Ok, guys. But how about being in a huge real crowd—in the audience? A Beatles concert, a Trump rally, or maybe being in the stadium for a World Series game—one of thousands caught up in the excitement and adulation of someone or something? Woodstock? Jonestown?
@JLoon is vividly describing something like what I was getting at (something like a rave in a large warehouse, and yes, I’ve been to one), but the fact that there was no single focus of adoration means it was a different kind of experience. Still, having your identity dissolve in a kind of transcendent wave—that would be part of it, all right.
I attended a couple of Billy Graham crusades way back when, and they had a vibe too (even before vibes were invented), but it was really not about him, so it’s not the same.
Sometimes people say that when they’ve been swept up in such a scene, they feel and do things they wouldn’t on their own, and afterward they may wonder how they ever got so mesmerized. A dark expression of this is mob violence, and a brighter(?) one is some kind of religious experience. At present what has me wondering so much is the crowd that’s caught up in a political fervor. Are they really expressing an abiding feeling, or is it about surrendering to the contagious hysteria of the moment?