Cinema thrives on hysterical characters, especially when they inhabit closed environments such as convents or girls schools. But what can we make of the dozens of people who died during a dancing epidemic in medieval France?

Hysteria shares its etymological roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. Does that explain why women are still more likely than men to be accused of hysterical behaviour?

Death – or being in close proximity to death – encourages unusual social behaviour. From the birth of Spiritualism to WW1 and beyond, how are our beliefs shaped by the people we lose?

For us to truly understand hysteria, we need to adequately document and remember events where extraordinary behaviour occurs – but that’s easier said than done. Why do our minds allow us to remember (or forget) the things it can’t cleanly process?

It’s one thing for individuals to experience moments of panic or delusion. But can corporations or even countries display hysterical behaviour?

The internet and social media give us the tools to not only spread panic, but to invent new causes for alarm. Are we entering a period in which global outbreaks of Mass Psychogenic Illness could occur?