Comments on: Mass Hysteria

By: godlessgirl

godlessgirl — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:23:34 +0000

You reminded me of another experience (this time at a youth conference) where all the kids around me were visibly emotional about a sermon we'd just heard. I didn't feel anything, so I honestly thought something was wrong with me. Ugh.

By: amemur

amemur — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:32:22 +0000

True. We behave pretty much as the people we want to be with… or at least (in my case) we manage to maintain a low profile so people we have to interact with wouldn't harass us. I imagine a lot of stress in being in the middle of a row where everybody is falling and you just don't want to be the one standing because of your fear of others taking offense.

By: godlessgirl

godlessgirl — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:23:33 +0000

I wonder about stress as a cause for laugh attacks. I'd have to admit I don't see the correlation in my own experience above, but it does come out of an extreme emotional state, so maybe that's a sort of stress?

By: godlessgirl

godlessgirl — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:20:12 +0000

I think our desire to be accepted and affirmed ultimately drives any desire for a so-called religious/spiritual experience. Notice that people don't desire things that would make them an outcast.

By: godlessgirl

godlessgirl — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:17:56 +0000

Just in case people didn't know what that experiment entailed, here's a link: http://bit.ly/7rh0u

By: amemur

amemur — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:01:09 +0000

I didn't finish watching it because it was a little bit disturbing to me. Although I think that it could be explained in relation to some sort of empathetic behavior? People, when they're not thinking, behave pretty much as the next person. It seems like they want to be involved no matter how foolish their behavior might look.

By: Xtine

Xtine — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:41:14 +0000

I used to have laugh attacks… and realize now that they were an expression of extreme stress… and a wacked out kundalini. I always had them in secular surroundings, and mostly during my tween years. Didn't realize that if I had had them at church, which I nearly did Quite a few times, that they were a sign of the spirit.

More like a sign of how much stress the human body-mind "spirit" can be put under. Speaking in tongues definitely comes into play here too.

Interesting story. You definitely shed a new light on this for me.

By: grimmlock

grimmlock — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:25:19 +0000

if these stuffy christians act like this when they are really drunk, then they are definitely people i don’t want to hang around with. what someone they perceive as a man in “power” tells them to do and nothing more.

it follows along the same lines as the milgram experiment.

By: Rooker

Rooker — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:31:23 +0000

"so she grabbed a glass full of milk and poured it on my head. It didn’t help."

/me wipes root beer off the monitor.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:05:28 +0000

It's creepy. I have a friend who used to go to a church alot like this… I don't understand the point…