History Main / SharedMassHallucination

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

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' has this occur in the episode ''Stakeout'' after Anne and Hop-Pop share each other's coffee-esc drinks and have a biochemical reaction. Pure RuleOfFunny as to them seeing the exact same trippy things as the other.

* EPA official Walter Peck's explanation for the ghosts in ''Film/{{Ghostbusters|1984}}'':

* In the old ''ComicBook/XFactor'' 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.

* The mages of ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' use something like this maintain their {{Masquerade}}. A villain attempting to reveal said Masquerade used just the opposite: remove people's logical reaction to disbelieve the mystic, then spread over the planet to make sure no skeptic is left unbelieving (magically powered suggestion on a massive scale).

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* One story says that 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 wound.]] Somewhat subverted in that Christianity eventually became the official state religion of the Roman Empire.\\\

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

* ''GalaxyRailways'' episode 12. An old woman is confused and thinks Manabu 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.]]
* Though it doesn't actually happen, the Russian government uses this excuse in ''Anime/MobileFighterGGundam'' to ignore the Devil Gundam in favor of pursuing victory in the Fight, much to Nastasha's irritation--Argo was infected by it and she herself was nearly absorbed.

* "Ghost V", a short story by Creator/RobertSheckley has the protagonists land on a deserted planet and end up fighting joint hallucinations of the monsters they invented in their childhood. It turns out, the planet's atmosphere contains a hallucinogen that forces humans to relive their childhood fears, which became really dangerous if YourMindMakesItReal.

* Creator/StanislawLem's ''The Futurological Congress'' describes drugs so effective at masking the 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.
* Averted(?) in the Creator/RayBradbury story "The Earth Men" (republished in ''Literature/TheMartianChronicles''): the Martians are a race of telepaths and can easily share hallucinations.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': In the episode "Airborne" a passenger of a plane develops some of the symptoms of a highly contagious virus. Soon the other passengers start to develop the same symptoms. It turns out to be a case of mass hysteria, the original passenger has a case of altitude sickness, which is not contagious. Hysteria caused the other passengers to feel sick and even develop rashes and nausea.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox'', [[spoiler: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.]] This is also the justification for why [[spoiler:the box is able to kill people. It has a little bit of the gas in it, so anyone who opens it expecting to die, will.]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* One of the central ideas in ''VisualNovel/ChaosHead'', but it runs on the idea in reverse: if you can get more than one person to see the same thing (real or not), it becomes real. Whether it's explained as magic or science depends on the character given the explanation, although the story focuses more on the scientific one.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/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. Even so, [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070228 there was some disagreement about the details]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/PunchTrunk" 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic A penis panic]] is a form of mass hysteria where groups of people suddenly become convinced that their genitals are shrinking or disappearing. Many other strange mass hysterias and hallucinations have also occurred in history, such as those documented in the book [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds]]. However, of course none had objective evidence for them like you see in media where this trope occurs.
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/GoodOmens'': After the events of the show, the governments of the world pass them off as being this, even when said "hallucination" ''ate'' one's trade delegation.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic A penis panic]] is a form of mass hysteria where groups of people suddenly become convinced that their genitals are shrinking or disappearing. Many other strange mass hysterias and hallucinations have also occurred in history, such as those documented in the book [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds]].

Of course, even according to the Gospels, people who knew Jesus well took a long time to recognize him as who he was, thus it can be questioned if he was indeed the same person before and after the crucifixion. Since these accounts were also written down only decades after when the time when these events were said to occur (and without being attested elsewhere) exactly what truly happened remains debated by historians.

* Creator/StanislawLem's ''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.

Of course even according to the Gospels, people who knew Jesus well took a long time to recognize him as who he was, thus it can be questioned if he was indeed the same person before and after the crucifixion. Since these accounts were also written down only decades after when the time when these events were said to occur (and without being attested elsewhere) exactly what truly happened remains debated by historians.

* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox'', [[spoiler: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.]] This is also the justification for why [[spoiler:the box is able to kill people. It has a little bit of the gas in it, so anyone who opens it expecting to die, will.]]

* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox'', [[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.]] This is also the justification for why [[spoiler:the box is able to kill people. It has a little bit of the gas in it, so anyone who opens it expecting to die, will.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/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.

[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Hallucinations don't work that way]] - even if multiple people were exposed to the same hallucinogen, they wouldn't see the same thing. The only time it's remotely plausible is if the people were already expecting to see whatever it was they believed they saw (which, in fact, is a very large part of how StageMagic is performed) - and even then, they probably wouldn't share the particular details of the hallucination.

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* 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 ''{{Series/Angel}}: After The Fall'' comics, after the Senior Partners [[BrokenMasquerade break the masquerade]] by sending the whole city of Los Angeles to hell and then [[RetCon undo it]], everyone [[RippleEffectProofMemory still remembers]] it, but most of the {{muggles}} convince themselves that it was actually a shared mass hallucination. And someone makes a Hollywood film out of, so everyone outside of LA thinks it's fiction.

[[folder: Film ]]

* EPA official Walter Peck's explanation for the ghosts in ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'':
-->'''Peck''': These men use nerve gasses to induce hallucinations. People think they're seeing ghosts and they call these bozos, who show up with a fake light show.

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

** It seems to be implied in ''Series/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.

* In Series/{{House}} in the episode "Airborne" a passenger of a plane develops some of the symptoms of a highly contagious virus. Soon the other passengers start to develop the same symptoms. It turns out to be a case of mass hysteria, the original passenger has a case of altitude sickness, which is not contagious. Hysteria caused the other passengers to feel sick and even develop rashes and nausea.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic A penis panic]] is a form of mass hysteria where groups of people suddenly become convinced that their genitals are shrinking or disappearing. Many other strange mass hysterias and hallucinations have also occurred in history, such as those documented in the book [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds]].

[[folder: Religion ]]

* One story says that 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 wound.]] Somewhat subverted in that Christianity eventually became the official state religion of the Roman Empire.
** Of course even according to the Gospels, people who knew Jesus well took a long time to recognize him as who he was, thus it can be questioned if he was indeed the same person before and after the crucifixion. Since these accounts were also written down only decades after when the time when these events were said to occur (and without being attested elsewhere) exactly what truly happened remains debated by historians.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In ''ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox'', [[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.]]
** This is also the justification for why [[spoiler: the box is able to kill people. It has a little bit of the gas in it, so anyone who opens it expecting to die, will.]]

[[folder: Visual Novels ]]

* One of the central ideas in ''VisualNovel/ChaosHead'', but it runs on the idea in reverse: if you can get more than one person to see the same thing (real or not), it becomes real. Whether it's explained as magic or science depends on the character given the explanation, although the story focuses more on the scientific one.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

* In ''Webcomic/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.
** Even so, [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070228 there was some disagreement about the details]].

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/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.

[[ArtisticLicenseBiology Hallucinations don't work that way]]-even if multiple people were exposed to the same hallucinogen, they wouldn't see the same thing. The only time it's remotely plausible is if the people were already expecting to see whatever it was they believed they saw (which, in fact, is a very large part of how StageMagic is performed) - and even then, they probably wouldn't share the particular details of the hallucination.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:RealLife]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic A penis panic]] is a form of mass hysteria where groups of people suddenly become convinced that their genitals are shrinking or disappearing. Many other strange mass hysterias and hallucinations have also occurred in history, such as those documented in the book [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds]].

[[AC:Religion]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:VisualNovels]]

[[AC:WebComics]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' book ''Dead Beat'' witnesses to the climax involving Harry [[spoiler: [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome reanimating a zombie T-rex and riding it into battle through the streets of Chicago]]]] apparently let themselves be convinced that it was an example of this trope caused by a hallucinogenic reaction to the spores from a batch of mouldy bread. Harry is fully aware how ridiculous this explanation is, but chalks it up to another case of humans swallowing ''anything'' rather than face up to the implications of what they've seen. To be fair, though, this particular incident is ''so'' ridiculous that even people who might normally be open to the idea of the supernatural would probably find the bread explanation less absurd.

* TheMasterAndMargarita, everything the Devil did is later explained as hypnosis, mass hypnosis, or, in one case, long distance hypnosis.

* ''GraveyardSchool'' 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]].

* In TheDresdenFiles book ''Dead Beat'' witnesses to the climax involving Harry [[spoiler: [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome reanimating a zombie T-rex and riding it into battle through the streets of Chicago]]]] apparently let themselves be convinced that it was an example of this trope caused by a hallucinogenic reaction to the spores from a batch of mouldy bread. Harry is fully aware how ridiculous this explanation is, but chalks it up to another case of humans swallowing ''anything'' rather than face up to the implications of what they've seen. To be fair, though, this particular incident is ''so'' ridiculous that even people who might normally be open to the idea of the supernatural would probably find the bread explanation less absurd.

* The mages of ''MahouSenseiNegima'' use something like this maintain their {{Masquerade}}. A villain attempting to reveal said Masquerade used just the opposite: remove people's logical reaction to disbelieve the mystic, then spread over the planet to make sure no skeptic is left unbelieving (magically powered suggestion on a massive scale).

-->--'''Dr. Tom Nesbitt''', ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms''

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

* One of the central ideas in ''ChaosHead'', but it runs on the idea in reverse: if you can get more than one person to see the same thing (real or not), it becomes real. Whether it's explained as magic or science depends on the character given the explanation, although the story focuses more on the scientific one.

* A minor version in ''TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', where the hero, Dr. Nesbitt, lost in an Arctic wasteland, finds his colleague, George, raving about seeing a monster. Soon afterward, Nesbitt sees the monster himself, but George freezes to death. When he gets back to base, Nesbitt is told by his superiors that the cold can cause hallucinations, but since George saw the exact same thing, Nesbitt is not convinced.

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