CHAPTER XI THE CONDITIONS AND LAWS OF SUGGESTION In order to bring to the fore subconscious activities with their reflex, automatic psycho-motor reactions by removal of the upper consciousness I have found requisite, in my investigations, the following conditions: _Normal Suggestibility,--Suggestibility in the Normal, Waking State._ (1) Fixation of the Attention. (2) Distraction of the Attention. (3) Monotony. (4) Limitation of Voluntary Activity. (5) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness. (6) Inhibition. (7) Immediate Execution of the Suggestion. _Abnormal Suggestibility,--Suggestibility in Hypnotic and Trance States_: (1) Fixation of the Attention. (2) Monotony. (3) Limitation of Voluntary Activity. (4) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness. (5) Inhibition. The nature of abnormal suggestibility, the result of my investigations, is a disaggregation of consciousness, a cleavage of the mind, a cleft that may become ever deeper and wider, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling guardian-consciousness from the automatic, reflex, subconscious consciousness.... Normal suggestibility is of like nature,--it is a cleft in the mind. Only here the cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as in hypnosis or in the other subconscious trance states. The split is but momentary. The mental cleavage, or the psycho-physiological disaggregation of the superior from the inferior centers with their concomitant psychic activities is evanescent, fleeting, often disappearing at the moment of its appearance. The following laws of suggestibility were formulated by me: I. _Normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion and inversely as direct suggestion._ II. _Abnormal suggestibility varies as direct suggestion and inversely as indirect suggestion._ A comparison of the conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility is valuable, since it reveals the nature of suggestibility, and discloses its fundamental law. An examination of the two sets of conditions shows that in abnormal suggestibility two conditions, distraction of attention and immediate execution are absent, otherwise the conditions are the same. This sameness of conditions clearly indicates the fact that both normal and abnormal suggestibility flow from some one common source, that they are of like nature, and due to similar causes. Now a previous study led us to the conclusion that the nature of abnormal suggestibility is a disaggregation of consciousness, a slit produced in the mind, a crack that may become wider and deeper, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling consciousness from the reflex consciousness. Normal suggestibility is of a like nature. It is a cleft in the mind. The cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as it is in hypnosis, or in the state of abnormal suggestibility. The split is but momentary, disappearing almost at the very moment of its appearance.