Mass hysteria and collective delusions are two forms of mass
psychological illness that are not well understood even today.
They have amazed the entire society and continue to emerge
even in the modern world. Although the term "mass hysteria"
is often used as a general term to describe both mass hysteria
and collective delusions, the two phenomena are quite different
in their presentation. Collective delusions are not associated
with physical illness. Most often they are associated with the
fear that something will attack the community, for example,
a crazy man with a razor. The idea of an imaginary threat, a
delusion, spreads throughout the community as the panic rises.
On the other hand, mass hysteria is a form of conversion
disorder where deep-seated anxiety turns into physical
symptoms.
These symptoms fall into two broad categories: mass anxiety
hysteria and mass motor hysteria. Mass anxiety hysteria is
characterized by symptoms such as fainting, vomiting, and
feelings of fear or paranoia. Symptoms last only a couple of
hours, and outbreaks themselves last a maximum of several
weeks. Mass motor hysteria is characterized by bizarre body
movements and strange behaviors. These outbreaks can last for
more than a year, and possibly longer. They were more common
in the premodern world and in modern third world countries,
where belief in the supernatural was more prevalent and the
threat of demonic possession was seen as a very real and present
danger. One example of such an outbreak in the modern world
was the Tanganyika epidemic of laughter.
Perhaps the most bizarre and notorious outbreaks of mass
hysteria occurred the same thing from time to time in the Middle
Ages. They featured crowds of people dancing frantically through
the streets of medieval cities, often to the point of dying of
starvation. Today, in my opinion, the main form of hysteria is
the belief in the so-called progress. When billions of people
using standards of 30-40 many years ago are convinced that they
are changing the world. A prime example of modern history is the
use of social media and smartphones. Various stupid challenges
or support for tags #Metoo #BlackLivesMetters and so on.
Influencing, as already mentioned in the previous notes, on the
psyche and behavior. Which thus fully meets the criteria of mass
hysteria. All the so-called twitter and facebook storms are a
completely narrow-minded group of people suffering from a
common obsession. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry cannot
resist the frenzy of marketing. Therefore, we will still see the
terrible negative mass consequences of this rather old
phenomenon.
