I am familiar with this event, as I heard about it through something else I watched a little while back. I shall not mention it however, because you want to go into theories in the second post and I don't think it would be helpful to mention one now.

I will say that some of the hallucinations sound horrifying. Your own mind knows your fears better than anyone, and if you include your subconscious mind, that is probably aware of things that you don't even know you are terrified of.

It must have been literally the worst experience ever for some of those people who were subjected to a living nightmare, written and directed by the one who knows how to torture them the most--their very self.