplation of mental
derangement in its various forms. Even after this view had
died out as regards insanity, dreams were still invested with
something of the miraculous. The popular belief in premoni¬
tion by dreams we need not notice. But there are still philo¬
sophers who incline to think that when we dream the mind