There's good music, bonding and even hallucinations. But it isn't Woodstock -- it's just a part of what will be the dancers' experience at the 1994 Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Roger Miller, a University graduate studying psychology at West Chester University, will use the marathon as an opportunity to observe the effects of strain on dancers' mental states for a thesis project.

"When you have 400 or 500 people staying awake for 48 hours, it's an experimenter's dream," he said.

Miller, who as a senior in 1990 danced in the marathon, said what he saw there gave him the idea for the experiment. Studying consciousness will help him learn how people perceive the passage of time and how different people deal with periods of stress, he said.

"Sometimes it's just a distancing when you're zoning out," Miller said.

The phenomenon of separating oneself from an event is called "dissociation." The marathon, where many people are under strain from being awake for such a long time, is the perfect place to observe this.

Miller hallucinated during his dance marathon experience -- and is not alone.

"I hallucinated the first year," said Staci Finberg (senior-general arts and sciences), who will participate in the marathon for the third time. "I saw a big ball coming at me."

Finberg said she's heard stories of people wandering off during the marathon and even heard of someone mistaking the visiting Nittany Lion for his dog.

Brad Sileo (junior-computer engineering) said when he danced last year his exhaustion turned into hallucinations.

"I thought this girl was a spring-water machine and I tried to get water from her stomach," he said.

Other dancers, such as Becky Harpster (junior-accounting), didn't feel the effects as much. She said she didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but was still physically exhausted by Sunday.

"My feet hurt a lot . . . and I was extremely tired," she said.

The marathon forces participants to push their bodies to limits they don't often confront, and for physical problems, University Health Services helps bear the brunt.

"We monitor (the dancers) pretty closely," said Wes Cartwright, supervisor of the Office of Emergency Medical Services. "And we want the kids to make it through."

Cartwright said EMS employees have the authority to remove dancers from the dance floor if they seem too exhausted to continue. About six employees are on the floor at a time watching for dancers in bad shape, he added.

Before emergency medical technicians were used to assist students during the dance marathon, health services directly handled all first-aid requests from students.

"The nurses used to dread that weekend," said Connie Cavalier, primary care coordinator of health services.

But now, the dance marathon hardly even causes an upswing in the number of people seeking care. Cartwright said the main thing that may send dancers to Ritenour Building after the weekend is cold symptoms, which sometimes result from the participants' lowered resistances.