Mass Hysteria & Shared Delusions

Mass hysteria, collective delusions or just people freaking out - whatever you call it, you can't deny that history is filled with reports of people losing it en masse. We'll look at nuns that bite and meow, fainting and twitching schoolchildren, uncontrollable dancing, large scale paranoia, mysterious attacks on windshields and a worldwide epidemic of creepy clown sightings.

SECTIONS

02:14 - Hysteria: Not Just a "Female Problem"
03:41 - Nunsense: Mass Hysteria in Convents - Biting Nuns, Meowing Nuns
05:59 - The Devils of Loudon
09:08 - School Daze: Seizures in Switzerland & Canada, the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic, Louisiana; Blackburn, England; Twitching in Vinton, Virginia; Portugal's Strawberries with Sugar Outbreak
14:10 - More School Stuff, Conversion Disorder, Somatic Countertransference, Hysterical Contagion
16:01 - Hysterical Contagion: The 1962 June Bug Epidemic
17:11 - Folie à Deux/Trois/Famille/Plusieurs, Folie Imposée/Simultanée, Physical Repercussions of Hysteria
19:27 - Cut a Rug: The Dancing Plague of 1518 & Other Dancing Outbreaks
23:50 - Possible Causes of Uncontrolled Dancing
24:22 - Crowd Control: The Milan Poisoning Scare
28:12 - The Irish Fright
31:04 - Collective Delusions: The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic
33:54 - Mass Hysteria: The Hollinwell Incident
35:49 - Collective Delusion Meets Social Media: The 2016 Clown Sightings