“The relation to each other of waking, sleep, hypnosis and the hypnoidal state, may be represented in a diagram in which the primitive hypnoidal state is represented as a nucleus from which the segments of the larger circle, waking, sleep and hypnosis, have arisen. The transition from one of these segments to another can take place through the central territory with which they each have relations. (See diagram on page 110.) “The spontaneous occurrence of the hypnoidal state in man is as a rule merely a transitory stage in the alternation of waking and sleep. From the point of view of evolution it is a vestige derived from a long race of ancestors, a rudimentary function which has been superseded by the more highly specialized rest-state, sleep. But it can be artificially induced and maintained by the methods which have been described, and it can be utilized with effect in the treatment of psychopathic disorders. [Illustration: DIAGRAM III] “The therapeutic use of the hypnoidal state is a somewhat complex subject, for hypnoidization may be employed as an adjunct to other methods or as a curative measure in itself. “The full record of hypnoidization is in the account of the well known Hanna case, given in his ‘Multiple Personality.’ This was a case of total amnesia, following a severe injury to the head. The patient, a cultured clergyman, was reduced to the mental condition of a new-born child. All his former acquisitions and memories had entirely disappeared, and he had to start learning everything again from the beginning. When he (the patient) was put into the hypnoidal state various fragmentary experiences of his past life emerged into consciousness, demonstrating to his observers that his lost memories were merely dissociated and not destroyed. This same method (hypnoidization) was made use of in other cases of amnesia, and it was found to be of great assistance in effecting the resurrection of dissociated mental material and its reintegration in consciousness. “With the progress of his studies in Psychopathology, the reintegration of consciousness became, for Sidis, the aim of all therapeutic endeavor in connection with maladies that are associated with, or produced by, mental dissociation. The recurrent psycho-motor states of functional psychosis, insistent ideas, imperative concepts, persistent, or periodically appearing emotional states, so-called psychic epilepsy, and other states of dissociation all lent themselves to treatment by hypnoidization. By its means the dissociated complexes could be recovered, the psychogenesis of the malady could be traced, a synthesis of consciousness effected, and the patient thereby cured. As his confidence in his method increased, Sidis gradually extended its employment, until at the present time he seems to use it in every kind of disorder in which psychotherapy is indicated.