This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In 1889, Sigmund Freud was still relatively new in his field. He's what we'd call a pre-Froydian Freud. He was 33 years old and he was working as an assistant to another psychiatrist and he hadn't had any of his big ideas yet.

But he was about to.

That's producer Anne Heperman.

Freud was mostly practicing hypnosis at the time.

It was cutting edge, though still kind of a controversial treatment.

So one day Freud gets a new patient.

Very wealthy woman, Fannie Moses.

That's Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University

and a Freud historian.

Freud's new patient was struggling from all kinds of ailments, hysteria, sleeplessness, pain, and

odd ticks.

Fannie Mozer had lots of doctors.

So Fannie Mozer would come in and Freud would have her lay down on the couch, just like he did with his other patients.

Your eyelids are getting heavy.

Freud wasn't the only person using a couch during hypnosis, but he particularly needed it to get people

into a more relaxed state.

He heavier and heavier.

You're breathing deeper and deeper.

But he wasn't a very good hypnotist.

He was kind of a clumsy hypnotist.

So once Moser was on the couch...

...