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

[Jehanne]

It's a meteorite that they are prancing around.

[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

No, you are not boring anyone. I would only advice you not to believe everything people claim even in groups. Most of the world's population believed the earth was flat, and unfortunately there are still idiots today that still do. 

I understand , it just bothers me that we don't have a satisfactory explanation for those things ( other than the people are lying or hallucinating the same thing) , i found another one that scares the shit out of me
" When my grandmother died one of her sons, his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, moved into the house. My grandparents had lived in that house for over 40 years. To condense it down to the short of it, one day the daughter, who was 20 at the time, heard her name called, turned around in the kitchen to see her dead grandmother standing behind her. She obviously wigged out, dropped the glass she was holding which broke on the floor and ran outside and locked herself in her car. Nobody was home at the time. When my aunt and uncle arrived they couldn't coax her out of the car for a while. She explained what happened and my uncle said yea, I saw her too recently walking down the hallway.  As it turns out, they had all seen glimpses of her in the house but hadn't said anything to each other because it was "crazy." The thing that bothers me most about this is my uncle is a high school history teacher and football coach, my aunt works at the county clerks office, and the two children were more like young adults ages 18 and 20 at the time. None of the four of them are prone to flights or fancy, do drugs, or are known for lying. I have no way of understanding the stories they tell about that house. I simply can't explain it. The son, who was staying in what used to be my grandparents bedroom started sleeping on the couch because he would wake up and my grandmother would be in that room with him looking out the window.

[Angrboda]

No, you are not boring anyone. I would only advice you not to believe everything people claim even in groups. Most of the world's population believed the earth was flat, and unfortunately there are still idiots today that still do. 

I understand , it just bothers me that we don't have a satisfactory explanation for those things ( other than the people are lying or hallucinating the same thing) , i found another one that scares the shit out of me
" When my grandmother died one of her sons, his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, moved into the house. My grandparents had lived in that house for over 40 years. To condense it down to the short of it, one day the daughter, who was 20 at the time, heard her name called, turned around in the kitchen to see her dead grandmother standing behind her. She obviously wigged out, dropped the glass she was holding which broke on the floor and ran outside and locked herself in her car. Nobody was home at the time. When my aunt and uncle arrived they couldn't coax her out of the car for a while. She explained what happened and my uncle said yea, I saw her too recently walking down the hallway.  As it turns out, they had all seen glimpses of her in the house but hadn't said anything to each other because it was "crazy." The thing that bothers me most about this is my uncle is a high school history teacher and football coach, my aunt works at the county clerks office, and the two children were more like young adults ages 18 and 20 at the time. None of the four of them are prone to flights or fancy, do drugs, or are known for lying. I have no way of understanding the stories they tell about that house. I simply can't explain it. The son, who was staying in what used to be my grandparents bedroom started sleeping on the couch because he would wake up and my grandmother would be in that room with him looking out the window.

Generally speaking, explanations, particularly scientific ones, are meant to explain classes of events, to find regularities over a broad range of instances. It sounds like you're looking for explanations of specific events or instances. Given that the explanations are generalizations, they are not necessarily going to explain any specific instance. There's a mismatch in trying to find explanations for specific events using generalizations which will always be unsatisfying. This is one of the appeals of anecdotes, which, by their particularity, will always escape definitive explanation using general laws and regularities. Take the miracle of the sun at Fatima. We can postulate that any number of general mechanisms might have been at work at Fatima and might explain the appearance of a miracle, but we do not have enough data about what exactly happened at Fatima to say that this or that explanation was definitely at work, and as such we can never fully rule out the possibility that an actual miracle occurred. This can be a form of defense used to protect the miracle. By examining each general phenomenon that might explain Fatima, because they don't necessarily apply to this or that piece of evidence, each general law can be discarded one-by-one until the only known explanation still standing is that of a miracle. Unfortunately for such a defense or apologia, that argument is an appeal to ignorance and therefore is invalid, but it can be convincing to any who do not recognize that flaw, or who are persuaded in spite of it.

[LazaB]

I understand , it just bothers me that we don't have a satisfactory explanation for those things ( other than the people are lying or hallucinating the same thing) , i found another one that scares the shit out of me
" When my grandmother died one of her sons, his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, moved into the house. My grandparents had lived in that house for over 40 years. To condense it down to the short of it, one day the daughter, who was 20 at the time, heard her name called, turned around in the kitchen to see her dead grandmother standing behind her. She obviously wigged out, dropped the glass she was holding which broke on the floor and ran outside and locked herself in her car. Nobody was home at the time. When my aunt and uncle arrived they couldn't coax her out of the car for a while. She explained what happened and my uncle said yea, I saw her too recently walking down the hallway.  As it turns out, they had all seen glimpses of her in the house but hadn't said anything to each other because it was "crazy." The thing that bothers me most about this is my uncle is a high school history teacher and football coach, my aunt works at the county clerks office, and the two children were more like young adults ages 18 and 20 at the time. None of the four of them are prone to flights or fancy, do drugs, or are known for lying. I have no way of understanding the stories they tell about that house. I simply can't explain it. The son, who was staying in what used to be my grandparents bedroom started sleeping on the couch because he would wake up and my grandmother would be in that room with him looking out the window.

Generally speaking, explanations, particularly scientific ones, are meant to explain classes of events, to find regularities over a broad range of instances.  It sounds like you're looking for explanations of specific events or instances.  Given that the explanations are generalizations, they are not necessarily going to explain any specific instance.  There's a mismatch in trying to find explanations for specific events using generalizations which will always be unsatisfying.  This is one of the appeals of anecdotes, which, by their particularity, will always escape definitive explanation using general laws and regularities.  Take the miracle of the sun at Fatima.  We can postulate that any number of general mechanisms might have been at work at Fatima and might explain the appearance of a miracle, but we do not have enough data about what exactly happened at Fatima to say that this or that explanation was definitely at work, and as such we can never fully rule out the possibility that an actual miracle occurred.  This can be a form of defense used to protect the miracle.  By examining each general phenomenon that might explain Fatima, because they don't necessarily apply to this or that piece of evidence, each general law can be discarded one-by-one until the only known explanation still standing is that of a miracle.  Unfortunately for such a defense or apologia, that argument is an appeal to ignorance and therefore is invalid, but it can be convincing to any who do not recognize that flaw, or who are persuaded in spite of it.

Yes i still know that when 2 people say that they have witnessed a ghost of a baby boy and they explain him to the smallest details the most probably answer is still that they are lying or were under some sort of a delusion that maybe science still doesn't understand very well , that would be the most rational answer to those stories.
Or in the second story where the whole family kept seeing their dead grandmother for months in their home the most probable explanation is that they are all lying or were all under a delusion , but for me it's impossible to just discard it as something trivial , i think there is a real phenomenon going on there , whether it's mass delusion and experience of the same hallucination or a real ghost ( whatever that means ).

[arewethereyet]

Hallucinations are a product of the mind (with or without an external influence such as a drug). Everyone has their own mind, thoughts, experiences, reactions, etc. so multiple people can't experience the same hallucination...too many variables.

[Angrboda]

Generally speaking, explanations, particularly scientific ones, are meant to explain classes of events, to find regularities over a broad range of instances.  It sounds like you're looking for explanations of specific events or instances.  Given that the explanations are generalizations, they are not necessarily going to explain any specific instance.  There's a mismatch in trying to find explanations for specific events using generalizations which will always be unsatisfying.  This is one of the appeals of anecdotes, which, by their particularity, will always escape definitive explanation using general laws and regularities.  Take the miracle of the sun at Fatima.  We can postulate that any number of general mechanisms might have been at work at Fatima and might explain the appearance of a miracle, but we do not have enough data about what exactly happened at Fatima to say that this or that explanation was definitely at work, and as such we can never fully rule out the possibility that an actual miracle occurred.  This can be a form of defense used to protect the miracle.  By examining each general phenomenon that might explain Fatima, because they don't necessarily apply to this or that piece of evidence, each general law can be discarded one-by-one until the only known explanation still standing is that of a miracle.  Unfortunately for such a defense or apologia, that argument is an appeal to ignorance and therefore is invalid, but it can be convincing to any who do not recognize that flaw, or who are persuaded in spite of it.

Yes i still know that when 2 people say that they have witnessed a ghost of a baby boy and they explain him to the smallest details the most probably answer is still that they are lying or were under some sort of a delusion that maybe science still doesn't understand very well , that would be the most rational answer to those stories.
Or in the second story where the whole family kept seeing their dead grandmother for months in their home the most probable explanation is that they are all lying or were all under a delusion , but for me it's impossible to just discard it as something trivial , i think there is a real phenomenon going on there , whether it's mass delusion and experience of the same hallucination or a real ghost ( whatever that means ).

Well, it's not clear that you understood my point, but regardless, let's cut to the chase: what do you think you should conclude if there is no explanation?

[LazaB]

Yes i still know that when 2 people say that they have witnessed a ghost of a baby boy and they explain him to the smallest details the most probably answer is still that they are lying or were under some sort of a delusion that maybe science still doesn't understand very well , that would be the most rational answer to those stories.
Or in the second story where the whole family kept seeing their dead grandmother for months in their home the most probable explanation is that they are all lying or were all under a delusion , but for me it's impossible to just discard it as something trivial , i think there is a real phenomenon going on there , whether it's mass delusion and experience of the same hallucination or a real ghost ( whatever that means ).

Well, it's not clear that you understood my point, but regardless, let's cut to the chase: what do you think you should conclude if there is no explanation?

Well exactly that , that there is no current explanation and that we can hope that one day science will have the answer , until then we can only say that we don't know ( we can guess based on logic and reason , but it's still just guesswork ).

[The Grand Nudger]

The just must be doing alot of work.

[Jehanne]

Well, it's not clear that you understood my point, but regardless, let's cut to the chase: what do you think you should conclude if there is no explanation?

Well exactly that , that there is no current explanation and that we can hope that one day science will have the answer , until then we can only say that we don't know ( we can guess based on logic and reason , but it's still just guesswork ).

Why do you think the burden of proof exists at all to explain anything that is outside the realm of observation and/or experiment? Besides, there are literally thousands of controlled psychological experiments that offer purely naturalistic explanations for hallucinations, both individual and collective experiences.

[Anomalocaris]

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 ?

You can rephrase the question to “can the contents of hallucinations be influenced by externalities such as suggestions”.