“I tried another nerve doctor. After a while it was the same old story. I then tried chiropractice. After three months’ trial I found out that I had to give it up, because the manipulator aggravated my condition. Towards the end I felt such pains in my back and spine that I was compelled to lie in bed for a week before I could recover enough strength to sit up. I then tried Osteopathy. I felt no better, so I had to abandon that. “In search for health I could not stop here, so I went to another nerve specialist who after examination claimed to have discovered something different from any other physician. He discovered I had a pair of tonsils in my mouth which did not look well to him. He ordered them removed; that meant an operation under an anesthetic. Can you imagine my feeling when he told me the news? I had a terrible time in making up my mind what to do. Bad as I felt I made up my mind that I might as well die under ether as in any other way. I consented to the operation. It is needless to go into details here of what took place after the operation. Words cannot express it. All the tortures of hell would have been paradise towards what I went through after this operation. “I have been going since from physician to physician, each one claiming that I haven’t been to the right one, and that he was the proper physician who understood my case and could cure me. No one has been able to effect a cure.” As an example of the patient’s state of extreme fear the following instance may be given. One day he came to me, a picture of misery and depression. He told me he had suffered agonies for the last couple of days, on account of an “ingrowing hair.” It turned out that the patient overheard a conversation among his gossips, that some one died of an “ingrowing hair.” This news strongly impressed him, and aroused his fear instinct, since he discovered an “ingrowing hair” on his throat. I found his throat was wrapped around with cotton, and covered with adhesive plaster. On unwrapping the mess I found just an ordinary little pimple. I threw away the wrappings, and gave the patient a scolding, and ridiculed him for his silliness. He felt as he said in “paradise.” A competent observer will find this trait of trivial fears, characteristic, in various degrees, of every psychopathic patient. By a series of trance states the patient was freed from his psycholeptic fear attacks; he is now in good health, and attending successfully to his business. CHAPTER XXI FEAR TRANCE APPARITIONS The following study of a psychopathic case brings out the character of the fear trance dream.