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As the state of the individual in analysis resembles in important respects that of the subject in hypnosis it is possible that the factor of hypersuggestibility is present in both. Experiments were carried out by giving suggestions to dream to the following groups of patients: (1) six patients who were undergoing analysis. Care was taken in every instance to minimize any deleterious effect which the suggestions may have had on the course of the analysis. (2) Five of these six patients were used as a control. Instead of the patients being given a dream suggestion, a note was made of any particular suggestion which might have been chosen. Any dream the patient related the next day was studied for possible relationships to the 'pretend' suggestion. (3) A hypnotic control—one patient was given dream suggestions under hypnosis. (4) A normal control group—five individuals not under treatment were given suggestions to dream during the course of social contacts. With regard to the first three groups the selection of the dream suggestion was determined as far as possible by the central conflict situation of any one particular analytic session.
The results indicate that the analytic patients who were given dream suggestions showed certain alterations in behaviour analogous to those shown by hypnotic subjects. The dream suggestions were carried out with the compulsive behaviour characteristic of subjects executing post-hypnotic commands. The hypothesis is advanced that increasing suggestibility is one of the properties of states of induced regression, both hypnosis and analytic transference being included in this designation. There is nothing specific about the hypnotic state; hypnotic phenomena result from the psychological interaction between subject and hypnotist.