History Main / SharedMassHallucination

* In the old ''Comicbook/{{X-Factor}}'' comic, they blamed ''ComicBook/Inferno'' on mass hallucinations caused by A.I.M. satellites. At least it's plausible given the weird tech that villain groups have.

* In the old ''Comicbook/{{X-Factor}}'' comic, they blamed Inferno on mass hallucinations caused by A.I.M. satellites. At least it's plausible given the weird tech that villain groups have.

* A ''{{Pokemon}}'' episode had the police attibuting reports of an Aerodactyl attack to mass ''dreams''.

* EPA official Walter Peck's explanation for the ghosts in ''{{Ghostbusters}}'':

* In ''{{CSI}}'', Grissom refers to the alien conspiracy theorist club to having a shared mass hallucination. Of course, they saw this as a part of the evil police force working for the reptilians trying to put them down.

* In GirlGenius, it really was a [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070129 shared mass hallucination]]. It was caused through a combination of a gas inducing a hypnotic hallucinatory state and someone yelling about the Heterodynes being back.

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* The ending of ''{{Literature/Contact}}'' has the folks on Earth writing off the experience of the protagonists as one big MindScrew. In the [[{{Film/Contact}} film]], there is only a single person sent through the machine, so it's written off as either a hallucination or something she made up.

* In a SuzumiyaHaruhi short story, ''Snow Mountain Syndrome'', the plot of the entire story (almost a day long) was explained to the titular character as shared '''Highway Hypnosis'''. From wandering in a blizzard.

* In the ''LooneyTunes'' short "Punch Trunk" people are thrown into a panic at sightings of a six-inch-tall elephant. An expert comes on television to dismiss it as a mass hallucination caused by the stress of modern life - only to be undercut by the elephant wandering into the studio.

* After the resurrection of Jesus, Roman troops were coerced into claiming that Jesus' disciples overcame them and stole the body, despite them all having good alibis. After reports of Jesus walking and talking for a full forty days after his alleged demise, the Romans claimed that he was OnlyMostlyDead despite three days being far more than any human could survive without treatment after flagellation alone, much less [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill flagellation, crucifixion, and a spear through the heart.]] Somewhat subverted in that Christianity eventually became the official state religion of the Roman Empire.
** Ofcourse seeing how people who knew Jesus well took long time to even recognise that this person even looked like their spiritual leader, it can be questioned if he was indeed the same person before and after the cruxifiction.

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* The ''Film/MenInBlack'' do this after using their [[LaserGuidedAmnesia neuralyzers]], which make the targets extremely suceptible to suggestions, allowing the MenInBlack to craft a plausible suggestion that everybody "saw."

* The ''Film/MenInBlack'' do this after using their [[LaserGuidedAmnesia neuralyzers]].

** Played even more straight today, as some unbelievers actually hold to the theory that the sightings of Jesus after His crucifixion were some form of mass hallucination or hypnosis. They never explain how this could happen, though.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' and ''{{Torchwood}}''. Thank God for Martha.

** Wait... what?!
*** I...
**** Wait, what?!
** True. One charge commonly brought against witches during the European witch trial hysteria was stealing men's sexual organs.
*** Which you would think would be either really easy or really difficult to prove.
----> She stole my penis. *loses shorts* [[MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail I got better.]]
*** Relax, it's a culture-bound phenomenon. Even if you're one of the rare susceptible ethnicities, knowing is more than half the battle, since low education and high superstition underlies the syndrome.
**** You do realize you're saying this on the Internet, right?

* Used to explain a [[OrIsIt false]] Angel sighting in GlobalFrequency.

* In ''ProfessorLayton and the Diabolical Box'', [[spoiler:this actually happens, and it's the explanation for the entire second half of the game. The game uses the "expectations" justification by having photos of the town set up at the train station. Since all the main characters get to the town by way of the train, they all see the photos so they all see the same thing. Presumably any varying details aren't worth talking about.]]

* The MenInBlack do this after using their [[LaserGuidedAmnesia neuralyzers]].

* ''DoctorWho'' and ''{{Torchwood}}''. Thank God for Martha.
** It seems to be implied in ''DoctorWho'' that it isn't so much a case of outright disbelief so much as humans responding to the threat of something very scary and out of their control with the rather useless tactic of pretending it didn't happen. Evidence that this is the case was provided in the 2007 Christmas episode, where the Doctor found London to be almost completely deserted due to the usual inhabitants having realised that Christmas in London = dangerous weird stuff and cleared off.

* ''Graveyard School'' namedrops this in one book, then immediately has it subverted. It's never made quite clear ''how'' TheMasquerade remained intact after [[spoiler:a supposedly hallucinated dinosaur ate a teacher.
* 'The Futurological Congress' describes drugs so effective at masking reality that the subject cannot tell which of his perceptions have been altered, and which have not. Everyone is under the influence, but the protagonist takes a drug that cancels the effect.]]

* In the ''[[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Hitchhiker's]]'' novel ''So Long and Thanks for All the Fish'', soon after Arthur Dent lands to his shock on Earth, he is told that the Vogons' apparent destruction of the planet (the very premise of the series) was a CIA-induced mass hallucination. In fact, [[spoiler: Dent has landed on a parallel Earth, not the one he left]].

* The ending of ''{{Contact}}'' has the folks on Earth writing off the experience of the protagonists as one big MindScrew. Especially annoying in the original book, where it's five highly intelligent people who share over a day's experiences in the Machine.
** In the film, it just has the audience screaming [[FridgeLogic why not just another astronaut through the machine!?]] It's still there, right? They just need to refuel the boosters and bam.

* In ''ProfessorLayton and the Diabolical Box'', [[spoiler:this actually happens, and it's the explanation for the entire second half of the game]].

* ''Graveyard School'' namedrops this in one book, then immediately has it subverted. It's never made quite clear ''how'' TheMasquerade remained intact after [[spoiler:a supposedly hallucinated dinosaur ate a teacher.]]

* After the resurrection of Jesus, Roman troops were coerced into claiming that Jesus' disciples overcame them and stole the body, despite them all having good alibis. After reports of Jesus walking and talking for a full forty days after his alleged demise, the Romans claimed that he was OnlyMostlyDead despite three days being far more than any human could survive without treatment after flagellation alone, much less [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill flagellation, crucifixion, and a spear through the heart.]] Somewhat subverted in that Christianity eventually became the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

* One short story by RobertSheckley saw the protagonists land on a deserted planet and see mass hallucinations of the monsters they invented in their childhood. It turned out, the planet's atmosphere contained a hallucinogen that forced humans to relive their childhood fears, which became really dangerous if YourMindMakesItReal.

* ''GalaxyRailways'' episode 12. An old woman is confused and thinks Makoto is her son... until [[spoiler:she and her fields disappear, leaving behind a gravestone--seems she was a ghost.]] One character suggests that maybe it really was [[spoiler:a ghost]], or maybe it was a hallucination. Keep in mind that multiple people saw it and were able to talk to her and get knowledge they didn't already have, such as [[spoiler:her name, which matched the name on the gravestone.]]