The power of crowds

All that I write about are things I have personally experienced, usually years after they have passed. Today's main theme is about something that happened a few years ago that gave me an interesting view on the topic of crowd psychology.
Why is it when an individual when standing alone could have a pretty individualized opinion, is socially inhibited, relatively "civil" in his/her behaviour and self conscious?
Then when you put that very same individual in a crowd suddenly he/she could transform into the whole unit he is within. His opinion becomes unified with the crowd, his actions could become very violent and very uninhibited and suddenly the person loses sense of self.  Rather, the person becomes THE CROWD.
He no longer feels like an individual anymore, in fact he speaks in the 'we' and not in the 'I'. His actions become synchronized with those around him. If others around him are crying, he too shall cry.
As if there's some sort of switch turning on as soon as a human joins a crowd. In sci-fi movies they often have this 'screen' which leads to a new dimension and as soon as the individual enters that screen everything is transformed. He becomes just one of the molecules of the whole 'mass' He is no longer the actual substance , he is just a molecule.
I have 2 wonderful examples, both just as moving. One was in a place during the time when the Egyptian revolutions first began. I think the name Tahrir square is overused and nowadays it has been associated with 'if you dont like anything, go there'. It wasnt exactly like that back then, it was quite a special place where sincere feelings of revolution stemmed. So basically being in the middle of the crowds, I felt something very strange. I felt that I had lost the sense of Wegdan. I no longer felt like it was about me...I felt that this was something quite huge aiming towards some great and noble purpose. Weird things went in my mind, I had never been in a crowd so large. And weirdly, even if you're surrounded by strangers, people would look at each other with smiles and approval as if to almost say "Yes, you're on our side"
You could do all sorts of things you wouldnt have done in the street normally, even though, those same people in the square were the same people in the street, only condensed.
You could become socially uninhibited and greet people and chant things and talk to random strangers and it wouldnt be weird. It seemed like it was a small little village and everyone knew everyone and it was very easy going.
You also experienced emotions but in a magnitude of many fold magnified. If you felt just a teeny bit patriotic, then around crowds you'd feel extremely patriotic.
I would like to understand why humans become so different in crowds. Subhan Allah, it is a remarkable phenomenon.
During the speeches of Martin Luther King and other great speakers when there would be HUGE crowds. You could get hundreds of thousands of people crying at the same time. Not because the words were emotional per se, but because emotion was magnified and infectious in crowds.
During talks by Les Brown, the amazing motivational speaker (whom I greatly admire his charisma) thousands of people would be pumped up with energy so much that they'd be literally roaring!
There is a great sense of empowerment in being in a crowd and Les Brown knows this and has been using this as his point of strength in organizing his talks.

A beautiful example and one that I wasnt fortunate enough to experience was during the concert of Andre Rieu, a legendary violinist during his open concert in Italy in 2008. I watched the whole concert online and even  though I wasnt in the crowd, I could see people's reactions in the crowd that I could feel I was in there as well. I completed watching it feeling extremely empowered and enlightened by the beauty of the music. It is remarkable how some violins and some opera singers could move your soul in such a profound way. People were brought to tears, people's whole lives were being played out in front of them, people remembering loved ones who had passed away or were far away. People reaching God and feeling spiritual. It was almost as if people were in a trance. Everyone knew what to do...if a certain tune came on they'd all synchronously clap or dance or do the same thing. No one told them what to do, but the power of the crowd as a sum somehow moved people to action.

It is an incredible phenomenon, the power of the crowds. I have listened to some sociology classes that discuss this but for this blog post I've just talked about what I personally experienced. Perhaps in the upcoming post I'll dig further into this from a more controlled and scientific point of view.