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The Best THON 2017 Dancer Hallucination Stories

We asked for your absolute best THON 2017-induced delirium stories, and you guys delivered.

There were tons of submissions — but we’ve compiled the best of the best. From seeing floating squids in the BJC to eating fruit from tampon boxes, here are some of our favorite THON-liruim stories:


Ben Lesko — Dancer

I danced in THON 2016, and one of my moments was early Sunday morning (at least I think) when I was back in the south annex. I was feeling funny at this point and was trying to get it under control with an ice pack on my neck. After 20 minutes of the ice, I felt much better and I was even able to figure out what time of day it was by looking outside the big window to see it was dark outside. Only to my disappointment, I later found out that the “darkness outside” was no more than a big black tarp…such good memories!”

Allen Wontroba — Dancer (Delta Lambda Phi Fraternity)

“There was one point where I thought I saw package man eating pellets and ghosts in the audience around the 35-Hour Mark or somewhere around there. I have also attached a picture of myself in my frightened and confused state:”

Sophie Gordon — Dancer (The Penn State Outing Club) 

“My friend sent me a package through Amazon but it sent in multiple shipments. I opened one of her packages and it was a huge box but only had one bottle of wet wipes inside. My friend and I laughed about it for ten minutes straight. There was one point where I was captivated by another dancer’s shirt. It was literally corn on the cob and I ran up to him and asked if I could take a picture with it because ‘I love corn.’ Thanks for boosting my morale corn guy. I also hit a point where I literally could not stop dabbing.”

Tiana Scott — THON 2016 Dancer

“At some point late Saturday night I went into a hallway to find an outlet to charge my cellphone because it was dead. After finding one I plugged my phone in and stood there waiting for it to turn back on. After what seemed like 15 minutes, my phone never came back to life and I was beginning to get upset and frustrated. Luckily my dancer partner was there to help me and tell me that I had conveniently stuck my charger into the orange I was also holding in the same hand and didn’t even notice. On the bright side, the orange was filled with much needed energy to eat afterwards.”

Kevin Wimpfheimer — Dancer

“I was talking to one of DRCMs and she was telling me a story about her roommate’s cousin coming to visit and how they spent their weekend, while she was telling me the story I zoned out, fell asleep standing up with my eyes open and woke up to her saying, ‘does that make sense?’ I responded with, ‘yeah, deep fry the chicken nuggets.’ Her story had nothing to do with chicken nuggets. It turns out I fell asleep standing with my eyes opened and had a dream about making chicken nuggets and thought that was the story she told me.”

 

Coleman Hart — Dancer 77A

“I got separated from my dancer partner and my DRCM. I decided to go back to dancer storage so I could change my socks, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to dancer storage and started to panic. At that moment, I saw what I now know as a dancer from Ohana wearing a sequined pink squid hat. However, at the time, I did not see the dancer, but a giant magical squid. So I decided to follow the Magic Squid, hoping it would guide me back to dancer storage because I thought, ‘Why would Magic Squid deceive me?’ So eventually Magic Squid brought me safely to my locker, and I praised him for his help and kindness.”

Molly Young — Dancer (Omega Phi Alpha)

“So, my roommate came to visit me on the floor and wanted to surprise me with some fresh fruit. She knew that the BJC is pretty strict about allowing food into THON, so she decided to smuggle in the fruit in a box of tampons. Naturally, around hour 40, I needed a pick-me-up and decided to eat the fruit. So I was walking around the locker room eating fruit out of the tampon box. To me, I was eating some delicious fruit thanks to my roommate. To everyone else, I was eating tampons. I’ve never gotten so many weird looks in my life.”

Nicole Hottinger — Stood in the stands for 46 hours

“Around 7 a.m. on Sunday I started to become absolutely terrified of ‘fat heads’ (those cut out heads orgs get of their dancers). I kept thinking they were real people every time I saw them and started to spaz/freak out. At one point I think I actually cried because I thought our dancer was next to me but it was just the head. Needless to say, I’m glad they weren’t actually real people because that would be terrifying.”

Zainab Mukadam — Dancer For South Asian Student Association (SASA)

“So my delusional THON experience was not that I saw things that were not really there; on the contrary, it was the things that were actually there, that I thought was just a dream. My DRCM Becca and I had taken pictures with people dressed up like Disney princesses and I honestly thought I was dreaming when I took those. Later when I came back home and saw all the pictures taken, I could not even believe it when I saw the one I took with the Disney princesses. THON was definitely an insanely amazing experience and one I am so grateful and honored I got to experience as a dancer.”

Katie Abramowich — THON Dancer (#98B) 

“Throughout THON I didn’t ever really hallucinate, but I did skip one of the meals to get a massage sometime early Sunday morning. After the massage, I was feeling very out of it and went to the snack station with some friends to get a sandwich so I would feel better. I got a Nutella and banana sandwich that I ate off of a coloring book page since I couldn’t find any plates or napkins. While eating the sandwich, I began to sob uncontrollably because there was too much Nutella and not enough banana.  Long story short, being delirious at THON can cause you to cry over just about anything.”


Though the going got tough and psychedelic at times, it’s important to remember: All the struggles and hardships were for an amazing cause. FTK!

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About the Author

Carolyn Popescu

Current senior studying Advertising and Visual Arts, Carolyn has a passion for entertainment and music. She also loves photography, film, graphic design, social media, and all things in between. She's the current Sony Music Marketing Representative for State College, so be sure to reach out to her with any local music scene questions, ideas, proposals, or if you just need someone to geek out about music with.

(Contact her through [email protected] or [email protected])

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