Some people can't believe, that there exists an "emptiness of mind" called state of consciousness . Here you can read two examples by Milton H. Erickson. He was the leading researcher in the field of experimental and therapeutic hypnosis and can be compared in his importance only to Freud in my opinion.
I consider the collected papers of Milton H. Erickson a MUST for every serious magician.
(The terms "nirvana" and "samadhi" are misused in these case reports.)
Paul Allen, 1997
Franz Bardon Research (English)
Franz Bardon Forschung (deutsch)
Autohypnotic Experiences of Milton H. Erickson
(From: The collected papers of Milton H. Erickson, volume I; Irvington Publishers 1980; p. 128)
Reprinted with permission from The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, July, 1977, 20, 36-54.4.
By Milton H. Erickson, MD and Ernest L. Rossi, PhD
During the past four years between the ages of 70 to 74, the senior author recounted a number of personal factors and experiences that contributed to the development of his interest, attitudes, and approaches to autohypnosis, trance, and psychotherapy. Many of Erickson's earliest memories deal with the ways in which his experience was different from others because of his constitutional problems: He experienced an unusual form of color blindness, arrhythmia, tone deafness, and dyslexia long before such conditions were well recognized and diagnosed in the fairly primitive rural community in which he was reared. As a child in elementary school, for example, he could never understand why people did that yelling and screeching they called "singing". Although he was different in ways that neither he nor others could understand, he possessed an acutely probing intelligence that initiated him into a lifetime of inquiry about the limitations and relativity of human perception and behavior. When he visited his maternal grandmother for the first time at the age of four, for example, the little Erickson was struck by the incredulity in her voice as she said over and over to his mother, "It 's you Clara; it's rally, rally you?! " The grandmother had never traveled further than ten miles from her home and really did not have any conception of how people close to her could exist beyond that radius. When her daughter married and moved beyond it, she really never expected to see her again. Thus, by the age of four, Erickson was already struck, in however dim and wordless a manner, with the differences and limitations in people's perspectives.
Another experience with the limitations and rigidities in people's habitual frames of reference occurred somewhat before the age of ten, when Erickson doubted his grandfathers method of planting potatoes only during a certain phase of the moon and always with the "eyes" up. The young lad was hurt and saddened when his grandfather could not believe the facts when Erickson demonstrated that his own potato patch planted at the "wrong" phase of the moon with the "eyes" in all directions did just as well. From such early experiences Erickson feels he developed a distaste for rigidities. These experiences provided an orientation for some of his original approaches to psychotherapy wherein he used shock and surprise to break through the habitual limitations in patients' frames of reference to effect a rapid therapeutic reorganization of their symptoms and life perspectives (Rossi, l973). Depotentiating a subject's habitual mental sets and frames of references has been recently conceptualized as an important stage in initiating trance experience (Erickson, Rossi, and Rossi, l976).
NIRVANA OR AUTOHYPNOSIS As A DISSOCIATION FROM ALL SENSE MODALITIES
(From: The collected papers of Milton H. Erickson, volume I; Irvington Publishers 1980; p. 129-130)
On one occasion Erickson was doing some exprimental work with K on stopped vision (Erickson, l967), wherein she exprienced being in "the middle of nowhere." Erickson recalled the following:
E: I was in the backyard a year ago in the summertime. I was wondering what far-out experiences I'd like to have. Yes I puzzled over that, I noticed that I was sitting out in the middle of nowhere. I was an object in space.
K: There you have it: the middle of nowhere.
E: I was just an object in space. Of all the buildings I couldn't see an outline. I couldn't see the chair in which I was sitting; in fact, I couldn't feel it.
R: You spontaneously experienced that vision?
E: It was the most far-out thing I could do!
R: That was the most far-out thing you could do?
E: You can't get more far-out than that!
R: It just happened to you as you were wondering about what you could do?
E: Yes.
R: An unconscious responding?
E: And that was my unconscious' full response.
R: I see; you can't get more far-out than that.
E: What more far-out could happen?
K: You were just floating or just a nothingness?
E: I was just an object and all alone with me was an empty void. No buildings, earth, stars, sun.
K: What emotions did you experience? Did you ------- curiosity or fear or apprehension?
E: It was one of the most pleasing experiences. What is this? Tremendous comfort. I knew that I was doing something far-out. And I was really doing it! And what greater joy is there than doing what you want to do? Inside the stars, the planets, the beaches. I couldn't feel the weight. I couldn't feel the earth. No matter how much I pushed down my feet, I couldn't feel anything.
R: That sounds like a spontaneous experience of nirvana or samadhi where in Indian yogis say they experience "the void." You feel that is so?
E: Yes. The far-out experience of negating all reality-related stimuli.
R: That's what the yogis train themselves to do.
E: Yes, just negating the stimuli from the reality objects.
K: You found that pleasurable?
E: I always find when I can do something, it's pleasurable.
A Special Inquiry with Aldous Huxley into the Nature and Character of Various States of Consciousness
by Milton H. Erickson, MD
(From: The collected papers of Milton H. Erickson, volume I; Irvington Publishers 1980; p. 83; reprinted with permission from The American Journal Journal of Clinical Hypnosis July, 1965, 8 1 33. 83)
INTRODUCTION
Over a period of nearly a year much time was spent by Aldous Huxley and the author, each planning separately for a joint inquiry into various states of psychological awareness. Special inquiries, possible methods of experimental approach, and investigations and various questions to be propounded were listed by each of us in our respective loose-leaf notebooks. The purpose was to prepare a general background for the proposed joint study, with this general background reflecting the thinking of both of us uninfluenced by another. It was hoped in this way to secure the widest possible coverage of ideas by such separate outlines prepared from the markedly different backgrounds of understanding that the two of us possessed.
Early in 1950 we met in Huxley's home in Los Angeles, there to spend an intensive day appraising the ideas recorded in our separate notebooks and to engage in any experimental inquiries that seemed feasible. I was particularly interested in Huxley's approach to psychological problems, his method of thinking, and his own unique use of his unconscious mind, which we had discussed only briefly sometime previously. Huxley was particularly interested in hypnosis, and previous exceedingly brief work with him had demonstrated his excellent competence as a deep somnambulistic subject.
It was realized that this meeting would be a preliminary or pilot study, and this was discussed by both of us. Hence we planned to make it as comprehensive and inclusive as possible without undue emphasis upon completion of any one particular item. Once the day's work had been evaluated, plans could then be made for future meetings and specific studies. Additionally we each had our individual purposes—Aldous having in mind future literary work, while my interest related to future psychological experimentation in the field of hypnosis.The day's work began at 8:00 A.M. and remained uninterrupted until 6:00 P.M. with some considerable review of our notebooks the next day to establish their general agreement, to remove any lack of clarity of meaning caused by the abbreviated notations we had entered into them during the previous day's work, and to correct any oversights. On the whole we found that our notebooks were reasonably in agreement, but that naturally certain of our entries were reflective of our special interests and of the fact that each of us had, by the nature of the situation, made separate notations bearing upon each other.
Our plan was to leave these notebooks with Huxley, since his phenomenal memory, often appearing to be total recall, and his superior literary ability would permit a more satisfactory writing of a joint article based upon our discussions and experimentations of that day's work. However, I did abstract from my notebook certain pages bearing notations upon Huxley's behavior at times when he, as an experimental subject, was unable to make comprehensive notations on himself, although postexperimentally he could and did do so, though less completely than I had. It was proposed that from these certain special pages I was to endeavor to develop an article which could be incorporated later in the longer study that Huxley was to write. Accordingly I abstracted a certain number of pages, intending to secure still more at a later date. These pages that I did remove Huxley rapidly copied into his own notebook to be sure of the completeness of his data.
Unfortunately a California brushfire later destroyed Huxley's home, his extensive library containing many rare volumes and manuscripts, besides numerous other treasures to say nothing of the manuscripts upon which Huxley was currently working as well as the respective notebooks of our special joint study. As a result the entire subject matter of our project was dropped as a topic too painful to discuss, but Huxley's recent death led to my perusal of these relatively few pages I had abstracted from my notebook. Examination of them suggested the possibility of presenting to the reader a small but informative part of that day's work. In this regard the reader must bear in mind that the quotations attributed to Huxley are not necessarily verbatim, since his more extensive utterances were noted in abbreviated form. However, in the essence of their meaning they are correct, and they are expressive of Huxley as I knew him. It is also to be borne in mind that Huxley had read my notations on the occasion of our joint study and had approved them.
PROJECT INITIATION
The project began with Huxley reviewing concepts and definitions of conscious awareness, primarily his and in part those of others, followed by a discussion with me of his understandings of hypnotic states of awareness. The purpose was to insure that we were both in accord or clear in our divergences of understanding, thus to make possible a more reliable inquiry into the subject matter of our interest.
There followed then a review in extensive detail of various of his psychedelic experiences with mescaline, later to be recorded in his book (The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper, 1954).
Huxley then proceeded with a detailed description of his very special practice of what he, for want of a better and less awkward term which he had not yet settled upon, called "Deep Reflection." He described this state (the author's description is not complete, since there seemed to be no good reason except interest for making full notations of his description) of Deep Reflection as one marked by physical relaxation with bowed head and closed eyes, a profound, progressive, psychological withdrawal from externalities but without any actual loss of physical realities nor any amnesias or loss of orientation, a "setting aside" of everything not pertinent, and then a state of complete mental absorption in matters of interest to him. Yet in that state of complete withdrawal and mental absorption Huxley stated that he was free to pick up a fresh pencil to replace a dulled one, to make notations on his thoughts "automatically", and to do all this without a recognizable realization on his part of what physical act he was performing. It was as if the physical act were "not an integral part of my thinking". In no way did such physical activity seem to impinge upon, to slow, or to impede "the train of thought so exclusively occupying my interest. It is associated but completely peripheral activity.... I might say activity barely contiguous to the periphery." To illustrate further Huxley cited an instance of another type of physical activity. He recalled having been in a state of Deep Reflection one day when his wife was shopping. He did not recall what thoughts or ideas he was examining, but he did recall that, when his wife returned that day, she had asked him if he had made a note of the special message she had given him over the telephone. He had been bewildered by her inquiry, could not recall anything about answering the telephone as his wife asserted, but together they found the special message recorded on a pad beside the telephone, which was placed within comfortable reaching distance from the chair in which he liked to develop Deep Reflection. Both he and his wife reached the conclusion that he had been in a state of Deep Reflection at the time of the telephone call, had lifted the receiver, and had said to her as usual, "I say there, hello," had listened to the message, had recorded it, all without any subsequent recollections of the experience. He recalled merely that he had been working on a manuscript that afternoon, one that had been absorbing all of his interest. He explained that it was quite common for him to initiate a day's work by entering a state of Deep Reflection as a preliminary process of marshalling his thoughts and putting into order the thinking that would enter into his writing later that day.
As still another illustrative incident Huxley cited an occasion when his wife returned home from a brief absence, found the door locked as was customary, entered the house, and discovered in plain view a special delivery letter on a hallway table reserved for mail, special messages, etc. She had found Huxley sitting quietly in his special chair, obviously in a state of deep thought. Later that day she had inquired about the time of arrival of the special delivery letter, only to learn that he had obviously no recollection of receiving any letter. Yet both knew that the mailman had undoubtedly rung the doorbell, that Huxley had heard the bell, had interrupted whatever he was doing, had gone to the door, opened it, received the letter, closed the door, placed the letter in its proper place, and returned to the chair where she had found him.Both of these two special events had occurred fairly recently. He recalled them only as incidents related to him by his wife but with no feeling that those accounts constituted a description of actual meaningful physical behavior on his part. So far as he knew, he could only deduce that he must have been in a state of Deep Reflection when they occurred.
His wife subsequently confirmed the assumption that his behavior had been completely "automatic, like a machine moving precisely and accurately. It is a delightful pleasure to see him get a book out of the bookcase, sit down again, open the book slowly, pick up his reading glass, read a little, and then lay the book and glass aside. Then some time later, maybe a few days, he will notice the book and ask about it. The man just never remembers what he does or what he thinks about when he sits in that chair. All of a sudden you just find him in his study working very hard."
In other words, while in a state of Deep Reflection and seemingly totally withdrawn from external realities, the integrity of the task being done in that mental state was touched by external stimuli, but some peripheral part of awareness made it possible for him to receive external stimuli, to respond meaningfully to them but with no apparent recording of any memory of either the stimulus or his meaningful and adequate response. Inquiry of his wife later had disclosed that when she was at home, Aldous in a state of Deep Reflection paid no attention to the telephone, which might be beside him, or the doorbell. "He simply depends completely on me, but I can call out to him that I'll be away and he never fails to hear the telephone or the doorbell."
Huxley explained that he believed he could develop a state of Deep Reflection in about five minutes, but that in doing so he "simply cast aside all anchors" of any type of awareness. Just what he meant and sensed he could not describe. "It is a subjective experience quite" in which he apparently achieved a state of "orderly mental arrangement" permitting an orderly free flowing of his thoughts as he wrote. This was his final explanation. He had never considered any analysis of exactly what his Deep Reflection was, nor did he feel that he could analyze it, but he offered to attempt it as an experimental investigation for the day. It was promptly learned that as he began to absorb himself in his thoughts to achieve a state of Deep Reflection, he did indeed "cast off all anchors" and appeared to be completely out of touch with everything. On this attempt to experience subjectively and to remember the processes of entering into Deep Reflection, he developed the state within five minutes and emerged from it within two, as closely as I could determine. His comment was, "I say, I'm deucedly sorry. I suddenly found myself all prepared to work with nothing to do, and I realized I had better come out of it." That was all the information he could offer. For the next attempt a signal to be given by me was agreed upon as a signal for him to "come out of it." A second attempt was made as easily as the first. Huxley sat quietly for some minutes, and the agreed upon signal was given. Huxley's account was, "I found myself just waiting for something. I did not know what. It was just a 'something' that I seemed to feel would come in what seemed to be a timeless, spaceless void. I say, that's the first time I noted that feeling. Always I've had some thinking to do. But this time I seemed to have no work in hand. I was just completely disinterested, indifferent, just waiting for something, and then I felt a need to come out of it. I say, did you give me the signal?"
Inquiry disclosed that he had no apparent memory of the stimulus being given. He had had only the "feeling" that it was time to "come out of it".Several more repetitions yielded similar results. A sense of a timeless, spaceless void, a placid, comfortable awaiting for an undefined "something," and a comfortable need to return to ordinary conscious awareness constituted the understandings achieved. Huxley summarized his findings briefly as "a total absence of everything on the way there and on the way back and an expected meaningless something for which one awaits in a state of Nirvana since there is nothing more to do." He asserted his intention to make a later intensive study of this practice he found so useful in his writing.
Further experiments were done after Huxley had explained that he could enter the state of deep reflection with the simple undefined understanding that he would respond to any "significant stimulus." Without informing him of my intentions, I asked him to "arouse" (this term is my own) when three taps of a pencil on a chair were given in close succession. He entered the sate of reflection readily, and after a brief wait I tapped the table with a pencil in varying fashions at distinct but irregular intervals. Thus I tapped once, paused, then twice in rapid succession, paused, tapped once, paused, tapped four times in rapid succession, paused, then five times in rapid succession. Numerous variations were tried but with an avoidance of the agreed upon signal. A chair was knocked over with a crash while four taps were given. Not until the specified three taps were given did he make any response. His arousal occurred slowly with almost an immediate response to the signal. Huxley was questioned about his subjective experiences. He explained simply that they had been the same as previously with one exception, namely that several times he had a vague sensation that "something was coming," but he knew not what. He had no awareness of what had been done.
Further experimentation was done in which he was asked to enter Deep Reflection and to sense color, a prearranged signal for arousing being that of a handshake of his right hand. He complied readily, and when I judged that he was fully absorbed in his state of reflection, I shook his left hand vigorously then followed this with a hard pinching of the back of both hands that left deep fingernail markings. Huxley made no response to this physical stimulation, although his eyes were watched for possible eyeball movements under the lids, and his respiratory and pulse rates were checked for any changes. However, after about a minute he slowly drew his arms back along the arms of the chair where he had placed them before beginning his reflection state. They moved slowly about an inch, and then all movement ceased. He was aroused easily and comfortably at the designated signal.
His subjective report was simply, that he had "lost" himself in a "sea of color," of "sensing," "feeling," "being" color, of being "quite utterly involved in it with no identity of your own, you know." Then suddenly he had experienced a process of losing that color in a "meaningless void," only to open his eyes and to realize that he had "come out of it."
He remembered the agreed upon stimulus but did not recall if it had been given. "I can only deduce it was given from the fact that I'm out of it," and indirect questioning disclosed no memories of the other physical stimuli administered. Neither was there an absent minded looking at nor robbing of the backs of his hands.
This same procedure in relation to color was repeated but to it was added, as he seemed to be reaching the state of deep reflection, a repeated, insistent urging that upon arousal he discuss a certain book which was carefully placed in full view. The results were comparable to the preceding findings. He became "lost," . . . "quite utterly involved in it," . . . "one can sense it but not describe it,". . . "I say, it's an utterly amazing, fascinating state of finding yourself a pleasant part of an endless vista of color that is soft and gentle and yielding and all absorbing. Utterly extraordinary, most extraordinary." He had no recollection of my verbal insistences nor of the other physical stimuli. He remembered the agreed upon signal but did not know if it had been given. He found himself only in a position of assuming that it had been given since he was again in a state of ordinary awareness. The presence of the book meant nothing to him. One added statement was that entering a state of Deep Reflection by absorbing himself in a sense of color was in a fashion comparable to, but not identical with, his psychedelic experiences.
As a final inquiry Huxley was asked to enter the reflection state for the purpose of recalling the telephone call and the special delivery letter incidents. His comment was that such a project should be "quite fruitful." Despite repeated efforts he would "come out of it," explaining, "There I found myself without anything to do, so I came out of it." His memories were limited to the accounts given to him by his wife, and all details were associated with her and not with any inner feelings of experience on his part.
A final effort was made to discover whether or not Huxley could include another person in his state of Deep Reflection. This idea interested him at once, and it was suggested that he enter the reflection state to review some of his psychedelic experiences. This he did in a most intriguing fashion. As the reflection state developed, Huxley in an utterly detached dissociated fashion began making fragmentary remarks, chiefly in the form of self addressed comments. Thus he would say, making fragmentary notes with a pencil and paper quickly supplied to him, "most extraordinary . . . I overlooked that. . . How? . . . Strange I should have forgotten that [making a notation].... fascinating how different in appears ... I must look...."
When he aroused, he had a vague recollection of having reviewed a previous psychedelic experience, but what he had experienced then or on the immediate occasion he could not recall. Nor did he recall speaking aloud or making notations. When shown these, he found that they were so poorly written that they could not be read. I read mine to him without eliciting any memory traces.
A repetition yielded similar results, with one exception. This was an amazed expression of complete astonishment by Huxley suddenly declaring, "I say, Milton, this is quite utterly amazing, most extraordinary. I use Deep Reflection to summon my memories, to put into order all of my thinking, to explore the range, the extent of my mental existence, but I do it solely to let those realizations, the thinking, the understandings, the memories seep into the work I'm planning to do without my conscious awareness of them. Fascinating . . . never stopped to realize that my Deep Reflection always preceded a period of intensive work wherein I was completely absorbed.... I say, no wonder I have an amnesia. "
Later, when we were examining each other's notebooks, Huxley manifested intense amazement and bewilderment at what I had recorded about the physical stimuli for which he had no memory of any sort. He knew that he had gone into Deep Reflection repeatedly at my request, had been both pleased and amazed at his subjective feelings of being lost in an all absorbing sea of color, had sensed a certain timelessness and spacelessness, and had experienced a comfortable feeling of something meaningful about to happen. He reread my notations repeatedly in an endeavor to develop some kind of a feeling or at least a vague memory of subjective awareness of the various physical stimuli I had given him. He also looked at the backs of his hands to see the pinch marks, but they had vanished. His final comment was, ". . . extraordinary, most extraordinary, I say, utterly fascinating."
When we agreed that at least for the while further inquiry into Deep Reflection might be postponed until later, Huxley declared again that his sudden realization of how much he had used it and how little he knew about it made him resolve to investigate much further into his Deep Reflection. The manner and means by which he achieved it, how it constituted a form of preparation for absorbing himself in his writing, and in what way it caused him to lose unnecessary contact with reality were all problems of much interest to him.
Huxley then suggested that an investigation be made of hypnotic states of awareness by employing him as a subject. He asked permission to be allowed to interrupt his trance states at will for purposes of discussion. This was in full accord with my own wishes.
He asked that first a light trance be induced, perhaps repeatedly, to permit an exploration of his subjective experiences. Since he had briefly been a somnambulistic subject previously, he was carefully assured that this fact could serve to make him feel confident in arresting his trance states at any level he wished. He did not recognize this as a simple direct hypnotic suggestion. In reading my notebook later he was much amused at how easily he had accepted an obvious suggestion without recognizing its character at the time.
He found several repetitions of the light trance interesting but "too easily conceptualized." It is, he explained, "A simple withdrawal of interest from the outside to the inside." That is, one gives less and less attention to externalities and directs more and more attention to inner subjective sensations. Externalities become increasingly fainter and more obscure, inner subjective feelings more satisfying until a state of balance exists. In this state of balance he had the feeling that with motivation he could "reach out and seize upon reality," that there is a definite retention of a grasp upon external reality but with no motivation to deal with it. Neither did he feel a desire to deepen the trance. No particular change in this state of balance seemed necessary, and he noted that a feeling of contentment and relaxation accompanied it. He wondered if others experienced the same subjective reactions.
Huxley requested that the light trance be induced by a great variety of techniques, some of them nonverbal. The results in each instance, Huxley felt strongly, were dependent entirely upon his mental set. He found that he could accept "drifting along" (my phrase) in a light trance, receptive of suggestions involving primarily responses at a subjective level only. He found that an effort to behave in direct relationship to the physical environment taxed his efforts and made him desire either to arouse from the trance or to go still deeper. He also on his own initiative set up his own problems to test his trance states. Thus before entering the light trance he would privately resolve to discuss a certain topic, relevant or irrelevant, with me at the earliest possible time or even at a fairly remote time. In such instances Huxley found such unexpressed desires deleterious to the maintenance of the trance. Similarly any effort to include an item of reality not pertinent to his sense of subjective satisfaction lessened the trance.
At all times there persisted a "dim but ready" awareness that one could alter the state of awareness at will. Huxley, like others with whom I have done similar studies, felt an intense desire to explore his sense of subjective comfort and satisfaction but immediately realized that this would lead to a deeper trance state.
When Huxley was asked to formulate understandings of the means he could employ by which he could avoid going into more than a light trance, he stated that he did this by setting a given length of time during which he would remain in a light trance. This had the effect of making him more strongly aware that at any moment he could "reach out and seize external reality" and that his sense of subjective comfort and ease decreased. Discussion of this and repeated experimentation disclosed that carefully worded suggestions serving to emphasize the availability of external reality and to enhance subjective comfort could serve to deepen the trance, even though Huxley was fully cognizant of what was being said and why. Similar results have been obtained with other highly intelligent subjects.
In experimenting with medium deep trances Huxley, like other subjects with whom I have worked, experienced much more difficulty in reacting to and maintaining a fairly constant trance level. He found that he had a subjective need to go deeper in the trance and an intellectual need to stay at the medium level. The result was that he found himself repeatedly "reaching out for awareness" of his environment, and this would initiate a light trance. He would then direct his attention to subjective comfort and find himself developing a deep trance. Finally, after repeated experiments, he was given both posthypnotic and direct hypnotic suggestion to remain in a medium deep trance. This he found he could do with very little concern. He described the medium trance as primarily characterized by a most pleasing subjective sense of comfort and a vague, dim, faulty awareness that there was an external reality for which he felt a need for considerable motivation to be able to examine it. However, if he attempted to examine even a single item of reality for its intrinsic value, the trance would immediately become increasingly lighter. On the other hand, when he examined an item of external reality for subjective values—for example the soft comfort of the chair cushions as contrasted to the intrinsic quiet of the room—the trance became deeper. But both light and deep trances were characterized by a need to sense external reality in some manner, not necessarily clearly but nevertheless to retain some recognizable awareness of it.
For both typos of trance experiments were carried out to discover what hypnotic phenomena could be elicited in both light and medium deep trances. This same experiment has been done with other good subjects, with subjects who consistently developed only a light trance, and with those who consistently did not seem to be able to go further than the medium trance. In all such studies the findings were the same, the most important seeming to be the need of light and medium deep hypnotic subjects to retain at least some grasp upon external reality and to orient their trance state as a state apart from external reality—but with the orientation to such reality, however tenuous in character, sensed as available for immediate utilization by the subject.
Another item which Huxley discovered by his own efforts, and of which I was fully aware through work with other subjects, was that the phenomena of deep hypnosis can be developed in both the light and the medium trances. Huxley, having observed deep hypnosis, wondered about the possibility of developing hallucinatory phenomena in the light trance. He attempted this by the measure of enjoying his subjective state of physical comfort and adding to it an additional subjective quality—namely, a pleasant gustatory sensation. He found it quite easy to hallucinate vividly various taste sensations while wondering vaguely what I would think if I knew what he were doing. He was not aware of his increased swallowing when he did this. From gustatory sensations he branched out to olfactory hallucinations both pleasant and unpleasant. He did not realize the he betrayed this by the flaring of his nostrils. His thinking at the time, so he subsequently explained, was that he had the "feeling" that hallucinations of a completely "inner type of process"—that is, occurring within the body itself—would be easier than those in which the hallucination appeared to be external to the body. From olfactory hallucinations he progressed to kinesthetic, proprioceptive, and finally tactile sensations. In the kinesthetic hallucinatory sensation experience he hallucinated taking a long walk but remained constantly aware that I was present in some vaguely sensed room. Momentarily he would forget about me, and his hallucinated walking would become most vivid. He recognized this as an indication of the momentary development of a deeper trance state, which he felt obligated to remember to report to me during the discussion after his arousal. He was not aware of respiratory and pulse changes during the hallucinatory walk.
When he first tried for visual and auditory hallucinations, he found them much more difficult, and the effort tended to lighten and to abolish his trance state. He finally reasoned that if he could hallucinate rhythmical movements of his body, he could then "attach" an auditory hallucination to this hallucinated body sensation. The measure proved most successful, and again he caught himself wondering if I could hear the music. His breathing rate changed, and slight movements of his head were observed. From simple music he proceeded to a hallucination of opera singing and then finally a mumbling of words which eventually seemed to become my voice questioning him about Deep Reflection. I could not recognize what was occurring.
From this he proceeded to visual hallucinations. An attempt to open his eyes nearly aroused him from his trance state. Thereafter he kept his eyes closed for both light and medium deep trance activities. His first visual hallucination was a vivid flooding of his mind with an intense sense of pastel colors of changing hues and with a wavelike motion. He related this experience to his Deep Reflection experiences with me and also to his previous psychedelic experiences. He did not consider this experience sufficiently valid for his purposes of the moment because he felt that vivid memories were playing too large a part. Hence he deliberately decided to visualize a flower, but the thought occurred to him that even as a sense of movement played a part in auditory hallucinations, he might employ a similar measure to develop a visual hallucination. At the moment, so he recalled after arousing from the trance and while discussing his experience, he wondered if I had ever built up hallucinations in my subjects by combining various sensory fields of experience. I told him that that was a standard procedure for me.
He proceeded with this visual hallucination by "feeling" his head turn from side to side and up and down to follow a barely visible, questionably visible, rhythmically moving object. Very shortly the object became increasingly more visible until he saw a giant rose, possibly three feet in diameter. This he did not expect, and thus he was certain at once that it was not a vivified memory but a satisfactory hallucination. With this realization came the insight that he might very well add to the hallucination by adding olfactory hallucinations of an intense, "unroselike," sickeningly sweet odor. This effort was also most successful. After experimenting with various hallucinations, Huxley aroused from his trance and discussed extensively what he had accomplished. He was pleased to learn that his experimental findings without any coaching or suggestions from me were in good accord with planned experimental findings with other subjects.
This discussion raised the question of anaesthesia, amnesia, dissociation, depersonalization, regression, time distortion, hypermnesia (an item difficult to test with Huxley because of his phenomenal memory), and an exploration of past repressed events.
Of these Huxley found that anaesthesia, amnesia, time distortion, and hypermnesia were possible in the light trance. The other phenomena were conducive to the development of a deep trance with any earnest effort to achieve them.
The anaesthesia he developed in the light trance was most effective for selective parts of the body. When generalized anaesthesia from the neck down was attempted, Huxley found himself "slipping" into a deep trance. The amnesia, like the anaesthesia, was effective when selective in character. Any effort to have a total amnesia resulted in a progression toward a deep trance.
Time distortion was easily possible, and Huxley offered the statement that he was not certain but that he felt strongly that he had long employed time distortion in Deep Reflection, although his first formal introduction to the concept had been through me.
Hypermnesia, so difficult to test because of his extreme capacity to recall past events, was tested upon my suggestion by asking him in the light trance state to state promptly upon request on what page of various of his books certain paragraphs could be found. At the first request Huxley aroused from the light trance and explained, "Really now, Milton, I can't do that. I can with effort recite most of that book, but the page number for a paragraph is not exactly cricket." Nevertheless he went back into a light trance, the name of the volume was given, a few lines of a paragraph were read aloud to him, whereupon he was to give the page number on which it appeared. He succeeded in identifying better than 65 percent in an amazingly prompt fashion. Upon awakening from the light trance, he was instructed to remain in the state of conscious awareness and to execute the same task. To his immense astonishment he found that, while the page number "flashed" into his mind in the light trance state, in the waking state he had to follow a methodical procedure of completing the paragraph mentally, beginning the next, then turning back mentally to the preceding paragraph, and then "making a guess." When restricted to the same length of time he had employed in the light trance, he failed in each instance. When allowed to take whatever length of time he wished, he could reach an accuracy of about 40 per cent, but the books had to be ones more recently read than those used for the light trance state.
Huxley then proceeded to duplicate in the medium trance all that he had done in the light trance. He accomplished similar tasks much more easily but constantly experienced a feeling of "slipping" into a deeper trance.
Huxley and I discussed this hypnotic behavior of his at very considerable length, with Huxley making most of the notations since only he could record his own subjective experience in relation to the topics discussed. For this reason the discussion here is limited. We then turned to the question of deep hypnosis. Huxley developed easily a profound somnambulistic trance in which he was completely disoriented spontaneously for time and place. He was able to open his eyes but described his field of vision as being a "well of light" which included me, the chair in which I sat, himself, and his chair. He remarked at once upon the remarkable spontaneous restriction of his vision and disclosed an awareness that, for some reason unknown to him, he was obligated to "explain things" to me. Careful questioning disclosed him to have an amnesia about what had been done previously, nor did he have any awareness of our joint venture. His feeling that he must explain things became a casual willingness as soon as he verbalized it. One of his first statements was, "Really, you know, I can't understand my situation or why you are here, wherover that may be, but I must explain things to you." He was assured that I understood the situation and that I was interested in receiving any explanation he wished to give me and told that I might make requests of him. Most casually, indifferently he acceded, but it was obvious that he was enjoying a state of physical comfort in a contented, passive manner.
He answered questions simply and briefly, giving literally and precisely no more and no less than the literal significance of the question implied. In other words he showed the same precise literalness found in other subjects, perhaps more so because of his knowledge of semantics.
He was asked, "What is to my right?" His answer was simply, "I don't know." "Why?" "I haven't looked." "Will you do so?" "Yes." "Now!" "How far do you want me to look?" This was not an unexpected inquiry since I have encountered it innumerable times. Huxley was simply manifesting a characteristic phenomenon of the deep somnambulistic trance in which visual awareness is restricted in some inexplicable manner to those items pertinent to the trance situation. For each chair, couch, footstool I wished him to see specific instructions were required. As Huxley explained later, "I had to look around until gradually it [the specified object] slowly came into view, not all at once, but slowly, as if it were materializing. I really believe that I felt completely at ease without a trace of wonderment as I watched things materialize. I accepted everything as a matter of course. " Similar explanations have been received from hundreds of subjects. Yet experience has taught me the importance of my assumption of the role of a purely passive inquirer, one who asks a question solely to receive an answer regardless of its content. An intonation of interest in the meaning of the answer is likely to induce subjects to respond as if they had been given instructions concerning what answer to give. In therapeutic work I use intonations to influence more adequate personal responses by the patient.
With Huxley I tested this by enthusiastically asking, "What, tell me now, is that which is just about 15 feet in front of you?" The correct answer should have been, "A table." Instead, the answer received was "A table with a book and a vase on it." Both the book and the vase were on the table but on the far side of the table and hence more than 15 feet away. Later the same inquiry was made in a casual, indifferent fashion, "Tell me now, what is that just about 15 feet in front of you?" He replied, despite his previous answer, "A table." "Anything else?" "Yes." "What else?" "A book." [This was nearer to him than was the vase.] "Anything else?" "Yes." "Tell me now." "A vase." "Anything else?" "Yes." "Tell me now." "A spot." "Anything else?" "No."
This literalness and this peculiar restriction of awareness to those items of reality constituting the precise hypnotic situation is highly definitive of a satisfactory somnambulistic hypnotic trance. Along with the visual restriction there is also an auditory restriction of such character that sounds, even those originating between the operator and the subject, seem to be totally outside the hypnotic situation. Since there was no assistant present, this auditory restriction could not be tested. However, by means of a black thread not visible to the eye, a book was toppled from the table behind him against his back. Slowly, as if he had experienced an itch, Huxley raised his hand and scratched his shoulder. There was no startle reaction. This, too, is characteristic of the response made to many unexpected physical stimuli. They are interpreted in terms of past body experience. Quite frequently as a part of developing a deep somnambulistic trance subjects will concomitantly develop a selective general anaesthesia for physical stimuli not constituting a part of the hypnotic situation, physical stimuli in particular that do not permit interpretation in terms of past experience. This could not be tested in the situation with Huxley, since an assistant is necessary to make adequate tests without distorting the hypnotic situation. One illustrative measure I have used is to pass a threaded needle through the coat sleeve while positioning the arms, and then having an assistant saw back and forth on the thread from a place of concealment. Often a spontaneous anaesthesia would keep the subject unaware of the stimulus. Various simple measures are easily devised.
Huxley was then gently and indirectly awakened from the trance by the simple suggestion that he adjust himself in his chair to resume the exact physical and mental state he had had at the decision to discontinue until later any further experimetal study of Deep Reflection.
Huxley's response was an immediate arousal, and he promptly stated that he was all set to enter deep hypnosis. While this statement in itself indicated profound posthypnotic amnesia, delaying tactics were employed in the guise of discussion of what might possibly be done. In this way it became possible to mention various items of his deep trance behavior. Such mention evoked no memories, and Huxley's discussion of the paints raised showed no sophistication resulting from his deep trance behavior. He was as uninformed about the details of his deep trance behavior as he had been before the deep trance had been induced.
There followed more deep trances by Huxley in which, avoiding all personal significances, he was asked to develop partial, selective, and total posthypnotic amnesias (by partial is meant a part of the total experience, by selective amnesia is meant an amnesia for selected, perhaps interrelated items of experience), a recovery of the amnestic material, and a loss of the recovered material. He also developed catalepsy, tested by "arranging" him comfortably in a chair and then creating a situation constituting a direct command to rise from the chair ("take the book on that table there and place it on the desk over there and do it now"). By this means Huxley found himself inexplicably unable to arise from the chair and unable to understand why this was so. (The "comfortable arrangement" of his body had resulted in a positioning that would have to be corrected before he could arise from the chair, and no implied suggestions for such correction were to be found in the instructions given. Hence he sat helplessly, unable to stand and unable to recognize why. This same measure has been employed to demonstrate a saddle block anaesthesia before medical groups. The subject in the deep trance is carefully positioned, a casual conversation is then conducted, the subject is then placed in rapport with another subject, who is asked to exchange seats with the first subject. The second subject steps over only to stand helplessly while the first subject discovers that she is (1) unable to move, and (2) that shortly the loss of inability to stand results in a loss of orientation to the lower part of her body and a resulting total anaesthesia without anaesthesia having been mentioned even in the preliminary discussion of hypnosis. This unnoticed use of catalepsy not recognized by the subject is a most effective measure in deepening trance states.
Huxley was amazed at his loss of mobility and became even more so when he discovered a loss of orientation to the lower part of his body, and he was most astonished when I demonstrated for him the presence of a profound anaesthesia. He was much at a loss to understand the entire sequence of events. He did not relate the comfortable positioning of his body to the unobtrusively induced catalepsy with its consequent anaesthesia.
He was aroused from the trance state with persistent catalepsy, anaesthesia, and a total amnesia for all deep trance experiences. He spontaneously enlarged the instruction to include all trance experiences, possibly because he did not hear my instructions sufficiently clearly. Immediately he reoriented himself to the time at which we had been working with Deep Reflection. He was much at a loss to explain his immobile state, and he expressed curious wonderment about what he had done in the Deep Reflection state, from which he assumed he had just emerged, and what had led to such inexplicable manifestations for the first time in all of his experience. He became greatly interested, kept murmuring such comments as "most extraordinary" while he explored the lower part of his body with his hands and eyes. He noted that he could tell the position of his feet only with his eyes, that there was a profound immobility from the waist down, and he discovered, while attempting futilely because of the catalepsy to move his leg with his hands, that a state of anaesthesia existed. This he tested variously, asking me to furnish him with various things in order to make his test. For example he asked that ice be applied to his bare ankle by me, since he could not bend sufficiently to do so. Finally after much study he turned to me, remarking, "I say, you look cool and most comfortable, while I am in a most extraordinary predicament. I deduce that in some subtle way you have distracted and disturbed my sense of body awareness. I say, is this state anything like hypnosis?' '
Restoration of his memory delighted him, but he remained entirely at a loss concerning the genesis of his catalepsy and his anaesthesia. He realized, however, that some technique of communication had been employed to effect the results achieved, but he did not succeed in the association of the positioning of his body with the final results.
Further experimentation in the deep trance investigated visual, auditory, and other types of ideosensory hallucinations. One of the measures employed was to pantomime hearing a door open and then to appear to see someone entering the room, to arise in courtesy, and to indicate a chair, then to turn to Huxley to express the hope that he was comfortable. He replied that he was, and he expressed surprise at his wife's unexpected return, since he had expected her to be absent the entire day. (The chair I had indicated was one I knew his wife liked to occupy.) He conversed with her and apparently hallucinated replies. He was interrupted with the question of how he knew that it was his wife and not a hypnotic hallucination. He examined the question thoughtfully, then explained that I had not given him any suggestion to hallucinate his wife, that I had been as much surprised by her arrival as he had been, and that she was dressed as she had been just before her departure and not as I had seen her earlier. Hence it was reasonable to assume that she was a reality. After a brief, thoughtful pause he returned to his "conversation" with her, apparently continuing to hallucinate replies. Finally I attracted his attention and made a hand gesture suggestive of a disappearance toward the chair in which he "saw" his wife. To his complete astonishment he saw her slowly fade away. Then he turned to me and asked that I awaken him with a full memory of the experience. This I did, and he discussed the experience at some length, making many special notations in his notebook and elaborating them with the answers to questions he put to me. He was amazed to discover that when I asked him to awaken with a retention of the immobility and anaesthesia, he thought he had awakened but that the trance state had, to him, unrecognizably persisted.
He then urged further work on hypnotic hallucinatory experiences and a great variety (positive and negative visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinesthetic, temperature, hunger, satiety, fatigue, weakness, profound excited expectation, etc.) were explored. He proved to be most competent in all regards, and it was noted that his pulse rate would change as much as 20 points when he was asked to hallucinate the experience of mountain climbing in a profound state of weariness. He volunteered in his discussion of these varied experiences the information that while a negative hallucination could be achieved readily in a deep trance, it would be most difficult in a light or medium trance, because negative hallucinations were most destructive of reality values, even those of the hypnotic situation. That is, with induced negative hallucinations, he found that I was blurred in outline even though he could develop a deep trance with a negative hallucination inherent in that deep trance for all external reality except the realities of the hypnotic situation, which would remain clear and well defined unless suggestions to the contrary were offered. Subsequent work with other subjects confirmed this finding by Huxley. I had not previously explored this matter of negative hallucinations in light and medium trances.
At this point Huxley recalled his page number identification in the lighter trance states during the inquiry into hypermnesia, and he asked that he be subjected to similar tests in deep hypnosis. Together we searched the library shelves, finally selecting several books that Huxley was certain he must have read many years previously but which he had not touched for 20 or more years. (One, apparently, he had never read; the other five he had.)
In a deep trance, with his eyes closed, Huxley listened intently as I opened the book at random and read a half dozen lines from a selected paragraph. For some, he identified the page number almost at once, and then he would hallucinate the page and "read" it from the point where I had stopped. Additionally he identified the occasion on which he read the book. Two of the books he recalled consulting 15 years previously. Another two he found it difficult to give the correct page number, and then only approximating the page number. He could not hallucinate the printing and could only give little more than a summary of the thought content; but this in essence was correct. He could not identify when he had read them but was certain it was more than 25 years previously.
Huxley, in the post trance discussion was most amazed by his performance as a memory feat but commented upon the experience as primarily intellectual, with the recovered memories lacking in any emotional significances of belonging to him as a person. This led to a general discussion of hypnosis and Deep Reflection, with a general feeling of inadequacy on Huxley's part concerning proper conceptualization of his experiences for comparison of values. While Huxley was most delighted with his hypnotic experiences for their interest and the new understandings they offered him, he was also somewhat at a loss. He felt that as a purely personal experience he derived certain unidentifiable subjective values from Deep Reflection not actually obtainable from hypnosis, which offered only a wealth of new points of view. Deep Reflection, he declared, gave him certain inner enduring feelings that seemed to play some significant part in his pattern of living. During this discussion he suddenly asked if hypnosis could be employed to permit him to explore his psychedelic experiences. His request was met, but upon arousal from the trance he expressed the feeling that the hypnotic experience was quite different from a comparable "feeling through" by means of Deep Reflection. He explained that the hypnotic exploration did not give him an inner feeling—that is, a continuing subjective feeling—of just being in the midst of his psychedelic experience, that there was an ordered intellectual content paralleling the "feeling content," while Deep Reflection established a profound emotional background of a stable character upon which he could "consciously and effortlessly lay an intellectual display of ideas" to which the reader would make full response. This discussion Huxley brought to a close by the thoughtful comment that his brief intensive experience with hypnosis had not yet begun to digest and that he could not expect to offer an intelligent comment without much more thought.
He asked urgently that further deep hypnosis be done with him in which more complex phenomena be induced to permit him to explore himself more adequately as a person. After a rapid mental review of what had been done and what might yet be done I decided upon the desirability of a deep trance state with the possibility of a two stage dissociative regression—that is, of the procedure of regressing him by dissociating him from a selected recent area of his life experience so that he could view it as an onlooker from the orientation of another relatively recent area of life experience. The best way to do this, I felt, would be by a confusion technique (See "The confusion technique in hypnosis" in Section 2 of this volume). This decision to employ a confusion technique was influenced in large part by the author's awareness of Huxley's unlimited intellectual capacity and curiosity, which would aid greatly by leading Huxley to add to the confusion technique verbalizations other possible elaborate meanings and significances and associations, thereby actually supplementing in effect my own efforts. Unfortunately there was no tape recorder present to preserve the details of the actual suggestions, which were to the effect that Huxley go ever deeper and deeper into a trance until "the depth was a part and apart" from him, that before him would appear in "utter clarity, in living reality, in impossible actuality, that which once was, but which now in the depths of the trance, will, in bewildering confrontation challenge all of your memories and understandings." This was a purposely vague yet permissively comprehensive suggestion, and I simply relied upon Huxley's intelligence to elaborate it with an extensive meaningfulness for himself which I could not even attempt to guess. There were of course other suggestions, but they centered in effect upon the suggestion enclosed in the quotation above. What I had in mind was not a defined situation but a setting of the stage so that Huxley himself would be led to define the task. I did not even attempt to speculate upon what my suggestions might mean to Huxley.
It became obvious that Huxley was making an intensive hypnotic response during the prolonged, repetitious suggestions I was offering, when suddenly he raised his hand and said rather loudly and most urgently, "I say, Milton, do you mind hushing up there. This is most extraordinarily interesting down here, and your constant talking is frightfully distracting and annoying."
For more than two hours Huxley sat with his eyes open, gazing intently before him. The play of expression on his face was most rapid and bewildering. His heart rate and respiratory rate were observed to change suddenly and inexplicably and repeatedly at irregular intervals. Each time that the author attempted to speak to him, Huxley would raise his hand, perhaps lift his head, and speak as if the author were at some height above him, and frequently he would annoyedly request silence.
After well over two hours he suddenly looked up toward the ceiling and remarked with puzzled emphasis, "I say, Milton, this is an extraordinary contretemps. We don't know you. You do not belong here. You are sitting on the edge of a ravine watching both of us, and neither of us knows which one is talking to you; and we are in the vestibule looking at each other with most extraordinary interest. We know that you are someone who can determine our identity, and most extraordinarily we are both sure we know it and that the other is not really so, but merely a mental image of the past or of the future. But you must resolve it despite time and distances and even though we do not know you. I say, this is an extraordinarily fascinating predicament: Am I he or is he me? Come, Milton, whoever you are." There were other similar remarks of comparable meaning which could not be recorded, and Huxley's tone of voice suddenly became most urgent. The whole situation was most confusing to me, but temporal and other types of dissociation seemed to be definitely involved in the situation.
Wonderingly, but with outward calm, I undertook to arouse Huxley from the trance state by accepting the partial clues given and by saying in essence. "Wherover you are, whatever you are doing, listen closely to what is being said and slowly, gradually, comfortably begin to act upon it. Feel rested and comfortable, feel a need to establish an increasing contact with my voice, with me with the situation I represent, a need of returning to matters in hand with me not so long ago, in the not so long ago belonging to me, and leave behind but AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST practically everything of importance, KNOWING BUT NOT KNOWING that it is AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. And now, let us see, that's right, you are sitting there, wide awake, rested, comfortable, and ready for discussion of what little there is."
Huxley aroused, rubbed his eyes, and remarked, "I have a most extraordinary feeling that I have been in a profound trance, but it has been a most sterile experience. I recall you suggesting that I go deeper in a trance, and I felt myself to be most compliant, and though I feel much time has elapsed, I truly believe a state of Deep Reflection would have been more fruitful."
Since he did not specifically ask the time, a desultory conversation was conducted in which Huxley compared the definite but vague appreciation of external realities of the light trance with the more definitely decreased awareness of externalities in the medium trance, which is accompanied by a peculiar sense of minor comfort that those external realities can become secure actualities at any given moment.
He was then asked about realities in the deep trance from which he had just recently aroused. He replied thoughtfully that he could recall vaguely feeling that he was developing a deep trance, but no memories came to mind associated with it. After some discussion of hypnotic amnesia and the possibility that he might be manifesting such a phenomenon, he laughed with amusement and stated that such a topic would be most intriguing to discuss. After still further desultory conversation he was asked a propos of nothing, "In what vestibule would you place that chair?" (indicating a nearby armchair.) His reply was remarkable. "Really, Milton, that is a most extraordinary question. Frightfully so! It is quite without meaning, but that word 'vestibule' has a strange feeling of immense, anxious warmth about it. Most extraordinarily fascinating!" He lapsed into a puzzled thought for some minutes and finally stated that if there were any significance, it was undoubtedly some fleeting esoteric association. After further casual conversation I remarked, "As for the edge where I was sitting, I wonder how deep the ravine was." To this Huxley replied, "Really Milton, you can be most frightfully cryptic. Those words 'vestibule,' 'edge,' 'ravine' have an extraordinary effect upon me. It is most indescribable. Let me see if I can associate some meaning with them." For nearly 15 minutes Huxley struggled vainly to secure some meaningful associations with those words, now and then stating that my apparently purposive but unrevealing use of them constituted a full assurance that there was a meaningful significance which should be apparent to him. Finally he disclosed with elation, "I have it now. Most extraordinary how it escaped me. I'm fully aware that you had me in a trance, and unquestionably those words had something to do with the deep trance which seemed to be so sterile to me. I wonder if I can recover my associations. "
After about 20 minutes of silent, obviously intense thought on his part Huxley remarked, "If those words do have a significance, I can truly say that I have a most profound hypnotic amnesia. I have attempted Deep Reflection, but I have found my thoughts centering around my mescaline experiences. It was indeed difficult to tear myself away from those thoughts. I had a feeling that I was employing them to preserve my amnesia. Shall we go on for another half hour on other matters to see if there is any spontaneous recall in association with 'vestibule,' 'edge', and 'ravine?'
Various topics were discussed until finally Huxley said, "It is a most extraordinary feeling of meaningful warmth those words have for me, but I am utterly, I might say frightfully, helpless. I suppose I will have to depend upon you for something, whatever that may be. It's extraordinary, most extraordinary."
This comment I deliberately bypassed, but during the ensuing conversation Huxley was observed to have a most thoughtful, puzzled expression on his face, though he made no effort to press me for assistance. After some time I commented with quiet emphasis, "Well, perhaps now matters will become available. " From his lounging, comfortable position in his chair Huxley straightened up in a startled amazed fashion and then poured forth a torrent of words too rapid to record except for occasional notes.
In essence his account was that the word "available" had the effect of drawing back an amnestic curtain, laying bare a most astonishing subjective experience that had miraculously been "wiped out" by the words "leave behind" and had been recovered in toto by virtue of the cue words "become available."
He explained that he now realized that he had developed a "deep trance," a psychological state far different from his state of Deep Reflection, that in Deep Reflection there was an attenuated but unconcerned and unimportant awareness of external reality, a feeling of being in a known sensed state of subjective awareness, of a feeling of control and a desire to utilize capabilities and in which past memories, learnings, and experiences flowed freely and easily. Along with this flow there would be a continuing sense in the self that these memories, learnings, experiences, and understandings, however vivid, were no more than just such an orderly, meaningful alignment of psychological experiences out of which to form a foundation for a profound, pleasing, subjective, emotional state from which would flow comprehensive understandings to be utilized immediately and with little conscious effort.
The deep trance state, he asserted, he now knew to be another and entirely different category of experience. External reality could enter, but it acquired a new kind of subjective reality, a special reality of a new and different significance entirely. For example, while I had been included in part in his deep trance state, it was not as a specific person with a specific identity. Instead I was known only as someone whom he (Huxley) knew in some vague and unimportant and completely unidentified relationship.
Aside from my "reality" there existed the type of reality that one encounters in vivid dreams, a reality that one does not question. Instead one accepts such reality completely without intellectual questioning, and there are no conflicting contrasts nor judgmental comparisons nor contradictions, so that whatever is subjectively experienced is unquestioningly accepted as both subjectively and objectively genuine and in keeping with all else.
In his deep trance Huxley found himself in a deep, wide ravine, high up on the steep side of which, on the very edge, I sat, identifiable only by name and as annoyingly verbose. Before him in a wide expanse of soft, dry sand was a nude infant lying on its stomach. Acceptingly, unquestioning of its actuality, Huxley gazed at the infant, vastly curious about its behavior, vastly intent on trying to understand its flailing movements with its hands and the creeping movements of its legs. To his amazement he felt himself experiencing a vague, curious sense of wonderment as if he himself were the infant and looking at the soft sand and trying to understand what it was.
As he watched, he became annoyed with me since I was apparently trying to talk to him, and he experienced a wave of impatience and requested that I be silent. He turned back and noted that the infant was growing before his eyes, was creeping, sitting, standing, toddling, walking, playing, talking. In utter fascination he watched this growing child, sensed its subjective experiences of learning, of wanting, of feeling. He followed it in distorted time through a multitude of experiences as it passed from infancy to childhood to schooldays to early youth to teenage. He watched the child's physical development, sensed its physical and subjective mental experiences, sympathized with it, empathized with it, rejoiced with it, thought and wondered and learned with it. He felt as one with it, as if it were he himself, and he continued to watch it until finally he realized that he had watched that infant grow to the maturity of 23 years. He stepped closer to see what the young man was looking at, and suddenly realized that the young man was Aldous Huxley himself, and that this Aldous Huxley was looking at another Aldous Huxley, obviously in his early 50's, just across the vestibule in which they both were standing; and that he, aged 52, was looking at himself, Aldous, aged 23. Then Aldous aged 23 and Aldous aged 52 apparently realized simultaneously that they were looking at each other, and the curious questions at once arose in the mind of each of them. For one the question was, "Is that my idea of what I'll be like when I am 52?" and, "Is that really the way I appeared when I was 23?" Each was aware of the question in the other's mind. Each found the question of "extraordinarily fascinating interest," and each tried to determine which was the "actual reality" and which was the "mere subjective experience outwardly projected in hallucinatory form."
To each the past 23 years was an open book, all memories and events were clear, and they recognized that they shared those memories in common, and to each only wondering speculation offered a possible explanation of any of the years between 23 and 52.
They looked across the vestibule (this "vestibule" was not defined) and up at the edge of the ravine where I was sitting. Both knew that that person sitting there had some undefined significance, was named Milton, and could be spoken to by both. The thought came to both, could he hear both of them, but the test failed because they found that they spoke simultaneously, nor could they speak separately.
Slowly, thoughtfully, they studied each other. One had to be real. One had to be a memory image or a projection of a self image. Should not Aldous aged 52 have all the memories of the years from 23 to 52? But if he did, how could he then see Aldous aged 23 without the shadings and colorations of the years that had passed since that youthful age? If he were to view Aldous aged 23 clearly, he would have to blot out all subsequent memories in order to see that youthful Aldous clearly and as he then was. But if he were actually Aldous aged 23, why could he not speculatively fabricate memories for the years between 23 and 52 instead of merely seeing Aldous as 52 and nothing mole? What manner of psychological blocking could exist to effect this peculiar state of affairs? Each found himself fully cognizant of the thinking and reasoning of the "other." Each doubted "the reality of the other," and each found reasonable explanations for such contrasting subjective experiences. The questions arose repeatedly, by what measure could the truth be established, and how did that unidentifiable person possessing only a name sitting on the edge of a ravine on the other side of the vestibule fit into the total situation? Could that vague person have an answer? Why not call to him and see?
With much pleasure and interest Huxley detailed his total subjective experience, speculating upon the years of time distortion experienced and the memory blockages creating the insoluble problem of actual identity.
Finally, experimentally, the author remarked casually, "Of course, all that could be left behind to become AVAlLABLE at some later time."
Immediately there occurred a reestablishment of the original posthypnotic amnesia. Efforts were made to disrupt this reinduced hypnotic amnesia by veiled remarks, by frank, open statements, by a narration of what had occurred. Huxley found my narrative statements about an infant on the sand, a deep ravine, a vestibule "curiously interesting," simply cryptic remarks for which Huxley judged I had a purpose. But they were not evocative of anything more. Each statement I made was in itself actually uninformative and intended only to arouse associations. Yet no results were forthcoming until again the word "AVAlLABLE" resulted in the same effect as previously. The whole account was related by Huxley a second time but without his realization that he was repeating his account. Appropriate suggestions when he had finished his second narration resulted in a full recollection of his first account. His reaction, after his immediate astonishment, was to compare the two accounts item by item. Their identity amazed him, and he noted only minor changes in the order of narration and the choice of words.
Again, as before, a posthypnotic amnesia was induced, and a third recollection was then elicited, followed by an induced realization by Huxley that this was his third recollection.
Extensive, detailed notations were made of the whole sequence of events, and comparisons were made of the individual notations, with interspersed comments regarding significances. The many items were systematically discussed for their meanings, and brief trances were induced to vivify various items. However, only a relatively few notations were made by me of the content of Huxley's experience, since he would properly be the one to develop them fully. My notations concerned primarily the sequence of events and a fairly good summary of the total development.
This discussion was continued until preparations for scheduled activities for that evening intervened, but not before an agreement on a subsequent preparation of the material for publication. Huxley planned to use both Deep Reflection and additional self induced trances to aid in writing the article, but the unfortunate holocaust precluded this.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
It is unfortunate that the above account is only a fragment of an extensive inquiry into the nature of various states of consciousness. Huxley's state of Deep Reflection did not appear to be hypnotic in character. Instead it seemed to be a state of utterly intense concentration with much dissociation from external realities but with a full capacity to respond with varying degrees of readiness to externalities. It was entirely a personal experience serving apparently as an unrecognized foundation for conscious work activity enabling him to utilize freely all that had passed through his mind in Deep Reflection.
His hypnotic behavior was in full accord with hypnotic behavior elicited from other subjects. He was capable of all the phenomena of the deep trance and could respond readily to posthypnotic suggestions and to exceedingly minimal cues. He was emphatic in declaring that the hypnotic state was quite different from the Deep Reflection state.
While some comparison may be made with dream activity, and certainly the ready inclusion of the "vestibule" and the "ravine" in the same subjective situation is suggestive of dreamlike activity, such peculiar inclusions are somewhat frequently found as a spontaneous development of profound hypnotic ideosensory activity in highly intellectual subjects. His somnambulistic behavior, his open eyes, his responsiveness to me, his extensive posthypnotic behavior all indicate that hypnosis was unquestionably definitive of the total situation in that specific situation.
Huxley's remarkable development of a dissociated state, even bearing in mind his original request for a permissive technique, to view hypnotically his own growth and development in distorted time relationships, while indicative of Huxley's all encompassing intellectual curiosity, is suggestive of most interesting and informative research possibilities. Postexperimental questioning disclosed that Huxley had no conscious thoughts or plans for review of his life experiences, nor did he at the time of the trance induction make any such interpretation of the suggestions given him. This was verified by a trance induction and making this special inquiry. His explanation was that when he felt himself "deep in the trance," he then began to search for something to do, and "suddenly there I found myself—most extraordinary."
While this experience with Huxley was most notable, it was not my first encounter with such developments in the regression of highly intelligent subjects. One such experimental subject asked that he be hypnotized and informed when in the trance that he was to develop a profoundly interesting type of regression. This was primarily to be done for his own interest while he was waiting for me to complete some work. His request was met, and he was left to his own devices while sitting in a comfortable chair on the other side of the laboratory. About two hours later he requested that I awaken him. He gave an account of suddenly finding himself on an unfamiliar hillside, and looking around he saw a small boy whom he irnmediately "knew" was six years old. Curious about this conviction of a strange little boy, he walked over to the child, only to discover that that child was himself. He immediately recognized the hillside and set about trying to discover how he could be himself at 26 years of age watching himself at the age of six years. He soon learned that he could not only see, hear, and feel his child self, but that he knew the innermost thoughts and feelings. At the moment of realizing this, he felt the child's feeling of hunger and his wish for "brown cookies." This brought a flood of memories to his 26 year old self, but he noticed that the boy's thoughts were still centering on cookies and that the boy remained totally unaware of him. He was an invisible man, in some way regressed in time so that he could see and sense completely his childhood self. My subject reported that he "lived" with that boy for years, watched his successes and his failures, knew all of his innermost life, wondered about the next day's events with the child, and like the child he found to his amazement that even though he was 26 years old, a total amnesia existed for all events subsequent to the child's immediate age at the moment, that he could not foresee the future any more than could the child. He went to school with the child, vacationed with him, always watching the continuing physical growth and development. As each new day arrived, he found that he had a wealth of associations about the actual happenings of the past up to the immediate moment of life for the child self.
He went through grade school, high school, and then through a long process of deciding whether or not to go to college and what course of studies he should follow. He suffered the same agonies of indecision that his then self did. He felt his other self's elation and relief when the decision was finally reached, and his own feeling of elation and relief was identical with that of his other self.
My subject explained that the experience was literally a moment by moment reliving of his life with only the same awareness he had then and that the highly limited restricted awareness of himself at 26 was that of being an invisible man watching his own growth and development from childhood on, with no more knowledge of the child's future than the child possessed.
He had enjoyed each completed event with a vast and vivid panorama of the past memories as each event reached completion. At the point of entrance to college the experience terminated. He then realized that he was in a deep trance and that he wanted to awaken and to take with him into conscious awareness the memory of what he had been subjectively experiencing.
This same type of experience has been encountered with other experimental subjects, both male and female, but each account varies in the manner in which the experience is achieved. For example a girl who had identical twin sisters three years younger than herself found herself to be "a pair of identical twins growing up together but always knowing everything about the other." In her account there was nothing about her actual twin sisters; all such memories and associations were excluded.
Another subject, highly inclined mechanically, constructed a robot which he endowed with life only to discover that it was his own life with which he endowed it. He then watched that robot throughout many years of experiential events and learnings, always himself achieving them also because he had an amnesia for his past.
Repeated efforts to set this up as an orderly experiment have to date failed.
Usually the subjects object or refuse for some not too comprehensible a reason. In all of my experience with this kind of development in hypnotic trances this type of "reliving" of one's life has always been a spontaneous occurrence with highly intelligent, well adjusted experimental subjects.
Huxley's experience was the one most adequately recorded, and it is most unfortunate that the greater number of details, having been left with him, were destroyed before he had the opportunity to write them up in full. Huxley's remarkable memory, his capacity to use Deep Reflection, and his ability to develop a deep hypnotic state to achieve specific purposes and to arouse himself at will with full conscious awareness of what he had accomplished (Huxley required very little instruction the next day to become skilled in autohypnosis) augured exceedingly well for a most informative study. Unfortunately the destruction of both notebooks precluded him from any effort to reconstruct them from memory, because my notebook contained so many notations of items of procedure and observation for which he had no memories and which were vital to any satisfactory elaboration. However, it is hoped that the report given here may serve, despite its deficiencies, as an initial pilot study for the development of a more adequate and comprehensive study of various states of consciousness.
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