https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/dancing-mania-mass-psychogenic-illness
Since these dancing disorders of the Middle Ages and early modern times, there have been hundreds of other potential instances of MPI as well. But, you might be thinking, perhaps MPI occurred in the distant past because people were more superstitious and easily-duped than they are today. Surely, we must have advanced past this era of gullibility, right?
Wrong. There is a long list of examples of possible MPI in modern times. For instance, in 2011, twenty classmates at a high school outside Buffalo, NY suddenly began to experience tics, verbal outbursts, and other symptoms that resembled those of Tourette syndrome. Despite investigations by doctors and state health department officials, no environmental cause of the condition was identified, and most doctors eventually agreed that the students’ conditions were brought on by psychological factors. Some doctors even suggested that social and mainstream media contributed to the “spread” of the affliction. Those who were more inclined to post frequently about their ailment on sites like Facebook and those that gave frequent interviews to the press were thought to have the most aggravated conditions. The students who avoided these practices tended to improve more quickly.
Havana syndrome is potentially an even more recent example. Havana syndrome began in late 2016 in Cuba, when American and Canadian diplomatic personnel started reporting a number of symptoms—like headaches, nausea, dizziness, memory problems, hearing loss, and even “mild brain trauma”— which typically appeared after hearing a prolonged harsh, high-pitched noise. Strangely, other people nearby usually didn’t report hearing anything. By 2018, up to 40 cases of Havana syndrome had been documented among American and Canadian diplomatic personnel in Cuba. And in early 2018, similar claims began to be made by U.S. diplomats in China.







