Can multiple people hallucinate the same thing at the same time ?

[LazaB]

Can multiple people see the same thing even though the thing is not real ? I am interested in this because many people have ghost stories and i don't believe in those things , but it's kinda hard to refute it when two people say that they saw the same thing at the same time , lying is always the option , but is there another medical condition that can explain this ?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not really, no. Though people can and do see things they all agree later to be a single unitary vision of x. Dancings suns and whatnot.

[LazaB]

So how am i supposed to explain this ?
" When I was around ten years old, I lived in a house built in the 1700's. I was with my mom in my living room, when we both saw a kid around five years old, in old fashiond clothes, come out of the dining room and look around. My mom asked the kid if he was lost. He shook his head no, turned left, and walked through the hallway wall. That was 20 years ago. I remember it as clear as day, and it was like looking at a living person. I don't know if it was a ghost, some sort of time anomaly that showed me a kid from 300 years ago, or whatever the f, but both my mother and I remember it exactly the same to this day, down to the color of what he was wearing "

Can anyone explain this ? Except that all these people are making it all up ?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Can multiple people see the same thing even though the thing is not real ? I am interested in this because many people have ghost stories and i don't believe in those things , but it's kinda hard to refute it when two people say that they saw the same thing at the same time , lying is always the option , but is there another medical condition that can explain this ?

The medical condition is called ‘mass hallucination’. The term is something of a misnomer, as it’s actually pareidolia (interpreting a random shape as something specific) and suggestion bias. One person in a crowd looks at a cloud and says, ‘Look! It’s the Blessed Virgin!’, which makes others in the crowd bandwagon when - left to their own devices - they might see the cloud as a unicorn, a potato, or just a cloud.

While it’s true that lying is always an option, that’s not usually the case. People subject to mass hallucinatory experience tend to genuinely believe that they actually saw what they think they saw. They’re not necessarily dishonest, just mistaken.

Boru

[Brian37]

Can multiple people see the same thing even though the thing is not real ? I am interested in this because many people have ghost stories and i don't believe in those things , but it's kinda hard to refute it when two people say that they saw the same thing at the same time , lying is always the option , but is there another medical condition that can explain this ?

Hysteria in en mass is basic power of suggestion. So yes and no. It is a delusion ultimately, and you'll believe something bad enough if you want to. 

Here is a prime example of delusional bullshit. No, the sun does not dance in the sky as the conspiratorial morons who pulled this stunt would have you believe. But, just like "miracle" stories today in modern media, people love a good conspiracy story and do not like the mundane real explanations. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

It is the same with when people call it a "miracle" when someone survives a passenger jet crash and everyone else dies. I always wonder where the number of dead in a similar crash but opposite result would make it cease to be a miracle. Half and Half? They never want to consider things like weather, pilot error, pilot training, angle of impact, terrain of impact. Nope, if someone survives then all the dead that don't survive get ignored. It is called selection bias and sample rate error. It is gap filling basically. 

There are lots of natural reasons humans do stupid things in groups, or believe crap like a kissing cobra kissing a baby. The handler has sewn the cobra's mouth shut. 

There is a psychology of group think that will cause people in Pentecostal churches to "speak in tongues" and it is flat out mass hysteria and bullshit. 

There used to be a time when there were far more people who would believe that the lady on stage was really sawed in half by the magician, but sane people know today, it is really just an illusion. It is why religion works so well, like the claims of the empty tomb, or claims of walking on water, or healing the blind.  If you want to believe something badly enough, you will. 

Skepticism is the best precaution to insure the minimizing of falling for crap. Humans are not perfect and even the wisest people can be fooled sometimes. But skepticism is a far better safety belt than blindly swallowing.

[LazaB]

I know about mass hallucinations but that still doesn't explain how can 2-3-4 people see the same thing down to the details in one room , i think that cloud shape and miracle of the sun is easier to explain because not all witnesses saw the same thing , so it's easier to say that they were all wrong , but how the hell can multiple people see the same details on the person who is not even there ?
I am sorry if i am boring you with this but i always tell people how these stories are bullshit so it bothers me that i can't explain this

[The Grand Nudger]

So how am i supposed to explain this ?
" When I was around ten years old, I lived in a house built in the 1700's. I was with my mom in my living room, when we both saw a kid around five years old, in old fashiond clothes, come out of the dining room and look around. My mom asked the kid if he was lost. He shook his head no, turned left, and walked through the hallway wall. That was 20 years ago. I remember it as clear as day, and it was like looking at a living person. I don't know if it was a ghost, some sort of time anomaly that showed me a kid from 300 years ago, or whatever the f, but both my mother and I remember it exactly the same to this day, down to the color of what he was wearing  "

Can anyone explain this ? Except that all these people are making it all up ?

All these people?  There are only two people in your narrative.  It's much easier to explain how a mother and child could come to a single narrative over twenty years than examples of actual mass hysteria or delusion. Since it seems like it will eventually come to a head and the bandaid may as well be ripped off..and because you absolutely insist on framing this as an issue of honesty. Yes, the mother and the child are lying to each other and to themselves. Or, conversely, there is only one dishonest narrator involved - the person who told the story to you.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So how am i supposed to explain this ?
" When I was around ten years old, I lived in a house built in the 1700's. I was with my mom in my living room, when we both saw a kid around five years old, in old fashiond clothes, come out of the dining room and look around. My mom asked the kid if he was lost. He shook his head no, turned left, and walked through the hallway wall. That was 20 years ago. I remember it as clear as day, and it was like looking at a living person. I don't know if it was a ghost, some sort of time anomaly that showed me a kid from 300 years ago, or whatever the f, but both my mother and I remember it exactly the same to this day, down to the color of what he was wearing  "

Can anyone explain this ? Except that all these people are making it all up ?

A few possible explanations:

-They are, in fact, making it all up.

-It’s a false memory (this is more common than many people realize.

-Urban myth.

I suppose it could have also been a ghost or a time portal. Since it’s really nothing more than an anecdote without corroborating evidence, though, the smart money’s on one of the other three.

Boru

[LazaB]

So how am i supposed to explain this ?
" When I was around ten years old, I lived in a house built in the 1700's. I was with my mom in my living room, when we both saw a kid around five years old, in old fashiond clothes, come out of the dining room and look around. My mom asked the kid if he was lost. He shook his head no, turned left, and walked through the hallway wall. That was 20 years ago. I remember it as clear as day, and it was like looking at a living person. I don't know if it was a ghost, some sort of time anomaly that showed me a kid from 300 years ago, or whatever the f, but both my mother and I remember it exactly the same to this day, down to the color of what he was wearing  "

Can anyone explain this ? Except that all these people are making it all up ?

All these people?  There are only two people in your narrative.  It's much easier to explain how a mother and child could come to a single narrative over twenty years than examples of actual mass hysteria or delusion.  Since it seems like iut will eventually come to a head and the bandaid may as well be ripped off..and because you absolutely insist on framing this as an issue of honesty.  You, and your mother, are lying to each other and to yourselves.

I meant all these people because there are thousands of similar stories , but i agree with you , simple explanation is the most likely.

[The Grand Nudger]

There aren't thousands of people with similar stories, that's the irony of mass delusion and private familial mythologies. There are thousands of people with one story about there being similar stories.

The setup is implausible even if there are ghosts..as individuals experience and recount completely mundane events and sequences that absolutely did happen in vastly different ways. In fact, if you were interrogating folks..and everyone gave you the same story down to the very last detail, that would be an impressive demonstration that you're dealing with a set of collaborating witnesses - not a strictly true account of an event. The storyteller has tried to sell it too hard, and in the process given their story the appearance of fiction on it's face.