Hypnoid state

The hypnoid state is a theory of the origins of hysteria published jointly by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud in their Preliminary communication of 1893, subsequently reprinted as the first chapter of Studies on Hysteria (1895).

For Breuer and Freud, who characterised the hypnoid state as a state of absence of mind/consciousness produced by intense daydreams of a mournful or sexual nature, "the existence of hypnoid states forms the foundation and condition of hysteria".