An interesting side light falls on this relation between the mind and
the pictured scenes, if we turn to a mental process which is quite
nearly related to those which we have considered, namely, suggestion. It
is similar in that a suggested idea which awakes in our consciousness is
built up from the same material as the memory ideas or the imaginative
ideas. The play of associations controls the suggestions, as it does the
reminiscences and fancies. Yet in an essential point it is quite
different. All the other associative ideas find merely their starting
point in those outer impressions. We see a landscape on the stage or on
the screen or in life and this visual perception is the cue which stirs
up in our memory or imagination any fitting ideas. The choice of them,
however, is completely controlled by our own interest and attitude and
by our previous experiences. Those memories and fancies are therefore
felt as our subjective supplements. We do not believe in their objective
reality. A suggestion, on the other hand, is forced on us. The outer
perception is not only a starting point but a controlling influence. The
associated idea is not felt as our creation but as something to which we
have to submit. The extreme case is, of course, that of the hypnotizer
whose word awakens in the mind of the hypnotized person ideas which he
cannot resist. He must accept them as real, he must believe that the
dreary room is a beautiful garden in which he picks flowers.

The spellbound audience in a theater or in a picture house is certainly
in a state of heightened suggestibility and is ready to receive
suggestions. One great and fundamental suggestion is working in both
cases, inasmuch as the drama as well as the photoplay suggests to the
mind of the spectator that this is more than mere play, that it is life
which we witness. But if we go further and ask for the application of
suggestions in the detailed action, we cannot overlook the fact that the
theater is extremely limited in its means. A series of events on the