WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 I want to take you back to a very specific place 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:06.280 in time. It's, let's say, the late 19th century. 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:08.939 We're in rural France. Okay, I'm with you. I 00:00:08.939 --> 00:00:12.660 want you to really picture this. A convent. And 00:00:12.660 --> 00:00:16.440 it's isolated. It's austere. Right. You've got 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.940 these high stone walls. Cold floors and a community 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:23.339 of nuns who live their entire lives in, you know, 00:00:23.339 --> 00:00:26.800 strict silence and absolute devotion. It's a 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:28.879 pressure cooker. It is a total pressure cooker 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:30.879 of repression. I can just imagine it. The quiet 00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:34.119 must have been deafening. It was until, well, 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:36.340 until a Tuesday. We don't know exactly why it 00:00:36.340 --> 00:00:38.979 started, but on a Tuesday, one of the nuns began 00:00:38.979 --> 00:00:41.799 to make a sound. Okay. And she didn't speak. 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:45.020 She didn't pray. She started meowing. Meowing, 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:47.869 yes. Like a cat. Full -throated, visceral cat 00:00:47.869 --> 00:00:49.990 sound. Just, mew. And she didn't just do it once. 00:00:50.030 --> 00:00:53.170 She kept doing it. Wow. Now, in a normal setting, 00:00:53.270 --> 00:00:55.009 you'd think, okay, Sister Marie's having a breakdown. 00:00:55.130 --> 00:00:57.490 You'd take her to the infirmary. But that's not 00:00:57.490 --> 00:00:59.649 what happened here. This is the famous meowing 00:00:59.649 --> 00:01:02.609 nun's case, isn't it? It is. And the really terrifying 00:01:02.609 --> 00:01:05.620 part is the spread. within a week it wasn't just 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:08.840 sister marie another nun started meowing oh no 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:11.859 and two more then ten and eventually you had 00:01:11.859 --> 00:01:15.299 this surreal almost nightmarish reality where 00:01:15.299 --> 00:01:18.239 every afternoon at a specific time the entire 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:21.079 convent we're talking dozens of women would gather 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:25.560 together and meow like a Like a clowder of cats 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:28.280 for hours on end. Just imagine the sound of that 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:30.879 echoing off those stone walls. That's horrifying. 00:01:31.260 --> 00:01:33.959 It was so loud and so disturbing that the surrounding 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:36.560 village began to panic. They were convinced the 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:38.299 nuns were possessed. They thought it was the 00:01:38.299 --> 00:01:40.620 devil. Which was a very common explanation for 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:42.480 things at the time. The default explanation, 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:44.500 really. And do you know how it finally ended? 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.750 It wasn't through prayer, was it? No. The local 00:01:47.750 --> 00:01:49.609 government had to call in a company of soldiers. 00:01:49.709 --> 00:01:52.370 They marched up to the convent gates, lined up 00:01:52.370 --> 00:01:55.129 with rods and whips and told the nuns very clearly, 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:58.329 if you do not stop meowing right now, we are 00:01:58.329 --> 00:01:59.829 coming in there and we are going to beat you 00:01:59.829 --> 00:02:02.790 until you stop. Silence. Just like that? Instant 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:05.840 silence. The meowing stopped effectively immediately. 00:02:06.140 --> 00:02:08.780 And that right there, that tells us everything 00:02:08.780 --> 00:02:10.560 we need to know about the nature of the problem, 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:12.939 doesn't it? How so? Well, you can't beat a virus 00:02:12.939 --> 00:02:14.960 out of someone. You can't threaten a bacteria 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:17.360 with a rod. Exactly. If they all had the flu, 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:19.500 the threat of violence wouldn't stop the fever, 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:22.460 would it? But this stopped. That story, it just 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:25.379 perfectly captures the absolute strangeness of 00:02:25.379 --> 00:02:27.340 what we're diving into today. Because when you 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:30.419 hear meowing nuns, it sounds like a joke. It 00:02:30.419 --> 00:02:32.699 sounds like a Monty Python sketch. But it was 00:02:32.699 --> 00:02:36.110 not a joke. No. For those women, the compulsion 00:02:36.110 --> 00:02:39.289 was real. The distress was real. And this is 00:02:39.289 --> 00:02:42.990 just one example of a phenomenon that has, well, 00:02:43.129 --> 00:02:45.310 it's shadowed humanity for as long as we've been 00:02:45.310 --> 00:02:47.669 social creatures. Today, we are talking about 00:02:47.669 --> 00:02:50.650 mass psychogenic illness. Or as it was historically 00:02:50.650 --> 00:02:53.669 known, mass hysteria. Right. And we should probably 00:02:53.669 --> 00:02:56.740 put a pin in that word, hysteria. Yes, we're 00:02:56.740 --> 00:02:58.599 going to be careful with that word today for 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:01.860 reasons we'll definitely get into. But the mission 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.620 of this deep dive is to really look at these 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:08.780 plagues of the mind. We're trying to understand 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:11.400 how a group of people, rational, normal people, 00:03:11.599 --> 00:03:15.319 can suddenly develop rashes, seizures, fainting 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.319 spells, or even hallucinations with absolutely 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:21.319 no biological cause. And we've got a massive 00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:23.039 stack of research here to get through. We've 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:25.240 pulled papers from the British Journal of Psychiatry. 00:03:25.259 --> 00:03:27.620 reports from the Tennessee Department of Health, 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:30.680 historical chronicles from the Middle Ages, and 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:34.539 even case studies on Pokemon. Oh, yes. Pokemon 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:37.240 plays a surprisingly huge role in the modern 00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:38.919 understanding of all this. So if you're listening 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:40.659 to this and thinking, oh, I'm too smart for that, 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:42.560 I wouldn't start meowing just because my neighbor 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:45.539 did, maybe don't be so sure. That's the scary 00:03:45.539 --> 00:03:47.680 part, isn't it? The research suggests that under 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:49.460 the right conditions, the right stress, the right 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:52.759 environment, our human hardware is just. It's 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:55.439 wired to malfunction in sync. Let's start by 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.199 grounding this then, because mass psychogenic 00:03:58.199 --> 00:04:02.159 illness, or MPI, that sounds very clinical, very 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:05.039 formal. But in the media, this is almost always 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:07.139 treated as a mystery. You see the headlines, 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:11.280 mystery illness strikes high school, or diplomats 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:14.039 sick with unknown syndrome. It sells papers. 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:16.680 Mystery is much scarier, much more compelling 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:19.720 than the truth. And it's all in their heads is 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.000 a really unsatisfying answer for a lot of people. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:24.959 It sounds dismissive. It does. But scientifically, 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:27.519 do we have a concrete definition of what this 00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:30.339 is? Or is it just a kind of... bucket where doctors 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:32.399 throw things they can't figure out. But we don't 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:35.000 know folder. Exactly. No, we do have a definition. 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:37.519 It's not just a guess. If we look at the clinical 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:39.939 literature, especially the definitions used by 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:43.680 researchers like Simon Wesley, MPI is defined 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.279 as a nervous system disturbance. Okay, bring 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:47.959 that down for me. Nervous system disturbance. 00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:50.939 So it involves the excitation, loss, or alteration 00:04:50.939 --> 00:04:52.959 of function. That's the two phrase. Excitation, 00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:55.879 loss, or alteration. Right. So that means your 00:04:55.879 --> 00:04:57.879 body is either doing something it shouldn't be, 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:00.120 like twitching or shaking, that's excitation, 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:03.000 or it stops doing something it should, like being 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.699 able to walk or speak. That's a loss of function. 00:05:05.980 --> 00:05:08.860 Okay. But I can have a nervous system disturbance 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:11.240 if I drink too much coffee. My hands might shake. 00:05:11.379 --> 00:05:13.920 True. But the second part of the definition is 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:17.100 the real clincher. It describes the rapid spread 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:19.579 of signs and symptoms affecting members of a 00:05:19.579 --> 00:05:23.110 cohesive group. Cohesive group. That phrase seems 00:05:23.110 --> 00:05:25.209 to be the operative term in every single case 00:05:25.209 --> 00:05:27.529 study I read. It's absolutely crucial. You almost 00:05:27.529 --> 00:05:31.509 never see MPI start among, say, strangers on 00:05:31.509 --> 00:05:33.589 a subway train who aren't talking to each other. 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:36.269 Right. It thrives in places where social bonds 00:05:36.269 --> 00:05:40.199 are tight. Schools, factories, convents. Military 00:05:40.199 --> 00:05:42.720 units. Military units, exactly. Places where 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:45.060 people are constantly observing each other, mirroring 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:47.319 each other, and sharing the exact same stressors 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:50.019 day in and day out. And then there's the third 00:05:50.019 --> 00:05:51.800 part of the definition, which I think is the 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:54.339 absolute hardest for the general public to accept. 00:05:54.660 --> 00:05:57.519 It's that the symptoms are exhibited unconsciously. 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:00.220 Yes. And if we get nothing else across today, 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:02.920 this has to be it. We have to make this crystal 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.180 clear. These people are not faking it. Okay, 00:06:05.259 --> 00:06:06.920 but let me play devil's advocate for a second. 00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:09.660 If I'm a teenager and I have a big math test 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:12.100 I didn't study for and I see my friend fainting, 00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:14.959 maybe I just decide fainting sounds like a good 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:17.959 idea too. Get out of the test. And that definitely 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:20.160 happens. That's called malingering. But that 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.300 is a conscious decision to deceive for some kind 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:26.009 of gain. Okay. MPI is different. In an MPI case, 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:28.910 the person genuinely believes they are sick, 00:06:29.050 --> 00:06:31.870 they feel the nausea, their blood pressure might 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:34.709 actually drop. If you hook them up to an EEG 00:06:34.709 --> 00:06:37.810 or an EKG, you would see their physiology reacting 00:06:37.810 --> 00:06:40.610 to a threat. The threat is just internal, not 00:06:40.610 --> 00:06:42.930 external. So it's the difference between pretending 00:06:42.930 --> 00:06:45.370 to be asleep and actually being in a coma. That's 00:06:45.370 --> 00:06:47.930 a perfect analogy. And the symptoms can be incredibly 00:06:47.930 --> 00:06:50.269 graphic and varied. I want to pull up the data 00:06:50.269 --> 00:06:52.129 from Timothy F. Jones. He was with the Tennessee 00:06:52.129 --> 00:06:54.290 Department of Health, and he did this really 00:06:54.290 --> 00:06:57.170 comprehensive review of outbreaks between 1980 00:06:57.170 --> 00:06:59.850 and 1990. This is the study that looked at thousands 00:06:59.850 --> 00:07:01.709 of cases to try and find the common threads, 00:07:01.910 --> 00:07:04.430 right? Exactly. And when you look at the symptom 00:07:04.430 --> 00:07:06.529 profile that emerged, it's just fascinating. 00:07:07.050 --> 00:07:09.209 What do you think was the number one symptom? 00:07:11.470 --> 00:07:13.990 Fainting? Good guess, but no, it was headache. 00:07:14.599 --> 00:07:18.220 67 % of cases reported a headache. Which, okay, 00:07:18.339 --> 00:07:20.560 that makes sense. Stress causes tension headaches. 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:23.120 That's a very direct biological link. Absolutely. 00:07:23.459 --> 00:07:26.079 But then look further down the list. Dizziness 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:31.319 or lightheadedness in 46%. Nausea, 41%. Abdominal 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.759 cramps in 39%. Now, what do those sound like 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:36.220 to you? Fight or flight. Classic fight or flight 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:38.939 responses. If a lion walks into this room right 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:41.449 now, your body dumps adrenaline. Your digestion 00:07:41.449 --> 00:07:44.189 stops, which causes cramps, and all the blood 00:07:44.189 --> 00:07:46.050 rushes to your major muscle groups, which can 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:48.569 make you feel dizzy. Your body is preparing for 00:07:48.569 --> 00:07:50.410 a threat that isn't actually there. But then 00:07:50.410 --> 00:07:52.930 you get the weird ones, the outliers on the list. 00:07:53.009 --> 00:07:55.370 The chattering of teeth. Yes. That one stood 00:07:55.370 --> 00:07:57.769 out to me. It was from the Blackburn School outbreak 00:07:57.769 --> 00:08:00.449 in England. An entire group of kids whose teeth 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:03.689 were just chattering uncontrollably. Or the hyperventilation. 00:08:04.649 --> 00:08:07.149 Or the rashes. Okay, wait. The rashes are where 00:08:07.149 --> 00:08:09.529 I get stuck. I can understand feeling faint from 00:08:09.529 --> 00:08:11.870 stress. I can understand a headache. But how 00:08:11.870 --> 00:08:15.129 does your mind, your psychology, create a physical 00:08:15.129 --> 00:08:18.110 rash on your skin? That feels like a biological 00:08:18.110 --> 00:08:20.750 impossibility. It sounds like it, but it's not. 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:24.250 It's called a psychogenic dermatosis. The mind 00:08:24.250 --> 00:08:26.529 -body connection is powerful enough that extreme 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:29.089 stress can trigger the release of histamines 00:08:29.089 --> 00:08:31.230 in your body. The same stuff that causes allergic 00:08:31.230 --> 00:08:33.730 reactions. Exactly. You can literally worry yourself 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:37.399 into getting hives. That is... deeply uncomfortable 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:39.500 to think about. It really shows that the boundary 00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:42.320 we draw between mental and physical is much, 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:45.039 much blurrier than we like to think. So we know 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:48.220 the symptoms, but not all outbreaks look the 00:08:48.220 --> 00:08:50.460 same. In the notes, you highlighted this important 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:52.320 distinction made by the British psychiatrist 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:56.179 Simon Wesley. He splits mass hysteria into two 00:08:56.179 --> 00:08:58.700 distinct categories. Yes, and this is a vital 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:00.399 distinction because it helps us understand the 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:02.659 dynamics of an outbreak and maybe even predict 00:09:02.659 --> 00:09:05.379 how it will end. Wesley categorized them into 00:09:05.379 --> 00:09:08.519 mass anxiety, hysteria, and mass motor hysteria. 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.460 Let's tackle mass anxiety hysteria first. This 00:09:11.460 --> 00:09:13.840 is the gas leak scenario, right? That's the classic 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:17.100 example, yes. Mass anxiety hysteria burns hot 00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:20.759 and it burns fast. It's usually acute, very sudden 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:24.240 onset, and it's almost always triggered by some 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:27.279 kind of sensory perception. Like a smell. Someone 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:29.679 smells a weird smell. Someone sees a glittery 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:32.399 dust in the air. Someone hears a rumor that the 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:35.440 water is poisoned. And then boom, panic. Immediate 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:38.279 panic. And the vector transmission, the way it 00:09:38.279 --> 00:09:40.860 actually spreads, is visual. You see someone 00:09:40.860 --> 00:09:42.860 collapse, your own anxiety spikes through the 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:45.679 roof, and suddenly you feel faint too. It ripples 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:48.080 through a crowd like a wave at a stadium. And 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.669 who does this affect primarily? overwhelmingly 00:09:50.669 --> 00:09:53.409 school children it is very very common in schools 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:55.769 but the good news if you can call it that is 00:09:55.769 --> 00:09:58.190 that it has a short duration usually once the 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:00.269 kids are separated sent home and calmed down 00:10:00.269 --> 00:10:02.769 by their parents it just it dissipates within 00:10:02.769 --> 00:10:05.710 a day okay so that's type one but the meowing 00:10:05.710 --> 00:10:08.529 nuns that didn't last a day that went on for 00:10:08.529 --> 00:10:10.710 weeks correct the meowing nuns were suffering 00:10:10.710 --> 00:10:13.370 from mass motor hysteria motor as in movement 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:16.919 Exactly. This type involves abnormalities in 00:10:16.919 --> 00:10:19.620 motor behavior. So twitching, shaking, dancing, 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:22.820 vocal tics like meowing. And the trigger is different 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:25.340 here. It's not a sudden scare. Completely different. 00:10:25.539 --> 00:10:28.080 Mass anxiety hysteria is triggered by a sudden 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.220 acute scare. Mass motor hysteria is triggered 00:10:31.220 --> 00:10:35.259 by prior tension. Long -term crushing inescapable 00:10:35.259 --> 00:10:37.600 stress. Like living in a strict convent where 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:39.940 you can't speak for years. That's a perfect example. 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:42.860 Or working in a dangerous low -paying factory 00:10:42.860 --> 00:10:45.980 for 12 hours a day. Or living under a repressive 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:48.840 political regime. The stress builds up over months 00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:51.059 or even years until the nervous system just... 00:10:51.710 --> 00:10:54.389 It snaps, and it finds a release valve in these 00:10:54.389 --> 00:10:57.049 strange involuntary movements. And because the 00:10:57.049 --> 00:10:59.250 stress is chronic, the illness becomes chronic. 00:10:59.450 --> 00:11:01.269 That's it. These outbreaks spread gradually. 00:11:01.370 --> 00:11:03.490 It takes time to move from person to person, 00:11:03.629 --> 00:11:06.350 and they can last for weeks or even months. It's 00:11:06.350 --> 00:11:08.830 a slow -motion disaster. Speaking of slow -motion 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:10.789 disasters, we have to go back to the Middle Ages. 00:11:11.169 --> 00:11:13.230 Because if you think meowing nuns are weird, 00:11:13.429 --> 00:11:15.909 the dancing manias of Europe are on a whole other 00:11:15.909 --> 00:11:19.149 level entirely. The dancing plagues, St. John's 00:11:19.149 --> 00:11:23.820 dance, Tarentism. This is the mass motor hysteria 00:11:23.820 --> 00:11:26.980 model pushed to its absolute horrifying extreme. 00:11:27.220 --> 00:11:29.139 Paint the picture for us. This happened between 00:11:29.139 --> 00:11:31.879 the 13th and 17th centuries all across Europe. 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:34.759 Imagine a village square in medieval Germany 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:37.840 or Italy. Suddenly, a group of people starts 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:41.139 dancing. But it's not joyful dancing. This isn't 00:11:41.139 --> 00:11:44.849 a festival. The accounts describe it as... Manic, 00:11:44.849 --> 00:11:47.129 uncontrollable. It was compulsive. People were 00:11:47.129 --> 00:11:49.490 screaming. Some accounts say they were foaming 00:11:49.490 --> 00:11:51.610 at the mouth. They would make obscene gestures. 00:11:51.750 --> 00:11:54.169 They'd rip their clothes off and they just would 00:11:54.169 --> 00:11:56.259 not stop. For how long? They would dance for 00:11:56.259 --> 00:11:58.740 days, sometimes weeks, ignoring hunger, ignoring 00:11:58.740 --> 00:12:01.159 thirst, ignoring their own bleeding feet, until 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.320 they literally dropped dead from exhaustion, 00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:06.320 dehydration, or heart failure. That is absolutely 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.480 terrifying. And it wasn't just 10, 20 people. 00:12:08.500 --> 00:12:10.340 No, no. In some of the larger cases, like the 00:12:10.340 --> 00:12:13.659 outbreak in Aachen in 1374, it involved thousands 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.480 of people. The mania spread from town to town 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:18.879 like a real plague. Now, at the time, they didn't 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:21.159 have the term psychogenic illness. What was their 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:22.980 explanation for what was happening? Well, the 00:12:22.980 --> 00:12:25.980 church's go -to explanation was, of course, demons. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.139 Possession. Obviously. Right. But in Italy, specifically 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:33.139 for the phenomenon called Tarantism, the folklore 00:12:33.139 --> 00:12:36.059 was that everyone had been bitten by a tarantula 00:12:36.059 --> 00:12:39.480 spider. A spider bite? Cause them to dance? The 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:42.019 belief was that the venom was deadly and would 00:12:42.019 --> 00:12:44.600 kill you unless you danced it out. The frantic 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:47.100 non -stop movement was seen as the only cure, 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:49.720 so if you felt even a little bit sick or if you 00:12:49.720 --> 00:12:51.899 just feared you had been bitten, you would start 00:12:51.899 --> 00:12:54.340 dancing to save your own life. And seeing everyone 00:12:54.340 --> 00:12:56.879 else dancing just reinforces the belief that 00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:58.940 the spiders must be everywhere. It's a perfect 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:01.559 feedback loop of terror. But when we look back 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:04.120 with a modern lens, we see the context. These 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:06.600 outbreaks almost always followed periods of extreme, 00:13:06.779 --> 00:13:09.879 unimaginable misery. The Black Death had just 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:12.460 swept through. There were famines, floods. And 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:14.600 prior tension. The ultimate prior tension. You 00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:16.860 had a population that was deeply traumatized, 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:19.730 starving, and terrified of hellfire. The dancing 00:13:19.730 --> 00:13:22.669 mania was, in a way, a mass dissociation. It 00:13:22.669 --> 00:13:24.710 was a way for the collective mind to just check 00:13:24.710 --> 00:13:26.950 out of a reality that was too painful to endure. 00:13:27.230 --> 00:13:29.549 It's fascinating that in the Middle Ages, the 00:13:29.549 --> 00:13:33.190 script for the illness was dancing. In the convent, 00:13:33.309 --> 00:13:35.690 it was meowing. It really seems like the culture 00:13:35.690 --> 00:13:38.149 dictates the specific symptoms. That is such 00:13:38.149 --> 00:13:40.450 a profound point. It's called the symptom pool. 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:44.350 Every culture, every era has a sort of subconscious 00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:48.169 list of acceptable ways to go crazy or express 00:13:48.169 --> 00:13:50.950 extreme distress. So in the Middle Ages, the 00:13:50.950 --> 00:13:54.190 script was possession or dancing mania. Exactly. 00:13:54.289 --> 00:13:57.169 But then as we moved into the 20th century, as 00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:59.490 we became more industrial and scientific, the 00:13:59.490 --> 00:14:01.789 script changed. Let's move to that industrial 00:14:01.789 --> 00:14:04.169 era then. We leave the villages and enter the 00:14:04.169 --> 00:14:06.929 factories. But the dynamic, as you said, remains 00:14:06.929 --> 00:14:09.590 the same. The environment changes, but the human 00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:12.389 brain stays the same. There's a fascinating series 00:14:12.389 --> 00:14:14.509 of outbreaks that were documented in Singapore 00:14:14.509 --> 00:14:17.470 between 1973 and 1978. This is covered in those 00:14:17.470 --> 00:14:19.970 papers by W .H. Foon from the Ministry of Labor. 00:14:20.009 --> 00:14:21.570 Yeah, it's the one. Singapore was going through 00:14:21.570 --> 00:14:24.370 this period of rapid industrialization. You had 00:14:24.370 --> 00:14:26.929 thousands of young women, mostly from rural Malay 00:14:26.929 --> 00:14:29.470 communities, moving into these high -pressure, 00:14:29.470 --> 00:14:32.490 loud, regimented electronics factories. A massive 00:14:32.490 --> 00:14:35.580 culture shock for them. Huge. And the outbreaks 00:14:35.580 --> 00:14:38.580 really reflected that clash. The symptoms were 00:14:38.580 --> 00:14:41.899 things like hysterical seizures, screaming, and 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.419 sometimes violence. But the explanation given 00:14:44.419 --> 00:14:46.440 by the workers themselves wasn't, I'm stressed. 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:49.519 It was spirits. They claimed to be possessed 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:53.200 by djinn, or ghosts, from the land the factory 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:56.039 was built on. Yes. They would point to a specific 00:14:56.039 --> 00:14:58.720 corner of the factory and scream that they saw 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.509 a black figure or a spirit. And then they would 00:15:01.509 --> 00:15:03.669 collapse into a trance. And the management's 00:15:03.669 --> 00:15:06.350 response to this is a master class in what not 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:09.070 to do. It really is. I mean, logic would dictate 00:15:09.070 --> 00:15:11.049 you try to calm everyone down, you get the person 00:15:11.049 --> 00:15:13.610 medical attention. But the factory managers, 00:15:13.769 --> 00:15:16.049 maybe trying to be culturally respectful or maybe 00:15:16.049 --> 00:15:18.409 just desperate to get production back up, they 00:15:18.409 --> 00:15:21.429 called in bomos. Medicine men. They brought in 00:15:21.429 --> 00:15:23.990 medicine men to perform ritual exorcisms right 00:15:23.990 --> 00:15:26.649 there on the factory floor. They sacrificed goots 00:15:26.649 --> 00:15:28.909 in the parking lot. They sprinkled holy water 00:15:28.909 --> 00:15:31.950 on the assembly lines. Which, it sounds like 00:15:31.950 --> 00:15:34.029 it should help. If the workers believe in spirits, 00:15:34.389 --> 00:15:36.730 shouldn't an exorcism be the perfect - placebo 00:15:36.730 --> 00:15:39.090 to cure them? You would think so. It's a logical 00:15:39.090 --> 00:15:42.309 assumption. But in many of these cases, it backfired 00:15:42.309 --> 00:15:46.629 spectacularly. Why? Because by bringing in the 00:15:46.629 --> 00:15:49.289 bomo to fight the spirit, management was officially 00:15:49.289 --> 00:15:51.710 confirming, yes, there is a spirit. The threat 00:15:51.710 --> 00:15:54.549 is real. They validated the delusion. They took 00:15:54.549 --> 00:15:56.870 a psychological problem and gave it a supernatural 00:15:56.870 --> 00:15:59.769 stamp of approval. It just ramped up the fear. 00:16:00.149 --> 00:16:02.549 Workers would think, oh, my God, even the boss 00:16:02.549 --> 00:16:05.470 thinks there's a ghost here. The outbreaks often 00:16:05.470 --> 00:16:07.730 got worse or reoccurred almost immediately after. 00:16:07.889 --> 00:16:10.169 That is a critical lesson for any kind of crisis 00:16:10.169 --> 00:16:13.789 management. Sometimes. Validation can be dangerous. 00:16:14.009 --> 00:16:16.809 It is. And that leads us perfectly into one of 00:16:16.809 --> 00:16:19.389 the most studied cases in American history, a 00:16:19.389 --> 00:16:21.149 case where the validation didn't come from a 00:16:21.149 --> 00:16:23.610 medicine man, but from the media and the medical 00:16:23.610 --> 00:16:25.309 establishment itself. You're talking about the 00:16:25.309 --> 00:16:28.110 June bug. I am. The June bug epidemic of 1962. 00:16:28.789 --> 00:16:31.330 This is the textbook case. If you study sociology 00:16:31.330 --> 00:16:34.149 or public health, you study this. So let's set 00:16:34.149 --> 00:16:36.250 the scene for the June bug, because the details 00:16:36.250 --> 00:16:38.029 here are so important to understand how strain 00:16:38.029 --> 00:16:41.809 works. It's June of 1962. Where are we? We are 00:16:41.809 --> 00:16:44.230 in a dressmaking factory in the southern United 00:16:44.230 --> 00:16:46.149 States. And what's the environment like in there? 00:16:46.460 --> 00:16:48.820 It's intense. It's the peak season. So the production 00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:51.240 quota is through the roof. The managers are pushing 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:54.299 everyone for overtime. It's physically hot. This 00:16:54.299 --> 00:16:56.759 is before universal air conditioning. The noise 00:16:56.759 --> 00:16:59.759 of the sewing machines is constant. It is a loud, 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:02.840 sweaty, high pressure environment. And crucially, 00:17:02.899 --> 00:17:05.460 the workforce is socially very tight knit. Yes, 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:08.259 it's mostly women, many of whom know each other 00:17:08.259 --> 00:17:10.339 from their communities, their churches. They're 00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:13.460 not strangers. So the fuse is lit. The environment 00:17:13.460 --> 00:17:17.759 is primed. What was the spark? A rumor. A very 00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:20.160 simple rumor began circulating that a shipment 00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:22.099 of fabric that had just arrived from England 00:17:22.099 --> 00:17:25.339 contained a strange biting insect. The June bug. 00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:28.140 Right. And soon, a few women started reporting 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:31.039 bites. But it wasn't just, ouch, something bit 00:17:31.039 --> 00:17:34.039 me. The symptoms escalated quickly and dramatically. 00:17:34.059 --> 00:17:37.160 We are talking about severe nausea, numbness, 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:40.640 and gross skin breakouts. Actual rashes appearing 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.950 on their bodies. There's that rash again. It's 00:17:43.950 --> 00:17:45.829 such a problem for skeptics because if I see 00:17:45.829 --> 00:17:48.569 a physical rash on your arm, my first assumption 00:17:48.569 --> 00:17:50.750 is that something touched you. It's very, very 00:17:50.750 --> 00:17:54.009 convincing. Within a few days, 62 workers, almost 00:17:54.009 --> 00:17:56.470 all of them women, came down with this illness. 00:17:56.609 --> 00:17:59.869 The factory had to be shut down. Production ground 00:17:59.869 --> 00:18:02.089 to a halt. So they call in the cavalry. They 00:18:02.089 --> 00:18:05.250 did. They brought in entomologists, bug experts 00:18:05.250 --> 00:18:07.849 from the Communicable Disease Center, what we 00:18:07.849 --> 00:18:10.430 now call the CDC. They brought in public health 00:18:10.430 --> 00:18:12.589 officials. They brought in exterminators. They 00:18:12.589 --> 00:18:15.069 tore that factory apart looking for this bug. 00:18:15.250 --> 00:18:17.730 And what did they find? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. 00:18:17.809 --> 00:18:20.309 Not a single unusual bug. Well, they found a 00:18:20.309 --> 00:18:23.250 few normal house flies, a couple of gnats, but 00:18:23.250 --> 00:18:25.390 absolutely nothing that could bite or cause a 00:18:25.390 --> 00:18:27.940 rash like the ones being reported. No strange 00:18:27.940 --> 00:18:30.119 chemicals in the fabric either. The factory was, 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:33.279 for all intents and purposes, clean. So if there 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:36.799 was no bug, why did 62 people get sick? And more 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:39.779 specifically, why those 62 people and not others? 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.579 This is where the sociological analysis by the 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:45.119 researchers Kirchhoff and Back is just brilliant. 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:47.500 They didn't just look for bugs. They looked at 00:18:47.500 --> 00:18:49.920 the people. They analyzed the social structure 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.519 of the factory. And they found a pattern. A very 00:18:52.519 --> 00:18:55.380 clear one. First, they looked at what they called 00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:58.440 strain. The people who got sick were disproportionately 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:01.420 those who were working the most overtime. The 00:19:01.420 --> 00:19:04.500 most exhausted. Exactly. They were also more 00:19:04.500 --> 00:19:06.839 likely to be the main breadwinners for their 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:08.599 families, meaning they had the most financial 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:11.359 pressure. They were physically and mentally worn 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:13.660 down. So their immune systems, or at least their 00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:16.299 nervous systems, were already on the edge. Precisely. 00:19:16.299 --> 00:19:19.599 But here is the second crucial factor. Social 00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:22.180 contagion. The illness didn't spread randomly 00:19:22.180 --> 00:19:24.319 across the factory floor. It didn't jump from 00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:27.059 table one to table two to table three. It jumped 00:19:27.059 --> 00:19:29.539 from friend to friend. So if my best friend at 00:19:29.539 --> 00:19:32.160 work got sick, I was statistically more likely 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:34.720 to get sick next, even if I sat all the way across 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:37.680 the room from her. Yes. It traveled along the 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:40.140 lines of social influence and friendship. And 00:19:40.140 --> 00:19:43.589 here's the kicker. The isolates. The workers, 00:19:43.750 --> 00:19:46.009 who didn't really have many friends, who kept 00:19:46.009 --> 00:19:48.230 to themselves, were almost completely immune. 00:19:48.430 --> 00:19:50.170 If you were a loner, you didn't get the June 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:52.829 bug. That is incredible. It's a disease that 00:19:52.829 --> 00:19:55.250 literally requires friendship to transmit. And 00:19:55.250 --> 00:19:58.430 then the third factor, the amplifier, the media. 00:19:58.630 --> 00:20:00.750 The local papers. The local newspapers ran these 00:20:00.750 --> 00:20:03.349 huge front page stories about the mystery bug 00:20:03.349 --> 00:20:05.970 plaguing factory. They validated the threat. 00:20:06.210 --> 00:20:09.069 Once the workers saw it in print, the bug became 00:20:09.069 --> 00:20:11.589 a fact. It wasn't just a rumor anymore. And that's 00:20:11.589 --> 00:20:14.019 when the cases really peaked. So the lesson from 00:20:14.019 --> 00:20:17.559 the June bug is that stress loads the gun, social 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:20.119 ties aim it, and the media pulls the trigger. 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:22.579 Perfect summary. And if you want to talk about 00:20:22.579 --> 00:20:24.619 media pulling the trigger, we absolutely have 00:20:24.619 --> 00:20:27.559 to fast forward to 1997. We have to talk about 00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:30.680 Pokemon. The Pokemon shock. This is like the 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:33.339 holy grail of mass illness cases because it combines 00:20:33.339 --> 00:20:36.339 real biology and psychology in such a unique 00:20:36.339 --> 00:20:38.700 and measurable way. It really bridges the gap 00:20:38.700 --> 00:20:40.720 between the two. So for listeners who might not 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:43.940 know the story, it's December 16th, 1997. We're 00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:48.150 in Japan. It's 6 .30 p .m. Millions of kids are 00:20:48.150 --> 00:20:50.069 sitting in front of their TVs. It was the highest 00:20:50.069 --> 00:20:52.710 rated television show in its time slot. A huge 00:20:52.710 --> 00:20:54.829 hit. And they're all watching an episode of Pokemon 00:20:54.829 --> 00:20:58.309 called Electric Soldier Porygon. An episode which, 00:20:58.369 --> 00:21:00.450 by the way, has never been re -aired anywhere 00:21:00.450 --> 00:21:02.730 in the world. For a very good reason. Right. 00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:04.930 So about 20 minutes into the episode, the hero, 00:21:05.170 --> 00:21:08.950 Pikachu, uses an electric attack to blow up some 00:21:08.950 --> 00:21:12.019 incoming missiles. And to show this massive explosion, 00:21:12.339 --> 00:21:15.319 the animators decided to use a very specific 00:21:15.319 --> 00:21:17.700 visual technique. It's called Paka Paka in the 00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:20.380 industry. It involves rapidly alternating red 00:21:20.380 --> 00:21:22.660 and blue strobe lights that fill the entire screen. 00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:25.940 And it wasn't just a brief flicker. No. It flashed 00:21:25.940 --> 00:21:28.940 at a rate of 12 hertz. That's 12 flashes every 00:21:28.940 --> 00:21:32.099 second for about six full seconds. Wow. That 00:21:32.099 --> 00:21:33.640 sounds intense even if you don't have epilepsy. 00:21:33.980 --> 00:21:36.259 It is. And the immediate result was catastrophic. 00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:39.430 Japan's Fire Defense Agency reported that night 00:21:39.430 --> 00:21:42.069 that nearly 700 children were rushed to hospitals. 00:21:42.309 --> 00:21:47.269 700 kids? Yes. They had blurred vision, nausea, 00:21:47.269 --> 00:21:49.789 and in the more severe cases, actual convulsions 00:21:49.789 --> 00:21:51.769 and loss of consciousness. Okay, I want to pause 00:21:51.769 --> 00:21:53.490 here and challenge you on this. You said earlier 00:21:53.490 --> 00:21:57.630 that MPI has no organic cause, but strobe lights 00:21:57.630 --> 00:22:00.690 do cause seizures. That's a known medical fact. 00:22:00.930 --> 00:22:04.910 So how is this MPI? You are 100 % right. That 00:22:04.910 --> 00:22:07.849 first wave, those initial 600 to 700 kids who 00:22:07.849 --> 00:22:10.829 got sick that night, that was not MPI. That was 00:22:10.829 --> 00:22:14.009 genuine photosensitive epilepsy. The strobe light 00:22:14.009 --> 00:22:16.490 directly attacked their neurology. It was a purely 00:22:16.490 --> 00:22:18.789 biological event. OK, so where does the psychology 00:22:18.789 --> 00:22:20.950 come in? It comes in the next day. The aftermath. 00:22:21.069 --> 00:22:23.720 Exactly. The next morning, this was the biggest 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:26.359 news story in Japan. Pokemon attacks kids. It 00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:28.839 was on every news channel. And this is almost 00:22:28.839 --> 00:22:30.619 unbelievable. Some of the news reports actually 00:22:30.619 --> 00:22:33.960 rebroadcast the clip of the explosion during 00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:36.900 the report. You're kidding me. Here is the dangerous 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:39.440 clip that is putting hundreds of kids in the 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:42.119 hospital. Let's show it to you again. It happened. 00:22:42.299 --> 00:22:44.559 But even for the millions of kids who didn't 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:46.960 see the clip again, the story just took over 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:49.019 the schools. Every kid went to school the next 00:22:49.019 --> 00:22:51.500 day talking about the Pokemon shock. They were 00:22:51.500 --> 00:22:53.519 anxious. They were terrified. And then the numbers 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:56.240 exploded. They exploded. Suddenly, thousands 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:58.839 more children started reporting symptoms. In 00:22:58.839 --> 00:23:01.920 total, over 12 ,000 children in Japan reported 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.240 feeling sick after the episode. So we went from 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:08.220 about 700 real biological seizures to over 12 00:23:08.220 --> 00:23:11.819 ,000 sick kids. Exactly. Researchers like Radford 00:23:11.819 --> 00:23:14.099 and Bartholomew analyzed this incredible event. 00:23:14.299 --> 00:23:17.059 They looked at the symptoms of that second massive 00:23:17.059 --> 00:23:20.299 wave of kids. And guess what? They look different 00:23:20.299 --> 00:23:22.799 from the first wave. How so? The first wave had 00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:25.660 classic epilepsy symptoms. Stiffness, drooling, 00:23:25.660 --> 00:23:28.740 eye rolling, convulsions. The second wave, headaches. 00:23:29.500 --> 00:23:32.779 Dizziness. Nausea. The MPI checklist. Precisely. 00:23:32.779 --> 00:23:35.640 It was a classic case of mass psychogenic illness 00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:38.140 that was triggered by a real medical event. The 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:40.440 initial seizures provided the scare, and then 00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:42.019 the media coverage and the school environment 00:23:42.019 --> 00:23:44.359 provided the spread. It's fascinating how the 00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:46.980 school environment just keeps coming up. It seems 00:23:46.980 --> 00:23:48.900 to be the perfect incubator for this kind of 00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:52.319 thing. We saw with Pokemon, but our outline is 00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:54.720 just full of school -based outbreaks. Why are 00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:57.619 schools such a hotspot? Well, just think about 00:23:57.619 --> 00:23:59.900 the architecture of a school, both physically 00:23:59.900 --> 00:24:03.279 and socially. You have high -stress environment 00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:06.240 exams, discipline, academic pressure, social 00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:09.200 pressure. Right. You have a highly cohesive social 00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:11.539 group peers who are constantly watching each 00:24:11.539 --> 00:24:13.279 other, mimicking each other, trying to fit in. 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:17.420 And you have adolescents. Hormones. Hormones, 00:24:17.420 --> 00:24:20.119 developing nervous systems, and this desperate, 00:24:20.299 --> 00:24:23.099 all -consuming need to fit in. It is the perfect 00:24:23.099 --> 00:24:26.650 storm for social contagion. famous, and frankly, 00:24:26.730 --> 00:24:30.450 one of the most bizarre school cases is the Tanganyika 00:24:30.450 --> 00:24:33.809 laughter epidemic of 1962. This one is so often 00:24:33.809 --> 00:24:35.890 misunderstood. People hear laughter epidemic 00:24:35.890 --> 00:24:37.849 and they think it sounds fun. Like that scene 00:24:37.849 --> 00:24:39.809 in Mary Poppins where they float up to the ceiling. 00:24:39.990 --> 00:24:42.940 But it wasn't fun at all. No, it was deeply distressing. 00:24:43.140 --> 00:24:45.839 It started in a small village school in what 00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:48.599 is now Tanzania. Three girls started laughing, 00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:51.140 but it wasn't a chuckle. It was described as 00:24:51.140 --> 00:24:54.099 hysterical, tearful, breathless laughter. They 00:24:54.099 --> 00:24:55.839 couldn't control it. They couldn't stop. And 00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:58.400 it spread like wildfire. It did. From those three 00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:00.740 girls, it spread to 95 students in that school. 00:25:00.940 --> 00:25:03.200 The school had to be shut down. But when the 00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:04.799 kids went home, they spread it to their villages. 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:07.880 Eventually, it affected over 1 ,000 people. It 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:10.720 forced 14 different schools to close down. And 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.559 it lasted for months. Months of uncontrollable 00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:16.980 laughter. Why there? Why then? Context is everything. 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:19.660 Tanganyika, as it was called, had just gained 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:22.500 independence from Britain in 1961. There was 00:25:22.500 --> 00:25:25.019 this massive cultural shift happening. And these 00:25:25.019 --> 00:25:27.359 children were being pushed into a new, rigid, 00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:30.339 Western -style educational system that was very 00:25:30.339 --> 00:25:32.819 strict and completely alien to their traditional 00:25:32.819 --> 00:25:35.019 upbringing. So you have this huge clash of values 00:25:35.019 --> 00:25:38.369 creating an enormous internal tension. Exactly. 00:25:38.369 --> 00:25:41.250 The laughter was a release valve. It was a way 00:25:41.250 --> 00:25:43.829 for their bodies to rebel against the strictness 00:25:43.829 --> 00:25:46.869 and the pressure, but in a way that wasn't direct 00:25:46.869 --> 00:25:49.230 disobedience. They weren't yelling at the teacher. 00:25:49.349 --> 00:25:51.410 They were just laughing. It's so interesting 00:25:51.410 --> 00:25:53.250 you mentioned that clash between a traditional 00:25:53.250 --> 00:25:55.750 upbringing and new pressures. Yeah. Because that 00:25:55.750 --> 00:25:58.170 seems to be a recurring theme in these global 00:25:58.170 --> 00:26:00.230 outbreaks. We see this again and again in Malaysia, 00:26:00.529 --> 00:26:03.420 specifically in the state of Kelantan. Yes, Kelantan 00:26:03.420 --> 00:26:06.380 is a very religiously conservative area of Malaysia. 00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:08.940 And for decades, they've had these recurrent 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:11.599 outbreaks in all girls' schools. What does it 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:13.339 look like there? What are the symptoms? It's 00:26:13.339 --> 00:26:15.880 very dramatic. Girls start screaming. They claim 00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:18.380 to become incredibly strong, needing multiple 00:26:18.380 --> 00:26:21.180 people to hold them down. And they say they see 00:26:21.180 --> 00:26:25.079 a face of pure evil or supernatural figures from 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:28.180 local folklore, like the Pontianak. The Bontianak 00:26:28.180 --> 00:26:30.339 is a kind of empiric ghost, right? Correct. And 00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:32.519 again, look at how the authorities often respond. 00:26:32.779 --> 00:26:35.140 They will bring in religious leaders for mass 00:26:35.140 --> 00:26:37.460 prayer sessions. In some cases, they've actually 00:26:37.460 --> 00:26:40.039 cut down old trees around the school because 00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:42.140 they believe the trees are hiding spots for the 00:26:42.140 --> 00:26:44.279 spirits. Which going right back to the Singapore 00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:47.480 factory example. just validates the fear. It 00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:50.359 confirms the supernatural explanation. It absolutely 00:26:50.359 --> 00:26:52.799 does. And experts like the sociologist Robert 00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:54.880 Bartholomew, who has studied this extensively, 00:26:55.180 --> 00:26:57.799 argue that as these schools have become more 00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:01.140 religiously strict, it creates a very constricted 00:27:01.140 --> 00:27:04.400 environment. Young women in particular are under 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:06.559 immense scrutiny regarding their behavior, their 00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:09.779 dress, their piety. That pressure builds up and 00:27:09.779 --> 00:27:13.309 it explodes as possession. It's a way of acting 00:27:13.309 --> 00:27:15.269 out in a society where you aren't allowed to 00:27:15.269 --> 00:27:16.849 act out. If you just scream at your teacher, 00:27:16.890 --> 00:27:19.049 you get punished. But if you are possessed by 00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:21.750 a ghost and you scream, you get sympathy and 00:27:21.750 --> 00:27:24.170 attention. Exactly. It's a subconscious negotiation 00:27:24.170 --> 00:27:27.549 for power in a powerless situation. But sometimes 00:27:27.549 --> 00:27:30.009 the tension isn't religious. It's geopolitical. 00:27:30.529 --> 00:27:32.809 We have to talk about Kosovo in 1990. This was 00:27:32.809 --> 00:27:35.430 right before the breakup of Yugoslavia. An incredibly 00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:39.039 volatile and dangerous time. The ethnic tensions 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:41.519 between the Serbs and the Albanians in that region 00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:44.480 were at a breaking point. And in March of 1990, 00:27:44.819 --> 00:27:48.160 a mystery illness struck. Yes. Thousands of ethnic 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:50.559 Albanian adolescents, mostly in schools in the 00:27:50.559 --> 00:27:53.180 province of Kosovo, began collapsing. They reported 00:27:53.180 --> 00:27:57.359 dizziness, breathing issues, fainting. And immediately 00:27:57.359 --> 00:27:59.359 the narrative about what was happening split 00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:19.180 right down ethnic lines. Completely. So you have 00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:21.200 these two narratives, poison versus hoax. What 00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:23.349 was the truth? A federal commission was sent 00:28:23.349 --> 00:28:25.529 in to investigate. They ran all the tests. They 00:28:25.529 --> 00:28:28.869 found no toxins, no poisons. Their official conclusion 00:28:28.869 --> 00:28:31.890 was that it was a mass psychogenic illness precipitated 00:28:31.890 --> 00:28:34.369 by the extreme cultural and political fear that 00:28:34.369 --> 00:28:36.470 these kids were living under. But try telling 00:28:36.470 --> 00:28:39.130 that to the parents of a sick child. You can't 00:28:39.130 --> 00:28:41.789 in that climate telling the Albanians it's just 00:28:41.789 --> 00:28:43.930 stress sounded like you were taking the side 00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:46.349 of the Serbs. It's incredibly difficult to tell 00:28:46.349 --> 00:28:48.490 a population you aren't being poisoned. You are 00:28:48.490 --> 00:28:50.690 just incredibly stressed when they have very 00:28:50.690 --> 00:28:52.930 valid reasons to be afraid of being poisoned. 00:28:53.109 --> 00:28:55.730 We saw an almost identical situation play out 00:28:55.730 --> 00:28:59.369 very recently in Iran in late 2022 and early 00:28:59.369 --> 00:29:02.640 2023. Yes. And the context there was the massive 00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:06.920 woman life freedom protests. The regime was cracking 00:29:06.920 --> 00:29:10.019 down violently. And then suddenly thousands of 00:29:10.019 --> 00:29:12.460 schoolgirls across the country started falling 00:29:12.460 --> 00:29:14.500 ill, believing they were being poisoned by some 00:29:14.500 --> 00:29:16.900 kind of gas attack at their schools. And again, 00:29:17.019 --> 00:29:18.980 the fear was that the government was doing this 00:29:18.980 --> 00:29:21.380 deliberately to punish them for protesting or 00:29:21.380 --> 00:29:23.660 to scare them into staying home. It's a completely 00:29:23.660 --> 00:29:26.319 logical fear in that context. But the Iranian 00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:28.359 intelligence ministry eventually conducted an 00:29:28.359 --> 00:29:30.779 investigation. It was. released in April 2023, 00:29:31.140 --> 00:29:33.779 and they stated that no toxic substances were 00:29:33.779 --> 00:29:36.960 found. They attributed the illnesses to a combination 00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:41.059 of exposure to non -toxic substances, mass hysteria, 00:29:41.059 --> 00:29:43.579 and malingering. It's just a tragedy because 00:29:43.579 --> 00:29:47.259 the fear is so real and so justified. If you 00:29:47.259 --> 00:29:49.799 believe you are being targeted by your own government, 00:29:50.019 --> 00:29:52.039 your body is going to react as if it's under 00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:54.750 attack. And that's why experts like Bartholomew 00:29:54.750 --> 00:29:57.369 argue so passionately that we should be careful 00:29:57.369 --> 00:30:00.289 about using the word hysteria. It carries so 00:30:00.289 --> 00:30:02.549 much baggage. It sounds so dismissive. There 00:30:02.549 --> 00:30:05.250 was that case in Kenya in 2023 that highlights 00:30:05.250 --> 00:30:08.450 this, right? Yes. At St. Teresa's Ereji Girls 00:30:08.450 --> 00:30:11.529 High School, over 100 students were hospitalized 00:30:11.529 --> 00:30:14.910 with uncontrollable shaking and involuntary movements 00:30:14.910 --> 00:30:17.589 in their legs. The official finding from the 00:30:17.589 --> 00:30:21.009 health ministry was stress due to upcoming exams. 00:30:21.410 --> 00:30:23.619 But if you tell a parent. Your daughter is hysterical. 00:30:23.740 --> 00:30:25.660 It sounds like you're insulting her. Exactly. 00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:27.480 It sounds like you're saying she's crazy or she's 00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:29.480 weak or she's making it up. But if you say she's 00:30:29.480 --> 00:30:31.859 suffering from mass psychogenic illness due to 00:30:31.859 --> 00:30:35.200 extreme academic pressure, it reframes it. It 00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:37.440 makes it a legitimate medical response to an 00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:40.000 identifiable environmental factor. It's more 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:42.380 dignified. And frankly, it's just more accurate. 00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:46.119 That distinction is so important. We need to 00:30:46.119 --> 00:30:48.819 destigmatize the diagnosis so people can actually 00:30:48.819 --> 00:30:51.369 get treated. And the treatment usually means 00:30:51.369 --> 00:30:53.869 lowering the stress, not searching for a non 00:30:53.869 --> 00:30:56.529 -existent poison. Precisely. Now, if we connect 00:30:56.529 --> 00:30:58.309 this to the bigger picture of the modern world, 00:30:58.450 --> 00:31:00.289 it's not just schools anymore. It's national 00:31:00.289 --> 00:31:03.269 security. It's global terror. This is where the 00:31:03.269 --> 00:31:05.630 stakes get incredibly high and the confusion 00:31:05.630 --> 00:31:08.210 becomes even more widespread. Let's go back to 00:31:08.210 --> 00:31:10.950 2001. After 9 -11 and then the anthrax letters 00:31:10.950 --> 00:31:13.690 that were mailed in the U .S., the entire world 00:31:13.690 --> 00:31:16.930 was terrified of biowarfare. And the psychological 00:31:16.930 --> 00:31:19.849 impact of the anthrax attacks was so much greater 00:31:19.849 --> 00:31:22.130 than the biological impact. In the U .S. alone, 00:31:22.390 --> 00:31:25.390 there were over 2 ,300 false anthrax alarms. 00:31:25.730 --> 00:31:27.730 And people were actually getting sick from these 00:31:27.730 --> 00:31:30.130 false alarms. Opening a letter with sugar in 00:31:30.130 --> 00:31:32.500 it. Yes. People developed re - Real physical 00:31:32.500 --> 00:31:35.339 symptoms. Nausea, dizziness, throat irritation, 00:31:35.680 --> 00:31:38.359 rashes, purely from the fear of being exposed 00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:41.220 to a biological agent. There was a famous case 00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:43.319 in Maryland where a man just sprayed window cleaner 00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:46.339 in a subway station. It's Windex. Just regular 00:31:46.339 --> 00:31:50.200 window cleaner. But 35 people were treated for 00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:52.200 symptoms because they thought it was a chemical 00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:54.880 attack. Their throats felt like they were closing 00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:57.900 up. They felt faint. Their bodies reacted to 00:31:57.900 --> 00:32:00.549 the perceived threat. That is the nocebo effect 00:32:00.549 --> 00:32:02.450 in action, right? Yeah. We all know about the 00:32:02.450 --> 00:32:04.750 placebo effect. Your belief that a sugar pill 00:32:04.750 --> 00:32:07.269 will work can actually make you better. The nocebo 00:32:07.269 --> 00:32:10.009 effect is the evil twin. Your belief that you 00:32:10.009 --> 00:32:12.609 are in danger can actually make you sick. It 00:32:12.609 --> 00:32:14.950 is the perfect demonstration of the nocebo effect 00:32:14.950 --> 00:32:17.750 on a mass scale. And we saw this during the first 00:32:17.750 --> 00:32:21.349 Gulf War, too. When Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israel, 00:32:21.509 --> 00:32:23.750 about 40 % of the civilians in the vicinity of 00:32:23.750 --> 00:32:25.970 the impacts reported breathing problems. Because 00:32:25.970 --> 00:32:27.470 they thought the missiles contained chemical 00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:29.730 weapons. Exactly. They didn't. They were conventional 00:32:29.730 --> 00:32:32.630 explosives. But the fear was so intense that 00:32:32.630 --> 00:32:34.650 their bodies prepared for the worst and produced 00:32:34.650 --> 00:32:36.849 the symptoms of chemical attack. And then, of 00:32:36.849 --> 00:32:39.000 course, that brings us to Havana syndrome. This 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:41.779 has been dominating the news for years now. This 00:32:41.779 --> 00:32:44.920 is the ultimate modern mystery. It starts in 00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:48.220 2016. U .S. embassy staff in Cuba, then it spreads 00:32:48.220 --> 00:32:50.680 to China, even to Washington, D .C., reporting 00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:53.319 these strange sounds and a collection of symptoms 00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:56.599 like brain fog, dizziness, and headaches. And 00:32:56.599 --> 00:32:59.619 initially the theory was a sonic weapon or some 00:32:59.619 --> 00:33:01.740 kind of... pulsed microwave energy. It sounded 00:33:01.740 --> 00:33:03.920 like something right out of a James Bond movie. 00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:07.660 It did. And because the victims were diplomats 00:33:07.660 --> 00:33:11.799 and CIA agents, people we view as tough, rational, 00:33:11.940 --> 00:33:15.140 high status individuals, the media and the government 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:17.920 hesitated to call it hysteria. If it had been 00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:19.960 a group of teenage girls at a high school, they 00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:22.299 would have called it hysteria on day one. One 00:33:22.299 --> 00:33:24.480 hundred percent. There's a clear bias there. 00:33:24.940 --> 00:33:27.019 But because it was spies, the assumption was 00:33:27.019 --> 00:33:29.480 it has to be a weapon. But as the years went 00:33:29.480 --> 00:33:31.660 on and the investigations got deeper, that weapon 00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:34.579 theory really started to crumble. The 2023 intelligence 00:33:34.579 --> 00:33:37.019 community assessment was pretty definitive about 00:33:37.019 --> 00:33:39.400 it, wasn't it? It was a major turning point. 00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:42.420 It basically undercut the weapon theory, saying 00:33:42.420 --> 00:33:45.059 it was very unlikely that a foreign adversary 00:33:45.059 --> 00:33:49.220 was responsible. The consensus now is that Havana 00:33:49.220 --> 00:33:51.839 syndrome is essentially a socially constructed 00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:54.180 catch -all category. What does that mean in plain 00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:56.700 English? It means you have a group of high -stress 00:33:56.700 --> 00:33:59.779 individuals, spies, living in hostile foreign 00:33:59.779 --> 00:34:01.980 territory. They have pre -existing conditions, 00:34:02.259 --> 00:34:04.799 they have environmental factors, they have immense 00:34:04.799 --> 00:34:07.859 fatigue. But then you introduce a name, Havana 00:34:07.859 --> 00:34:10.800 Syndrome, and a scary story about a secret sonic 00:34:10.800 --> 00:34:14.219 weapon. Suddenly, every single headache, every 00:34:14.219 --> 00:34:17.340 dizzy spell, every ringing in the ear gets relabeled 00:34:17.340 --> 00:34:19.659 and attributed to the syndrome. It's the June 00:34:19.659 --> 00:34:22.019 bug all over again, but on a geopolitical scale 00:34:22.019 --> 00:34:24.639 with spies instead of factory workers. It really 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:27.199 is. And it shows that even the most highly trained 00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:30.519 skeptical professionals are not immune to the 00:34:30.519 --> 00:34:33.239 power of suggestion and social contagion. I want 00:34:33.239 --> 00:34:35.559 to talk about a very specific and frankly heartbreaking 00:34:35.559 --> 00:34:38.119 type of this phenomenon that seems to only happen 00:34:38.119 --> 00:34:40.440 in one place. That's resignation syndrome in 00:34:40.440 --> 00:34:43.679 Sweden. This is a truly tragic and bizarre culture 00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:46.599 bound syndrome. It almost exclusively affects 00:34:46.599 --> 00:34:50.300 the children of asylum seekers in Sweden. When 00:34:50.300 --> 00:34:52.579 they learn that their families are facing deportation 00:34:52.579 --> 00:34:55.360 back to a country they fled, these children fall 00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:58.539 into a coma -like state. A literal coma. It's 00:34:58.539 --> 00:35:00.840 called an apathetic state. They stop eating. 00:35:01.019 --> 00:35:03.679 They stop talking. They become completely unresponsive, 00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:06.280 even to pain. They have to be tube -fed. They 00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:09.300 essentially hibernate. They shut down. And this 00:35:09.300 --> 00:35:11.510 only happens in Sweden. That's the bizarre part. 00:35:11.590 --> 00:35:13.869 It's been prevalent there since the early 2000s, 00:35:13.869 --> 00:35:15.909 but it's virtually unknown in other countries 00:35:15.909 --> 00:35:18.550 that have very similar refugee populations like 00:35:18.550 --> 00:35:22.130 Germany or Denmark. Why? Why only there? That 00:35:22.130 --> 00:35:24.789 is the million dollar question. And there is 00:35:24.789 --> 00:35:26.690 some controversy around it. Some investigations 00:35:26.690 --> 00:35:28.389 have raised difficult questions about whether 00:35:28.389 --> 00:35:31.769 parents might be, in some cases, forcing or coaching 00:35:31.769 --> 00:35:34.889 children to act this way to gain residency. Permit's 00:35:34.889 --> 00:35:37.150 a kind of scam theory. That's a very dark possibility. 00:35:37.710 --> 00:35:40.289 It is. And some investigative journalists have 00:35:40.289 --> 00:35:42.429 critiqued the Swedish media for not looking into 00:35:42.429 --> 00:35:45.050 that angle enough, perhaps out of a fear of seeming 00:35:45.050 --> 00:35:47.650 anti -immigrant. But other experts argue that 00:35:47.650 --> 00:35:49.730 even if there is an element of coaching in some 00:35:49.730 --> 00:35:52.570 cases, the spread of the behavior among the youth 00:35:52.570 --> 00:35:55.489 has a genuine element of psychological contagion 00:35:55.489 --> 00:35:57.670 to it. Meaning the kids aren't just faking the 00:35:57.670 --> 00:36:00.860 coma. It's likely a complex mix, but for many 00:36:00.860 --> 00:36:02.980 of them, the hopelessness of their situation 00:36:02.980 --> 00:36:05.559 is absolutely real and the symptom of falling 00:36:05.559 --> 00:36:08.139 into the state is a culturally learned way of 00:36:08.139 --> 00:36:10.280 shutting down. They see other kids do it. They 00:36:10.280 --> 00:36:12.440 hear about it in their community. So when the 00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:15.199 trauma of a deportation order hits them, their 00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:18.019 brain selects coma from the symptom pool as the 00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.420 appropriate response. It shows how the mind can 00:36:20.420 --> 00:36:22.679 just hit the off switch when it's faced with 00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:25.320 unbearable trauma and how culture provides the 00:36:25.320 --> 00:36:28.099 script for how we hit that switch. In Sweden, 00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:30.440 for these kids, the script is fall into a coma. 00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:33.400 In the Middle Ages, the script was dance until 00:36:33.400 --> 00:36:35.679 you drop. Which brings us to the newest script 00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:39.280 and the newest vector for contagion, social media. 00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:44.400 Mass social media induced illness, or MSMI. This 00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:46.300 is a term that has only emerged in the last few 00:36:46.300 --> 00:36:48.739 years for obvious reasons. We saw this with the 00:36:48.739 --> 00:36:50.940 explosion of... Tick -tock ticks, right? Exactly. 00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:54.340 Around 2019, and especially during the pandemic 00:36:54.340 --> 00:36:57.840 in 2021, doctors and pediatric neurologists around 00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:00.519 the world started seeing this sharp, sudden rise 00:37:00.519 --> 00:37:04.300 in teenage girls coming into their offices with 00:37:04.300 --> 00:37:07.960 severe kinetic -like behaviors. It looked a lot 00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:09.880 like Tourette's syndrome. But Tourette's usually 00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:12.099 starts in young boys, and it develops slowly 00:37:12.099 --> 00:37:15.380 over time. This was sudden onset and overwhelmingly 00:37:15.380 --> 00:37:18.030 in teenage girls. Right. The presentation was 00:37:18.030 --> 00:37:20.170 all wrong. And when they investigated, they found 00:37:20.170 --> 00:37:22.829 a common thread. These teenagers were all watching 00:37:22.829 --> 00:37:25.809 popular influencers on TikTok who had Tourette's 00:37:25.809 --> 00:37:28.030 or Tourette like ticks. So they were effectively 00:37:28.030 --> 00:37:30.730 catching the ticks through the screen. In a way, 00:37:30.730 --> 00:37:33.530 yes. The theory involves mirror neurons, which 00:37:33.530 --> 00:37:35.769 we should get into, but it's also the power of 00:37:35.769 --> 00:37:38.110 the algorithm. If you watch one video of a girl 00:37:38.110 --> 00:37:40.429 with Felix, the algorithm immediately feeds you 00:37:40.429 --> 00:37:43.349 10 more. You are bombarded with this specific 00:37:43.349 --> 00:37:46.150 behavior. Combine that with the intense stress 00:37:46.150 --> 00:37:49.409 and isolation of the COVID -19 pandemic, plus 00:37:49.409 --> 00:37:53.190 rising eco -anxiety, and you have a perfect environment 00:37:53.190 --> 00:37:55.909 for a new kind of outbreak. It's the cohesive 00:37:55.909 --> 00:37:58.880 group of the 21st century. You don't need to 00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:00.719 be in the same factory or schoolroom anymore. 00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:02.980 You just need to be on the same For You page 00:38:02.980 --> 00:38:06.099 on TikTok. That is a profound observation. The 00:38:06.099 --> 00:38:09.179 digital tribe is the new cohesive group. So let's 00:38:09.179 --> 00:38:11.440 get into the science of why. You mentioned mirror 00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:14.239 neurons. I want to really understand this. How 00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:16.400 does my brain mimic what your brain is doing? 00:38:16.699 --> 00:38:19.079 Mirror neurons are a really special class of 00:38:19.079 --> 00:38:21.340 cells in your brain. They fire both when you 00:38:21.340 --> 00:38:23.380 perform an action yourself and when you observe 00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:25.380 someone else performing that same action. Give 00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:27.619 me a simple example. If I pick up this cup of 00:38:27.619 --> 00:38:30.599 coffee a certain set of neurons in my motor cortex 00:38:30.599 --> 00:38:33.159 will fire. If I watch you pick up a cup of coffee, 00:38:33.239 --> 00:38:35.679 many of those same neurons in my brain will fire 00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:37.940 as if I were doing it myself, even though my 00:38:37.940 --> 00:38:39.880 hand isn't moving. It's the basis of empathy, 00:38:40.019 --> 00:38:41.920 right, of learning by watching. It's absolutely 00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:43.980 fundamental to empathy. It's how we learn by 00:38:43.980 --> 00:38:46.400 watching. It's how we feel a pang of sadness 00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:49.400 when we see someone else cry. Our brain is simulating 00:38:49.400 --> 00:38:52.400 their experience. So the theory is that people 00:38:52.400 --> 00:38:56.139 who are more susceptible to MPI have what, overactive 00:38:56.139 --> 00:38:58.460 mirror neurons? That's one of the strongest hypotheses. 00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:02.079 It's interesting to contrast this with autism. 00:39:02.760 --> 00:39:05.579 Autism is often associated with underactive mirror 00:39:05.579 --> 00:39:08.380 neurons, a biological difficulty in reading social 00:39:08.380 --> 00:39:11.159 cues and understanding others' intentions, and 00:39:11.159 --> 00:39:14.000 it affects males more often than females. MPI 00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:16.139 historically affects females more often, who, 00:39:16.199 --> 00:39:18.719 on average, tend to have more active mirror neuron 00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:20.619 systems. It's like their empathy dial has turned 00:39:20.619 --> 00:39:22.730 all the way up to 11. That's a great way to put 00:39:22.730 --> 00:39:25.349 it. They literally feel what others are feeling 00:39:25.349 --> 00:39:28.610 physically. So if they see someone hyperventilating, 00:39:28.690 --> 00:39:31.170 their mirror neurons fire, their own chest tightens, 00:39:31.210 --> 00:39:34.369 and suddenly they are hyperventilating too. It's 00:39:34.369 --> 00:39:36.610 not a conscious choice. That makes it sound almost 00:39:36.610 --> 00:39:38.849 like a superpower gone wrong. It's a kind of 00:39:38.849 --> 00:39:41.349 extreme empathy that becomes a vulnerability. 00:39:41.730 --> 00:39:44.289 It is. It's a heightened sensitivity to the social 00:39:44.289 --> 00:39:47.010 cues of the group. But diagnosing this has to 00:39:47.010 --> 00:39:49.150 be a complete nightmare for a doctor, isn't it? 00:39:49.190 --> 00:39:51.579 Because you're essentially... trying to prove 00:39:51.579 --> 00:39:54.400 a negative. That is the diagnostic trap. We often 00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:57.500 call MPI a residual diagnosis or an argument 00:39:57.500 --> 00:40:00.179 from ignorance. A doctor runs every conceivable 00:40:00.179 --> 00:40:02.820 test for poisons, for viruses, for bacteria. 00:40:03.179 --> 00:40:05.340 They all come back negative. So they're left 00:40:05.340 --> 00:40:07.300 to say, well, we can't find anything, so it must 00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:09.980 be hysteria. Which feels really unsatisfying 00:40:09.980 --> 00:40:12.019 for both the doctor and the patient. It is. And 00:40:12.019 --> 00:40:14.679 it carries a huge, huge risk. What if there really 00:40:14.679 --> 00:40:17.860 is a new unknown toxin that our current tests 00:40:17.860 --> 00:40:20.619 just can't pick up yet? There is always the of 00:40:20.619 --> 00:40:23.300 a false positive for MPI diagnosing hysteria 00:40:23.300 --> 00:40:25.800 when it's actually a subtle gas leak. But the 00:40:25.800 --> 00:40:28.099 reverse is true too, right? Yes. And this happens 00:40:28.099 --> 00:40:30.599 all the time. If you keep testing and testing 00:40:30.599 --> 00:40:33.260 for every chemical under the sun, you might find 00:40:33.260 --> 00:40:35.920 a false positive for a toxin. You might find 00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:38.000 a trace amount of mold in the air vents that 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:39.960 isn't actually causing the problem, but everyone 00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:43.889 latches onto it. Uh -huh. It's the mold. And 00:40:43.889 --> 00:40:45.650 then you spend millions of dollars removing the 00:40:45.650 --> 00:40:48.250 mold. But the illness continues because the underlying 00:40:48.250 --> 00:40:50.989 stress is still there. It's a terrifying tightrope 00:40:50.989 --> 00:40:53.409 walk for medical professionals. It really is. 00:40:53.590 --> 00:40:55.530 And at the end of the day, we just have to respect 00:40:55.530 --> 00:40:58.329 the incredible power of the nocebo effect. We 00:40:58.329 --> 00:41:00.610 readily accept that the mind can heal placebo's 00:41:00.610 --> 00:41:03.329 work. That's proven. We have to also accept that 00:41:03.329 --> 00:41:06.150 the mind can harm. If you believe, truly believe, 00:41:06.349 --> 00:41:08.840 you are in danger. your body will produce the 00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:12.280 cortisol, the adrenaline, and the very real physical 00:41:12.280 --> 00:41:15.239 symptoms of that danger. So where does this all 00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:18.019 leave us? We've gone from nuns meowing in a French 00:41:18.019 --> 00:41:21.260 convent to teenagers ticking on TikTok. What's 00:41:21.260 --> 00:41:23.280 the through line? The through line is that we 00:41:23.280 --> 00:41:26.099 are fundamentally social animals. We look to 00:41:26.099 --> 00:41:28.679 each other to interpret reality, especially when 00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:31.639 it's ambiguous or scary. When the group says 00:41:31.639 --> 00:41:34.610 there is a threat, Our bodies respond to that 00:41:34.610 --> 00:41:36.610 threat, whether the threat is defined as a demon, 00:41:36.789 --> 00:41:40.630 a bug, a poison gas, or a sonic weapon. It really 00:41:40.630 --> 00:41:42.590 challenges our modern idea that we're all these 00:41:42.590 --> 00:41:45.230 rational, independent individuals. We are so 00:41:45.230 --> 00:41:47.769 much more connected and vulnerable to each other 00:41:47.769 --> 00:41:51.130 than we like to think. Absolutely. The researchers 00:41:51.130 --> 00:41:53.650 Bartholomew and Wesley summed it up best when 00:41:53.650 --> 00:41:57.050 they said that MPI is a behavioral reaction that 00:41:57.050 --> 00:42:00.010 anyone can show in the right circumstances. It 00:42:00.010 --> 00:42:01.889 is not a sign of weakness. It's not a sign of 00:42:01.889 --> 00:42:04.690 low IQ. It's not a sign of being crazy. It's 00:42:04.690 --> 00:42:07.010 a sign of being human. I think that's a great 00:42:07.010 --> 00:42:08.769 place to leave the history and the science. But 00:42:08.769 --> 00:42:10.750 I do have one final thought that's been nagging 00:42:10.750 --> 00:42:12.710 at me throughout this whole conversation. We 00:42:12.710 --> 00:42:14.949 talked about how the Internet, how social media 00:42:14.949 --> 00:42:18.130 is the new vector. Well, if the Internet creates 00:42:18.130 --> 00:42:20.829 a global cohesive group, are we moving toward 00:42:20.829 --> 00:42:24.429 a future where we could see a global psychogenic 00:42:24.429 --> 00:42:28.440 illness? I mean, could a symptom, a tick, a phrase, 00:42:28.559 --> 00:42:30.739 a feeling of nausea travel around the entire 00:42:30.739 --> 00:42:33.420 world in seconds, affecting millions of people 00:42:33.420 --> 00:42:36.400 simultaneously across dozens of cultures just 00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:39.079 because they all saw the same viral video at 00:42:39.079 --> 00:42:42.219 the same time? That is a terrifying and a fascinating 00:42:42.219 --> 00:42:45.019 possibility. As we become more digitally connected, 00:42:45.260 --> 00:42:47.920 our village becomes the whole world. And if the 00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:50.719 village gets sick, we all might feel it. Something 00:42:50.719 --> 00:42:52.280 to mull over next time you're scrolling through 00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:54.239 your feed. Thanks for joining us on this deep 00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:56.539 dive into the mysteries of the mind. Always a 00:42:56.539 --> 00:42:59.440 pleasure. Stay curious and maybe take a break 00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:01.039 from the screen every now and then. See you next 00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:01.159 time.