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The “Dancing Plague” of Strasbourg, 1518: Madness, Mystery, and the Power of the Collective Mind
As someone who has lived with complex mental health challenges and has spent years studying the fragile boundary between mind and body, I am endlessly fascinated by one of history’s most bizarre episodes: the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg in 1518. Sometimes called “the dancing mania,” this outbreak remains one of the most striking examples of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) ever recorded. In the summer of 1518, in the city of Strasbourg (then part of the Holy…
🧠🎶🌸🥑💞
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The “TikTok Tics” Outbreaks: A Modern Case of Mass Psychogenic Illness
As someone who has lived with complex mental health challenges and has spent years studying the fragile boundary between mind and body, I am deeply fascinated by how psychological distress can spread rapidly through social networks. One of the clearest recent examples is the phenomenon known as the “TikTok tics” outbreaks — a striking modern manifestation of mass psychogenic illness (MPI). Beginning around 2020 and accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of adolescents — predominantly teenage girls — began displaying sudden-onset motor and vocal tics after watching TikTok videos featuring influencers with Tourette-like symptoms. These tics, which emerged with little…
Mmm… You’ll Know
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Mass Psychogenic Illness: Mass / Epidemic Hysteria
I am here on my quiet seaside corner where the waves remind me how easily human minds can ripple and resonate with one another. I have come to respect the profound power of the collective psyche. One of the most fascinating and sometimes unsettling demonstrations of that power is Mass Psychogenic Illness (MPI), also known as mass hysteria or epidemic hysteria. Mass psychogenic illness refers to the rapid spread of physical symptoms or abnormal behaviour within…
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Termination / Completion Anxiety: Why Some People Don’t End Things
Hello, community. Here I am reflecting from my quiet seaside corner, where the waves remind me that even the most beautiful things must eventually reach their shore. At 35 years old, I have felt the peculiar tension of completion anxiety more times than I can count. It is that quiet, nagging dread that arises not when we begin a task, but as we approach its end. Completion anxiety — sometimes called “fear of finishing” or “termination…
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