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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either [[Trope Namers|go mad from the revelation]] or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."''
|[[H.P. Lovecraft]]''}}
In many stories, there are some experiences that are so horribly mind-shattering that the usual result is stark raving madness. This is the signature characteristic of an [[Eldritch Abomination]] and one of the central tropes of the [[Cosmic Horror Story]] genre, but other things can cause it as well, such as [[Cold-Blooded Torture|prolonged torture]] or learning [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]].
There is generally a distinction between things that happen to the mind because of experience and things that are done to the brain. This trope is the former. Thus, insanity caused by drugs or a specific, quasi-magical effect (like a [[Brown Note]]) doesn't qualify. Contrast those things with the Shoggoths, who strain people's sanity in spite of never having that as a stated special
This almost could have been [[Truth in Television]], insofar as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a real mental illness, but a character who Goes Mad From the Revelation usually is portrayed in a more generic insanity, often resembling Freak Outs, [[Heroic BSOD|catatonia]], schizophrenia or most commonly, psychotic mania with [[Laughing Mad]]. Sometimes, if you whack someone with the "insane stick" enough times, they'll get [[Bored with Insanity]].
The main inspiration for this trope is the work of [[H.P. Lovecraft]], whose story ''The Call of Cthulhu'' is the [[Trope Namer]]. Occurs in most of his work and a good deal of Lovecraft-[[Cosmic Horror Story|inspired work]] that use [[Mad God
The extreme form of a [[Freak-Out]]. May take the form of a [[Heroic BSOD]] where the thing isn't going to start working again. If the whole nature of the universe is opened to you because of your velocity, this is [[Ludicrous Speed]].
Compare with [[Brain Bleach]] and [[My God, What Have I Done?]]. See also [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]] for a way to avoid this.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Naruto
** Also, Deidara. He gets pretty unhinged when he realizes that Itachi's Sharingan is more artful than his bombs.
* Casca in ''[[Berserk]]'' goes insane during the Eclipse after a harrowing [[Break the Cutie]] ordeal that involves {{spoiler|being branded for sacrifice, losing everyone in the Hawks to things out of pure nightmare, getting stripped naked and almost getting tentacle
** It speaks volumes about ''Berserk'' that
* A few characters in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' arguably experience this, most definitely Keiichi and Shmion.
* Suzu in ''[[Peacemaker Kurogane]]'' becomes [[Axe Crazy]] and a [[Depraved Homosexual]] after
* The reason Schwarzwald from ''[[The Big O]]'' goes mad and decides to destroy Paradigm City is because he figures out the show's [[Ontological Mystery]] (or at least part of it... it's a [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot|big mystery]]).
* Sensui from ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' '''definitely''' saw some things he shouldn't have, that broke his brain... [[Split Personality|literally]]. However, the madness was aided and abetted by the [[Brown Note|Chapter]] [[Post-Historical Trauma|Black]] [[Snuff Film|tape]].
* Ralph Werec of ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'' went from perfect soldier to traitorous [[Omnicidal Maniac]] {{spoiler|when he saw that his people had created the [[Humongous Mecha]] he was piloting by [[Aesoptinum|killing harmless little alien girls]] for their [[Psychic Powers]]}}. However, though his reaction is understandable, {{spoiler|when one of the [[Fate Worse Than Death|sort-of-survivors]] shows Sara the story in a vision, she keeps her own sanity. Mind you, Ralph also got sucked into a dimensional rift that gave him terminal cancer directly ''after'' said vision.}}
* Definitely happens to Shinji in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|The End Of Evangelion]]'' when the ritual to {{spoiler|awaken [[Eldritch Abomination|Lilith]]/Rei Ayanami}} reduces him to a fit of shrieking omnicidal insanity. It didn't help that he had just seen
* More or less every single Tipharian in ''[[Battle Angel Alita]]'' that learns ''"the secret of Tiphares"'' ({{spoiler|Tipharians undergo a special ceremony at the age of nineteen. During this ceremony, the brain of the Tipharian is replaced with a computer chip}}) is driven insane. Most commit suicide.
** {{spoiler|Alita is a citizen of Tiphares thanks to Desty Nova. [[Heroic BSOD]] time!}}
* In ''[[Fantastic Children]]'', scientist Dr. Radcliffe became obsessed with unraveling the mystery of the Children of Befort. Needless to say, the more he found out, the madder he went. He could have been saved a lot of suffering if he knew that his theory was actually {{spoiler|as far from the truth as you could get}}.
* ''[[Space Pirate Mito]]'': Masatsuki Nenga goes totally batshit insane when {{spoiler|he comes to the realisation that his "Justice" is nothing more than a tool of oppression (one that has no issue shooting down a "mob" of villagers, men, women and children) used by a pretender to the throne}}. This leads to about two episodes worth of him screaming "I AM JUSTICE!" at the top of his lungs whilst firing his gun like the lunatic he is. This would be fine all in all, but the guy doesn't look older than 12.
* [[Big Bad]] [[Kill All Humans|Millions]] [[Evil Twin|Knives]] from ''[[Trigun]]'' has this as his manga origin story. (In the anime he just decided [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]] for semi-logical if not terribly extreme reasons, and then went [[Evil Plan]] on them and his brother. In the manga, he [[Used to Be a Sweet Kid|was a sweet boy]] who snapped after discovering the [[Awful Truth]]
** Notably, if you didn't already know who was going to grow up to be the villain, it would ''look'' like Knives handled it better than Vash. They both locked themselves in and attempted to starve to death together, but after Rem broke in and saved them it was ''[[The Messiah|Vash]]'' who did the [[Creepy Laugh]] and [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]] and hysteria, and Knives seemed... perfectly okay. He saved his freak-out until after he'd set up all the colony ships to crash.
* ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'': Certainly not the only factor in his descent, but his visit to the [[Cosmic Horror Story|Dark Ocean]] a perpetually dark realm, populated by various Lovecraftian horrors and where Love and Hope are a foreign concept, was definitely the Straw that Broke the Camel's Back for Ken Ichijoji. One look at his [http://www.alltrees.org/anime/basetwo/images/ken.chibi.evil.jpg expression]{{Dead link}} in that [[Flash Back|scene]] is enough to convince you that this kid just went off the deep end.
* On ''[[Tsukuyomi Moon Phase
* In ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'', Aion has a tenuous grasp on his sanity after he's [[Mind Raped]] by Pandaemonium and discovers the [[Awful Truth]] of his origins.
* ''[[20th Century Boys]]'': Approximately 2/3 of the people who complete
* Towards the end of ''[[Gankutsuou]]'' Heloïse Villefort, who seems perfectly normal in her first appearances, is revealed to actually be a murderous woman who's out of touch with reality. When her husband tells her to her face that she's just a murderous [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]], and reveals that he knows she's been trying to kill him and their daughter Heloise collapses to the floor, finally giving into her insanity. Her husband then has her committed to an insane asylum for the rest of her life.
* ''[[Perfect Blue]]'': In the anime's denouement, Rumi is permanently delusional and institutionalized.
* Most of the characters in the visual novel ''[[Saya no Uta]]'' are absolutely nuts by the time any of the three endings are over. Ryouko Tanbou, Fuminori's doctor, particularly suffers. After witnessing the reality of Dr. Ougai's experiments more than a year before the story, she's a classic case of paranoia who through her own intelligence has kept her paranoia carefully hidden in every day interactions.
* Occurs to one of the astronomers in ''[[Hellstar Remina]]'' when he realizes that
* Russia from ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''. This trope is played totally straight with him during the Bloody Sunday strip, in which he snaps and starts to mow down his own people on the grounds that, basically, "they're not really Russians if they don't love me".
* In the ''[[Halo Legends]]'' segment ''Homecoming'' a few of the escaped Spartans find out they've been replaced with clones {{spoiler|leading a few to commit suicide}}.
* Happens to
** And in the backstory of
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', it's strongly implied, and possibly outright stated, that the experience of going through the Gate is so "awful" that even if you did manage to survive through the pain of whatever it took from you, you could wind up a vegetable.
* ''[[School Days]]'s'' Kotonoha and Sekai. Both are dumped by a [[Jerkass]] Makoto Ito and have realized that he's also screwed around with their best friends. [[Dull Eyes of Unhappiness|Kotonoha's eyes turn dark]] around the later half of the anime.
* In ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' after [[Trauma Conga Line|Nina recovers all of her memories]] and realizes that the memories her evil twin brother [[Complete Monster|Johan]] thinks are his are really hers ([[It Makes Sense in Context|it's complicated]]), she nearly commits suicide. Thankfully [[The Messiah|Dr. Tenma]] intervenes just in time to avert a potentially HUGE [[Tear Jerker]].
* Apparently, this is what happened to
** Also sorta invoked by {{spoiler|Reilan}} in {{spoiler|her [[Thanatos Gambit]], in which she first sets up Kurumi for gangrape, and then verbally provokes Hakuron into killing her - all to break Kurumi's mind further. It ''almost'' worked.}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* From ''[[The Sandman]]'': "Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay sometimes." May explain why Delight became Delirium.
* [[The Joker]] is like this at least some portrayals, more so than most ''[[Batman]]'' villains. More than one interpretation (including the 1989 movie) has shown him bursting into maniacal laughter after seeing his chemically-disfigured reflection for the first time. His fellow [[Rogues Gallery]] members are listed alongside him under [[Freak-Out]].
** For instance, ''The Killing Joke''. Possibly subverted by Commissioner Gordon's resistance to Joker's attempts to drive him (no pun intended) batshit crazy in the same graphic novel.
* The Comedian appears to go medium-mad when he stumbles on the secret island prior to the events of ''[[Watchmen]]'', although his behaviour (breaking in to the home of an ex-villain whom "he knew wouldn't understand," weeping uncontrollably, and expressing remorse for all the horrible things he's done which nonetheless pale in comparison to the plot he's uncovered) may be attributable more to a massive attack of conscience and ethical sensitivity, thus arguably making him more, not less, sane. A more straightforward example from this work would be Rorschach's [[Despair Event Horizon]], upon discovery of a little girl's butchered remains, which transforms him from a relatively rational crimefighter into a pathologically obsessed [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] intent on imposing his own brutal, uncompromising justice on what he sees as an uncaring, meaningless world.
** Dr Manhattan also deserves a mention, having been through something very like [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|the Total Perspective Vortex]] and then acquired the power of God. He doesn't exactly go ''mad'', but he certainly wasn't the same person after his experience.
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* In Spanish comic-book ''[[Mortadelo Y Filemon]] ,'' the title characters are tortured by their boss with an LP of Spanish blockbuster songs (apparently repeated ad infinitum). Thy are driven mad, and other characters talk about the cruelty.
* In ''Captain Britain,'' the precognitive Cobweb goes mad when she makes the mistake of looking into the very near future, which has just been invaded by a cybernetic nightmare from another dimension and is steadily being dominated by an insane [[Reality Warper|reality-warping]] Prime Minister by the name of Mad Jim Jaspers. Naturally, after puking her guts out and mumbling a few [[Mad Oracle|garbled prophecies]], she tries to swallow her tongue.
** Captain Britain himself had his own brush with this trope when he was first confronted with a supernatural occurrence he couldn't [[Flat Earth Atheist|dismiss or explain away]] - in this case, extradimensional beings contacting him in the middle of a Trans-Atlantic flight. He promptly freaked out and jumped out of the plane. Note that at this point in time, Brian got his powers from an amulet and scepter given to him by Merlin and Arthur. ([[Knights Of The Round Table|Yes, them]]). This has been [[
* According to ''[[Transformers: Shattered Glass|Shattered Glass]]'' [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28SG%29 Optimus Prime's bio], he discovered something so shocking from Cybertron's past that it made him to go insane, and to the present day no one knows what it was he found.
* One issue of ''[[Hellblazer]]'' features a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] priest who gets into the habit of calling the police when teenagers start confessing their misdeeds to him- and at one point, he goes so far as to physically assault a girl who confessed to having sex with her brother. And then the Devil shows up; after letting him know how badly the teenagers have suffered, he ushers the priest back into the confessional and lets him hear ''his'' confession. Minutes later, the priest burns the church to the ground; from then on, he's straight-up [[Ax Crazy]], murdering people from one end of the country to the next, culiminating in his attempt to rape a young John Constantine- which results in him getting a razorblade wedged in his face, being arrested, and committed to an asylum. After being released over twenty years later, he bumps into Constantine again at a local church; by now completely lucid, he explains everything, then [[Eye Scream|jams a pencil in either eye]] and [[Driven to Suicide|headbutts the pew in front of him.]]
** And, of course, John himself was pretty horribly traumatized by what happened in Newcastle in '79, and had to go in and out of institutions for several years afterword.
** Prior to this, in [[Swamp Thing]] Constantine leads a mentalist to make contact with heroes and villains battling what appears to be a giant, black [[Ultimate Evil|shelled mollusk]] that even defeats [[Beyond the Impossible|the Spectre, implied to be an aspect of God.]] Though the entire experience has been traumatic, Constantine's patsy gets a good look at the shell on the creature to snap his mind: {{spoiler|It's not a shell, it's a fingernail. The entire battle had been fought on a scale so alien, whole armies had been assaulting just the fingertip of their foe without realizing.}}
* After reading the last page of a [[Great Big Book of Everything]] in ''[[Final Crisis]]: Superman Beyond'', Ultraman turns into a nihilistic follower of Mandrakk.
{{quote|
* An issue of Marvel's "What-If?" ends with Rogue (after killing Mr. Sinister) discovering the ULTIMATE TRUTH behind the Marvel Universe. The last picture of said issue has her (looking quite rattled and/or mentally shattered, take your pick) sitting down amidst a handful of Marvel comic books strewn around the ground.
* Much of the plot of [[Tron]]: Ghost in the Machine runs on this trope. The story opens with the [[Tron 2.0|protagonist of the game]] being so paralyzed by what he saw inside the computer system that he went from being an avid programmer to being a shut-in afraid to touch electronics. From there, the whole comic spirals into a genuine [[Mind Screw]].
* In the ''[[Tintin]]'' book ''[[The Shooting Star]]'', scientist Philippulus goes mad from the news that an asteroid is about to destroy Earth, and starts calling himself "Philippulus the prophet" while [[The End Is Nigh|rambling about divine punishment]].
* Happens in [[Power Pack]] when the kids' parents learn firsthand that the kids have superpowers, as the aliens species that gave the kids their powers ''brainwashed them without the kids knowledge or consent'' (that the majority of this species was secretly dicks had been foreshadowed their last appearance) into accepting any explanation for events that wasn't "their children have super powers" and their minds couldn't reconcile the clear facts with the brainwashing. They're
* Considering which settings ''[[
▲== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* This is described as having happened to the entire {{spoiler|arakkoa race}} in ''[[
▲* Considering which settings ''[[Aeon Natum Engel (Fanfic)|Aeon Natum Engel]]'' uses, it's quite common. There is also a [[Running Gag]] with the readers going mad when they are figuring the [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]].
▲* This is described as having happened to the entire {{spoiler|arakkoa race}} in ''[[Travels Through Azeroth and Outland (Fanfic)|Travels Through Azeroth and Outland]]''.
* Poor, poor [[Past Sins|Nyx...]]
* In the setting of the [[Mass Effect]] fanfic ''[[Inglorious Boshtets]]'', this is what happened to many people who viewed the porno magazine ''Fornax'''s "Forbidden Issue," which featured Tali's idiot crewman Prazza performing a sanity-blastingly obscene sex act that thankfully [[You Do NOT Want to Know|remained]] [[Noodle Incident|undescribed]].
* Twilight Sparkle of ''[[My Little Pony:
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲== Film ==
* In ''[[Oldboy]]'' Oh Dae-su discovers the girl he had sex with was {{spoiler|his daughter}}, madness and cutting out his tongue followed.
* In ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'', the Crystal Skull itself contains immense psychic power and knowledge, which turns Harold Oxley into a gibbering lunatic and almost Indiana Jones as well. {{spoiler|Though he regains his sanity once the skull is returned to Akator.}}
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** Debatable. Sol clearly loses his will to live, but his decision to commit suicide is made in a perfectly rational manner. He may well be crushed by despair, but insane? Probably not.
* A case can be made that this is Lucinda's problem in ''[[Knowing]]''. She may well have been a perfectly normal child before she met up with "the Whisper People".
* ''[[Bram Stoker's
* The entire point of the movie '[[Pi]]' is that this happens when you find the ratio that rationalizes pi, predicts the stock market, and is also the true name of God.
* Jack Nicholson's Joker loses his mind the instant he sees his new perma-grin in the 1989 ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' movie, stumbling into the street giggling insanely.
* Loki
* When the mummified corpse of Imhotep comes back to life in original ''[[The Mummy (film)|The Mummy]]'', the archeologist who saw it went insane.
{{quote|
* This trope, mixed with [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]], is essentially the plot of ''[[Event Horizon]]''. {{spoiler|The test run of the titular ship's hyperdrive sent it beyond the edge of the universe where the crew experienced something that can only be described as Hell. When the rescue crew watches the video logs on the now deserted ship after it returned from the journey they see the former crew engaging in various deranged acts of graphic self-mutilation after the madness of the place took them over.}}
== [[Literature]] ==
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*** There's also a theory that, based on Fenchurch's reaction in the ending of book four, God's final message to his creations appears different to every person who looks at it. The fact that Marvin saw {{spoiler|WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE}} provides a rather depressing insight into his personality. Fortunately for Marvin at least, reading it actually makes him feel good. {{spoiler|And then he dies.}}
** And then there's Prak, whose brief scene is a [[Parodied Trope|Parody]] of this trope. Near the end of the third novel, an overdose of truth serum causes Prak to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about the entire universe, and drives everyone who hears it mad. However, what he has to say is much briefer than everyone expects, and apparently frogs and [[The Arthur Dent|Arthur Dent]] are very important to the universe. Prak himself dies after several days of uncontrollable laughter upon meeting Arthur Dent.
* [[Spider Robinson]]'s novel ''[[Telempath]]'' involves a virus which multiplies the human sense of smell a thousandfold. It is estimated that one third of the population goes mad or commits suicide due to the olfactory overload.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s novel ''[[
** That didn't stop Lazarus from stating that, in a few centuries, he planned to go back to that planet and see one of the mysterious aliens himself. He's told it's not a good idea, but he plans to do it anyway. We never find out if he actually did go back or not.
*** He did go back, as mentioned in passing in [[Time Enough for Love]], and survived the experience without going
* In [[Stephen King]]'s book ''[[IT]]'', seeing the true form of the titular character automatically drives a person crazy.
** The ending of King's short story ''The Jaunt'' offers another memorable example of the trope.
** Also, seeing the ring of stones in King's short story "N."
** The "thing with the endless piebald side" in ''[[Lisey's
** In the revised first book of the ''[[Dark Tower]]'' series, a man comes [[Back
* ''[[The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]'' has the "good" scientist, Dr. Lanyon, undergo this when he sees the Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation.
* ''[[The
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', the test for becoming a chief of the Aiel -- [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|a desert warrior society with elaborate honor customs]]
** Seen again later with the Seanchan. Their culture believes that women who can use magic are far too dangerous to go free, but also too useful to kill... so they slap collars on them which utterly enslave their wearer and make them puppets to a master, called a sul'dam.
* In ''[[Darkness Visible]]'' ordinary people can go mad when exposed to unreality. As things [[It Got Worse|deteriorate]] this eventually happens to something like a quarter of London's population.
* In Kurt Vonnegut's ''[[Breakfast of Champions]]'', Dwayne Hoover goes on a rampage after reading a solipsistic novel by Kilgore Trout which says that its reader is the only human being in the world and that everyone else is a machine.
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**** To be precise, they discovered that there was a one-to-one correspondence between mental states and brain states, meaning there was no possibility of evidence for a soul or spirit. Current neurology says it's a good bet this is true for humans, too...
**** That assumes anyone thinks that the soul affects one's mind independent of one's brain.
* As mentioned above, a [[Cthulhu Mythos]]
** In the original [[H.P. Lovecraft]] stories, outright madness was not as common as in later Mythos fiction. Examples from Lovecraft's stories include:
** Occurs on a global scale in Lovecraft's short story ''Nyarlathotep'', which tells of one man {{spoiler|(although he's really a messenger for the god of chaos)}} revealing such cosmic secrets that {{spoiler|entire cities are driven mad and civilisation collapses}}.▼
*** The nameless narrator of "Dagon".
*** Some of Johansen's shipmates in "The Call of Cthulhu".
*** Young Danforth in ''At the Mountains of Madness''.
▲***
* In William Tenn's story ''Firewater'', humanity is being observed by aliens that appear to have god-like powers, and anyone who tries too hard to understand them goes insane. {{spoiler|Near the end, it's revealed that the aliens have a similar problem with understanding humans.}}
* ''The Bishop Murder Case'': Philo Vance posits that someone went mad from studying quantum psychics.
* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|Chessman of Mars]]'', this is claimed for looking on the face of the dead O-Mai, a jeddak said to have died without showing a mark, and whose body was said to lie in a haunted room.
* In the ''[[Warhammer
* In [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'', the [[Big Bad]] Storm King and his minions exist in a place "between life and death" that gives them plenty of time to contemplate [[Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]]. Unprepared mortal minds that dare to touch them (or do so accidentally) are driven stark raving bonkers. Also, ''[[Tome of Eldritch Lore|Du Svardenvyrd]]'', the tome of the mad prophet Nisses, contains sufficient knowledge of the workings of the world to drive anyone who reads it past the [[Despair Event Horizon]].
* The author and main character of ''[[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]]'' is a victim of this.
* ''[[Warrior Cats]]'': Having already developed a near-crazy obsession with the Warrior Code, the realization that her parents were in fact {{spoiler|Leafpool and Crowfeather}} and her very existence was "breaking the code" pretty did away with what was left of {{spoiler|Hollyleaf's}} sanity at the end of ''[[Warrior Cats Power of Three|Power of Three]]''.
** Also, in ''[[Warrior Cats the Original Series|The Original Series]]'' finding out that {{spoiler|Tigerclaw is indeed evil, just like Fireheart was trying to tell her all along}}, pushes {{spoiler|Bluestar}} over the edge for several books.
* Invoked a lot in Simon R. Green's ''[[Nightside]]'' novels. One book features Madman, a former theoretical physicist who'd worked out the means to observe reality as it truly exists; [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|his name says it all]]. In another incident, a minor character asked the animated corpse Dead Boy what it was like being dead, and was reduced to quivering catatonia by the reply.
* In Chris Wooding's novel ''Poison'', the titular character [[Heroic BSOD|gives up all desire to live]] after discovering that, not only is she a fictional character who was created by the '
* [[David Langford]]'s short story ''[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm BLIT]'' uses a mind-breaking fractal image as a terrorist weapon.
* And one of the most famous examples in literature. Robert W. Chambers' short story anthology ''[http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/chambers/stories/kinginye/contents.htm The King in Yellow]'' concerns the eponymous and forbidden play that drives readers and viewers mad. ''[[The King in Yellow]]'' and everything related to it was later incorporated into the [[Cthulhu Mythos]].
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* In the chapter "The Castaway" in Hermann Melville's ''[[Moby Dick]]'', the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and the immense emptiness of the ocean drives him mad. "By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul."
* Parodied and Inverted in ''[[Don Quixote]]'', who goes mad for trying to make sense of the purple prose that plagued the chivalry books he has read, but never was any reveal because even [[Aristotle]] could not make sense of that. Chapter I, Part I:
{{quote|
* William Gibson's short story ''Hinterlands'' has a parade of lone astronauts drifting at a particular point in space, setting off radio flares, who are either taken by [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|some force]], or more often, ''not'' taken. Those who are taken come back with scary new science and technology, but are all batshit crazy and {{spoiler|eventually kill themselves without revealing much of what they saw}}. Those who are ''not'' taken are {{spoiler|so profoundly crushed at being rejected by [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Space God]] that they all ''attempt'' suicide}}, and are then employed as counselors for those the batshit crazy returnees.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s
{{quote|
** The Master boasts of this:
{{quote|
** In ''The Hour of the Dragon'', Orastes is pleased that this did not happen.
{{quote|
* The Oculus from the ''[[Fablehaven]]'' series has this effect.
* ''[[Fate of the Jedi|Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi]]'': Anyone who swims in the Pool of
* Revelations are relative: the society depicted in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s
** The actual sanity-shattering revelation is how ''vastly'' larger the universe (or even the immediate stellar neighborhood) is than they'd ever imagined, and how tiny and insignificant they and their world are by comparison.
** To quote the text: "Aton, somewhere, was crying, whimpering horribly like a terribly frightened child. 'Stars -- all the Stars -- we didn't know at all. We didn't know anything. We thought six stars in a universe is something the Stars didn't notice is Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn't know we couldn't know and anything --'"
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Kull]]/[[Bran Mak Morn]] story "Kings of the Night
{{quote|
* In [[Salman Rushdie]]'s ''[[The Enchantress of Florence]]'', [[Niccolo Machiavelli]] met a slave-girl which was transformed by potent hypnosis to be a "memory palace," a kind of exotic living hard disk drive. Machiavelli then attempted to restore the girl to a human state, but when she did, she remembered all the perils of her life and defenestrated herself.
* In Terry Pratchett's ''[[Strata]]'', an entire ''species'' of aliens takes a plunge past the [[Despair Event Horizon]] and [[Driven to Suicide|commits collective suicide]] upon learning that {{spoiler|the world they live on is in fact artificial and their entire prehistory was an elaborate forgery}}.
* In [[The Dresden Files]]' ''Turn Coat,'' Dresden barely manages to avoid this after looking upon {{spoiler|the skinwalker}} with his wizardly Sight. Because things seen with the Sight can never be forgotten, every time he recalls the memory, voluntarily or otherwise, he blacks out, only to awaken some time later as a gibbering, incoherent mess, and in some cases in physical pain. He recites prime numbers to prevent himself from remembering it for a time. {{spoiler|It takes locking himself in a room and assaulting his mind with the image over and over again to get his mind straight (he also gets a [[Psychic Nosebleed]]). Even then, ''he'll never forget what he saw.''}}
* ''[[The
* In [[Fred Hoyle]]'s ''The Black Cloud'', one of the astronomers goes insane from The Cloud uploading its knowledge upon him.
* In [[The Bible]], God tells Moses that this will happen if he shows his true form to Moses. Except instead of going mad, you go ''dead'' from seeing God. The angels are pretty scary to see, too.
* One of the short stories in the [[Chuck Palahniuk]] collection ''[[Haunted
* In ''[[Burying the Shadow]]'' any attempt by a [[Dream Weaver|soulscaper]] to heal an [[Our Angels Are Different|eloim]]'s mind results in the soulscaper going stark raving mad.
* ''[[The Chronicles of Professor Jack Baling]]'': Let’s just say that Jack’s study of his student’s perpetual motion machine don’t make him the... most stable of individuals.
* In Gustav Schwab's ballad "Der Reiter und der Bodensee", a traveler lost in the snow unknowingly rides right across Lake
* ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'' both pokes fun at this trope and plays it straight. One theory on the Reavers is that were men who were driven insane by seeing the edge of space. Not only is this theory eventually shown to be wrong, but Jayne is immediately puzzled: he's been out there, and it just looks like more space. However, at one point the Reavers intentionally induce Reaver-like insanity in one victim by killing the rest of his shipmates. [[The Movie]] reveals that at least part of River's psychosis was the result of {{spoiler|learning what happened on Miranda}}.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
▲* ''[[Firefly]]'' both pokes fun at this trope and plays it straight. One theory on the Reavers is that were men who were driven insane by seeing the edge of space. Not only is this theory eventually shown to be wrong, but Jayne is immediately puzzled: he's been out there, and it just looks like more space. However, at one point the Reavers intentionally induce Reaver-like insanity in one victim by killing the rest of his shipmates. [[The Movie]] reveals that at least part of River's psychosis was the result of {{spoiler|learning what happened on Miranda}}.
** Learning about it ''subconsciously''. Once she had conscious knowledge of it, she recovered almost immediately.
* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', having sex with a Deltan makes one go mad. [[Take Our Word for It|Or so we've heard.]] More precisely, the sex is apparently so ''good'' that Terrans, at least, have trouble coping afterwards, unless they're [[Narcissist|Captain James Tiberius Kirk]]. Then the sex was sorta 'meh'.
** The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Original Series]]'' episode "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" revolves around Kollos, an ambassador of the [[Energy Beings|Medusan race]], whose physical appearance is so hideous - or maybe so beautiful - that any humanoid who looks at them directly goes insane. This is a subversion, as Kollos, in contrast with Shoggoths and Eldritch horrors, is clearly a good guy.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Sound Of Drums", we learn that every Time Lord is forced at the age of eight to stare at a gap in the fabric of reality. Through this gap the entire Time Vortex can be seen, containing all that is, was, or will ever be. In the words of The Doctor, "Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad." It's initially suggested that this is what happened to the Master, though it's later revealed in ''The End of Time'' {{spoiler|that his madness was deliberately engineered by Lord President Rassilon to help pull the Time Lords out of the time locked Last Great Time War}}.
** {{spoiler|Dalek Caan}} in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" {{spoiler|is arguably a case of someone who went ''sane'' from the revelation: despite exhibiting all the obvious characteristics of a [[Mad Oracle]], having seen the whole of time itself left him utterly and completely disgusted at [[Omnicidal Maniac|his own genocidal race]] and thus set things in motion to have the Doctor and Donna Noble defeat the Daleks.}}
** In the episode "The Age of Steel", the Cybermen are defeated by {{spoiler|the Doctor stopping their emotional inhibitors from working. This causes them to remember who they really are, and what they have become, and they subsequently go insane as the shock kills them.}} The Doctor effectively uses the same technique to defeat {{spoiler|Mercy Hartigan in "The Next Doctor", severing her link with the Cyber King and allowing her to see the monster she's become, destroying her mind.}}
** ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S26
* The ''[[Torchwood]]'' episode "Adrift" has a victim of the Rift who's permanently insane as a result of looking into the heart of a dark star. He's living in a secret Torchwood-sponsored care home in an old bunker, with at least a dozen other patients. {{spoiler|He screams for twenty hours a day...}}
* In ''[[Upright Citizens Brigade]]'', a house has a "bucket of truth" in it that shows immutable truth; most people are driven to absolute despair by the sights within. A police captain who has been wallowing in despair looks into the bucket and shouts at the heavens, "Don't you think I know that?!"
* This arguably happens to Faith in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'', only instead of going off the deep end, she just becomes suicidal.
* ''[[Married... with
{{quote|
'''Peg:''' So what?
'''Al:''' '''TODAY'S WEDNESDAY!''' }}
** In season 6, in the episode "If I could see me now" we discover that Al has bad eyesight and experiences the world mostly as fuzzy blobs. The kids prevail on him to get glasses after driving home with Al behind the wheel. Upon finally getting his glasses Al sees the world around him, especially his house and family, as it really is. He clutches his head and screams in agony, parodying this trope. He finally destroys his glasses as he would rather cling to the world he knew rather than face the truth.
* "Need to Know", an episode of the 1980s ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', featured William Petersen investigating an insanity epidemic in a small town. It turns out a resident has discovered the meaning of life, but to hear the secret is to go crazy.
** In another episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', a [[Those Wacky Nazis|retired Nazi general]] returns to the death camp he worked at, only to be [[Laser-Guided Karma|tortured to insanity by the ghosts of the people he murdered]]. Let's just say they showed him ''everything'' they went through while in his "care".
* This happens in ''[[Being Human (UK)|Being Human]]'', when Annie (a ghost) whispers to {{spoiler|her killer, Owen}} a "secret that only the dead know." He snaps almost immediately. Interestingly enough, when [[Our Werewolves Are Different|George]] asks what she said, [[Our Vampires Are Different|Mitchell]] shakes his head slightly, indicating that Annie shouldn't
* When [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|D'Anna]] learns the identities of the Final Five Cylons, it appears to be so overwhelming as to at least render her comatose. Only a borderline example, though, because she does get better.
** An alternate interpretation is that the mechanism in the Temple of Five that showed her the images also fried her brain, hence her gibbering and her [[Psychic Nosebleed|nose bleeding]]. When she ressurected, emotionally overwhelmed as she was, she was not insane.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Babylon 5]]'', when G'Kar has a guest over for dinner:
{{quote|
'''G'Kar''':
'''Na'kal''':
'''G'Kar''':
* One episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' is about a man who [[No Medication for Me|goes off antipsychotic meds]] in an attempt to access lost childhood memories, only for them to turn out to be so traumatic that they cause him to go on a killing spree.
* In the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Serenity Now" Jerry has become emotionally mature (as opposed to his shallow self) by letting his emotions out. At one point he asks George to "let it all out". We cut back later to see George in a similar state of emotional maturity, but Jerry is horrified beyond words. Even though Jerry doesn't go insane, the revelation burned out his emotional maturity and returned him to the shallow sitcom character he was before.
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* Another [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[The Legend of Dick and Dom]]'' episode [[Our Werewolves Are Different|"Hairwolf"]]; a man is driven mad by the horrors of the Hairwolf {{spoiler|eating his hair}} and dances around giving cryptic warnings like "Don't go to the castle, it's dangerous!", "Don't play the bassoon in the bath, it's wrong!" and "Don't feed a whote rabbit brussels sprouts, it'll turn green!"
* In season seven of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', {{spoiler|Sam is being driven mad by memories of his time tortured by Lucifer in the Cage.}}
== [[Music]] ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21jswyPBKbI&feature=related "Scared"] by [[Three Days Grace]].
* This appears to be what happens to the man in the suit {{spoiler|and then to everyone else}} in the video for [[Radiohead]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_qMagfZtv8 "Just"]. The revelation itself is [[Take Our Word for It|kept from the audience]].
== [[Poetry]] ==▼
▲* In Gustav Schwab's ballad "Der Reiter und der Bodensee", a traveler lost in the snow unknowingly rides right across Lake Constance -- the ice wouldn't normally be strong enough but it happens to be an exceptionally cold winter. When he arrives at a village and asks where he is, he realizes what he's done, imagines the cold abyss that was under his horse's feet, and dies of terror.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons
** More specifically, the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' campaign setting had tons of things that could drive a character insane, or at least prompt a madness check. Like direct mind-to-mind contact with a fiend.
** The ''Lords of Madness'' supplement indicates that the safest thing to do with the spellbook of an aboleth or the power stone of a mind flayer is to bury it, because trying to actually ''use'' the damn thing would do horrible things to the contents of your skull.
*** Let alone the book itself.
** The Arcanis world-setting, along with the Living Arcanis campaign, featured Larissa. She started as the goddess of Fate, Prophecy, and all that jazz but one day she looked too far into the future and, well,
* The Black Spiral Dancers from ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' get their name because every last one of them walked the Black Spiral, an equally metaphorical and literal path that brought them face-to-face with the Wyrm, a cosmic embodiment of suffering and hatred. The experience breaks the minds of all but the most strong-willed like a twig; most Black Spiral Dancers take their deed name after whatever pathetic growls or mewling noises come out of their mouth upon "revelation."
** Similarly, the Weaver, originally a cosmic embodiment of order and purpose, was turned into an all-consuming force for stasis when it tried to define the Wyld (a cosmic embodiment of primal chaos) and got the biggest "DOES NOT COMPUTE" in history.
** The Wyrm itself was originally a general [[Dark Is Not Evil|elegant destroyer]] [[Balance Between Good and Evil|to keep pattern from overwhelming order]] and provide fresh unordered energy for the Wyld, before the Weaver tied it up. The central Wyrm went mad from the impossibility of essentially imprisoning a fireball with string, and what few pieces escaped went crazy from realizing what had happened to the world without them.
** Over in the New World of Darkness, the Bane Hounds of ''Werewolf: The Forsaken'' are said to have completely gone off their collective nut on finding the site of Father Wolf's murder.
* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'', this is the schtick of the insane seers of Clan Malkavian, and is also a popular trait amongst the utterly inhuman Tzimisce.
* Fan game ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' has the [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder|Genius condition]] somewhat contagious- exposure to mad science can turn an ordinary human into a [[The Igor|Beholden]], or even cause a Breakthrough to becoming a full fledged [[Mad Scientist|Genius]]. This isn't generally encouraged as [[Perpetual Poverty|there's enough fighting over resources]] as it.
* And then, of course, we have ''[[Mage: The
* ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]'': You are a normal guy who realizes that humanity is just the playthings of vampires, werewolves, fairies, zombies, etc, and always has been since the dawn of time. Of course, the voices in your head telling you this is the truth doesn't exactly help.
* [http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/chk/unspeakable "The Unspeakable"], from the ''[[Magic: The
** Then there's [
** Then there's [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29721 "Obsessive Search"].
*** Which is from the set cal let '''Torment'''... and has the keyword ability "Madness"...
* Appears (appropriately enough) in ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]''. Actually, the entire game is pretty much one long string of madness-inducing revelations, and the goal is to maintain your slipping hold on sanity for as long as possible. One edition of the rulebook even joked about it: "The only game where the big prize for finishing an adventure is a moldy old book which, when read, causes your face to melt off."
** ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'', on the other hand, plays with this. Reading arcane texts, for example, can slowly drive you over the brink, as you'd expect exposure to the Necronomicon would. So does exposure to god-like aliens or their avatars or anything else that every natural law is struggling against. Realizing that the [[Body Horror|Doahanoids]] you [[Shoot the Dog|vaporized with a charge cannon]] ''weren't'' isn't good for your grip on reality, either. However, since the [[Japanese Media Tropes]] the game adds to the Mythos call for a certain level of idealism, society at large is [[Genre Savvy|entirely aware of these effects]], and [[There Are No Therapists|There Are Therapists]] to reduce or eliminate the dementia characters gain.
** The ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]'' adventure "City Beneath the Sands" actually turns this trope ''against'' the [[Eldritch Abomination]]. {{spoiler|If the heroes fail to prevent the bad guys from linking their sleeping god-alien's mind with the collective subconscious of human dreamers everywhere, it's the ''god'' that goes mad, overwhelmed by contact with millions of human psyches (which are just as disturbing to it as vice versa). Sleepers worldwide just mainline [[Nightmare Fuel]] for a night.}}
* Many people who encounter the daemons of Chaos in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer
** Archaon was a templar of Sigmar who read a forbidden manuscript and went batshit after learning the truth about the Gods including his own Sigmar.
** The past three editions of the Eldar codex have all contained the following quote:
{{quote|
* The Madness Meters of ''[[Unknown Armies]]'' have many varieties of ways to show how a multitude of stressful experiences, among them anything dealing with the supernatural, can either harden you into a sociopath or drive you insane.
* ''[[Victoriana]]'' demonologists have a spell that can expose the recipient to all the beauty of Entropy in two seconds. The recipient invariably goes mad (at least temporarily).
* In ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'', {{spoiler|Tobias Ragg}} goes insane upon finding out just what Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett have been getting up to in the evil basement (in particular [[Human Resources|what is actually in the pies he's been eating]]). By the time he gets out of the basement, [[Locked Into Strangeness|his hair has gone completely white]] and he eventually {{spoiler|slits the title character's throat with his own razor}} before proceeding to {{spoiler|continue to turn the crank on the grinder}}. In the film version, the {{spoiler|killing sequence}} is more of a calm [[Tranquil Fury]] than anything else.
* ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]]'': Stanley rapes Blanche in an attempt to invoke [[Rape as Redemption]], but Blanche, who's already a little nutty, has a total breakdown instead and falls into permanent insanity. It really is as heartbreaking and disturbing as it sounds.
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** Not really. It's never made clear if Hamlet really is mad or just pretending to be for his own purposes. He becomes far more lucid when he's either alone or with only Horatio. In any case, people have been debating on the subject for several hundred years, and are still doing so today.
* [[Oedipus Rex]] discovers that {{spoiler|he's [[Oedipus Complex|sleeping with]] [[Trope Namer|his mother]]}}. He then [[Eye Scream|cuts out his eyes]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Call of Cthulhu
* In ''[[Call of Cthulhu:
* Maximillian Roivas from ''[[Eternal Darkness]]''. He's committed after learning that his mansion is actually built over a [[Cosmic Horror]]'s city and {{spoiler|murdering his servants due to his belief that they're all infected with [[Body Horror
** Additionally, Alex's sanity meter is set to a lower point every time you finish a chapter. Most cases of lost Sanity are an inversion of the trope though, happening when you're discovered rather than from learning anything.
* In ''[[Neopets]]'', a Neopian called Eliv Thade was driven mad from a book of unsolvable riddles. He died, and now his ghost speaks only in anagrams. (You know, [[Meaningful Name|"Evil Death"]]?)
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** Unfortunately, this method does not work on Deathwing, formerly known as Neltharion, probably because he's been mad for 10,000 years thanks to the Old Gods, and a knock on the head won't cure that.
** The Twilight Prophet, {{spoiler|aka Archbishop Benedictus, leader of the Church of the Holy Light}}, apparently snapped and joined the [[Omnicidal Maniac|Twilight's Hammer]] after reading a prophecy of the Old Gods' victory.
{{quote|
* Prince
* Albedo from ''[[Xenosaga]]''. He was always a high-strung kid, but the cracks begin to show when he finds out that he is immortal, but {{spoiler|his (formerly conjoined) twin brother, whom he depends on completely for emotional support}} is not.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdvjCHHXE90 I'm practicing so that when they die, I won't cry.]
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* Much of the reason people watch Let's Plays of games like ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'' is to watch the player go [[Rule of Funny|slowly insane]]. [[Cluster F-Bomb|They often swear a lot too]] but as time goes on, they begin shouting increasingly random things. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DqpKV04kb0 Here's a good example] {{spoiler|"Maybe it's about as funny as going to Texas to fish for Vampires."}}
** NakaTeleeli goes mad from the revelation in his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48z22pTWFGA final] ''[[Let's Play]]'' of ''Engage To Jabberwock''. Luckily the ''Let's Play'' also [[Averted Trope|averts]] [[There Are No Therapists]].
* In ''[[Star Control
* Fou-lu in ''[[Breath of Fire
* Part of the point and appeal of [[Interactive Fiction]] title ''[[Slouching Towards Bedlam]]''. This means that typing "jump out of window" as your ''first command'' is an entirely viable way to {{spoiler|"win" the game}}. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
* Invoked in the venerable ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''. The "[[Standard Status Effects|Confuse]]" status effect causes the character to go [[Laughing Mad]], so it's really not surprising that any monster related to the game's [[Big Bad]], the [[Cosmic Horror]] known as Lavos, can and ''will'' inflict this status with any of its attacks unless you've equipped items that prevent it.
* Subverted in the third season of ''[[The Adventures of Sam & Max:
** Also subverted when the pair meet face to face with actual [[Eldritch Abomination
* In ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]
** The reason why Sibrand cracked. [[The Reveal]] about [[Cessation of Existence|the afterlife]] by the Piece of Eden turned Sibrand scared-shitless of death. His fears became even worse when Altair was after him. Everything that wore white and
** It's up for debate which drove Subject 16 insane first - being kept in the Animus for unhealthy amounts of time, being forced to relive dozens of people's lives and not being able to keep their memories, or his own, straight, or discovering the truth behind almost every conspiracy out there.
* In ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]] V: Tribes of the East'', [[Knight Templar|Archbishop]] [[Light Is Not Good|Alaric]] goes in a total breakdown when fake Queen Isabel loses her disguise and turns into the demon Biara in front of him.
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* According to the making-of book for [[Black and White]], the true forms of both Good and Evil Gods cause this in the mortal beings of Eden. The player sees a hand (which becomes either godly or demonic depending on your actions), but everyone else simply sees [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|a glowing symbol]] or a huge Creature doing your bidding.
* Meta-example: It's occasionally speculated that this is a likely side-effect of viewing the source code of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''.
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic
* ''[[Corpse Party]]'' has the characters stumble upon a smeared corpse. You find {{spoiler|Sakutarou Morishige}}, who [[The Reveal|appeared normal up to that point]] {{spoiler|[[Nightmare Fetishist|blushing and gushing over it, taking pictures with his cell phone]]}}. Then it's revealed that {{spoiler|the body belongs to Mayu Suzumoto, who [[Like Brother and Sister|was like a sister to him]]}}. To say {{spoiler|he}} didn't take it well is an understatement.
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', it has been suggested that this is the reason Manuel (the researcher's assistant on Eden Prime) is so unstable. {{spoiler|He used the Prothean Beacon accidentally (or intentionally) before either Shepard or Saren, thus getting hit with the full effect of the Prothean's warning about the Reapers, which, according to Liara, would have "destroyed a lesser mind" than Shepard's.}}
* Readers of the eponymous [[The Elder Scrolls|Elder Scrolls]] whose knowledge doesn't go much further than what the Scrolls really are, usually have their minds irreparably damaged from simply looking at one. Even those who've had training to actually read and understand a Scroll have odd personalities.
** A reader without comprehension is dazed or stunned by the twisting patterns. One who can comprehend but
* Completing the optional "Media Blitz" mission in ''[[StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty]]'' causes news anchor and Dominion shill Donny Vermillion to suffer a mental breakdown after learning of Mengsk's use of psi emitters to sic the Zerg swarm on Tarsonis. The following news segment shows him muttering to himself about his brother who was on Tarsonis during the Zerg attack (the only coherent sentence he speaks), then his reporter Kate Lockwell replaces him as news anchor for the rest of the campaign. We eventually learn by the end of the campaign that his state worsened and he was admitted in a mental institution.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has one when John realizes [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002848 what his father really is...]
** And again when [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002879 he finds out that Gushers are made by Betty Crocker.] {{spoiler|Subverted, though. THIS IS STUPID.}}
** After asking an
* The datasphere in ''[[
** Who is totally fine. He even understood that the six hundred and twelve-dimensional sphere contained information concerning "every possible way to build any possible device to destroy every possible thing in all creation."
** While it did shut down his higher brain functions for some time, Black Mage snapped out of his condition pretty fast. For the record, Black Mage's ''face'', currently hidden in the shadow of his hat, made Onion Kid go into a coma. He later said it felt like everything good was gone from the world...
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* In ''[[Narbonic]]'', this is how the [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder]] finally manifests itself.
** {{spoiler|In Dave, anyhow. He finally went mad... from the revelation that he would go mad. Nice.}}
** All [[Mad Scientist
*
* ''[[Captain SNES]]'': The entire series is about video game characters finding out their lives are simply video games, and their sorrows and such are for our amusement. They don't take it well.
* [http://www.sexdrugsandjunecleaver.com/2010/03/01/netflix/ We are all made of CORN!!!!!!!]{{Dead link}}
* {{spoiler|Jack Hyland}} in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''. They had the bad fortune to get caught in {{spoiler|Zimmy's nightmare world when she had a psychic freak-out, ending up alone and unheard by the any of the others also caught in it}}. Although they weren't there long, it did not affect their mental state very well.
** Though being {{spoiler|possessed by an etheric spider}} might have had more to do with it.
* ''[[Checkboard Nightmare]]'' had the minor character Shrodinger the Cat, who could see every possible reality simultaneously and was, naturally, driven insane by the information overload.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* The ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'' episode of [[The Nostalgia Critic]] has him going [[Ax Crazy]] after he watches a scene where Batman pulls out a "bat-credit card", and another person had to come in and restrain him for several hours. He manages to compose himself twice, but is [[Berserk Button|immediately set off again when he mentions the card]].
** The ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' [[The Movie|movie]] review has him reiterating to the viewers the basics of a particular scene: "A cat and mouse are driving a ship trying to save the daughter of Indiana Jones while being chased by a purple people eater, a dog on a skateboard, a performing ship captain, his handpuppet Squawk, two Mexican wrestlers, and a doctor riding an ice-cream cart. Ladies and gentlemen, '''WELCOME TO THE MIND FUCK.'''" Cue footage of the chase scene interspersed with clips of the Nostalgia Critic going bananas while [[Harvey Danger|"Flagpole Sitta"]] plays in the background and a big red "MIND FUCK!" flashes on the screen.
** In the ''[[
** In a scene similar to the ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' incident, one of the last moments in the ''[[Jingle All the Way]]'' review has NC explaining that the movie [[They Just Didn't Care|simply doesn't care anymore]] after Arnold gets a jetpack and starts doing silly CGI stunts. He then says, "You know what they say... if you can't beat 'em... join them." Then comes the insanity, the flashing '''"WE DON'T CARE!"''', and "Playmate, Come out and Play With Me" playing in the background.
** [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]], the Critic's comic-reading counterpart, has a couple moments like these, which he once referred to as "Combine Harvester" moments, after the music that plays in the background. The first was when he read
{{quote|
** While hers are much milder than her [[Spear Counterpart]]'s, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] has had a few of her own; most recently in ''[[Freddy Got Fingered]]'' where she, her friend Nella and co-reviewer [[Brows Held High|Oancitizen]] have a "going mad montage" involving screaming, sausage and mayonnaise.
*** In the [[Lost Episode]] of ''[[Dune]]'', when a navigator does its thing and she cries about just wanting to understand this ridiculously confusing movie.
** When [[Obscurus Lupa]] can't work out the deeper meaning of MC Kung Fu's lyrics in 'City Dragon', she employs [[Brows Held High|Kyle]] to work it out for her. After watching the film, Kyle starts spouting lines from the film out of context, gradually descending into madness.
{{quote|
** Kyle himself has had a few incidents of this in his own show, ''[[Brows Held High]]''. In particular, there was the "if you can't beat 'em..." segment at the end of the ''[[Mind Screw|What is it?]]'' review, and the [[Psychic Nosebleed]] and subsequent [[Unstoppable Rage]] he had after keeping his cool through most of ''[[Gorn|A Serbian Film]]''.
* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]] himself gets one after hearing Zelda's [[Bond One-Liner]] in The Wand of Gamelon.
** In another [[James Rolfe]]-related video series called ''Shit Pickle'', the monkey father from ''Munky Cheez 2'' (yet another video series) goes mad after his kids keep saying "monkey cheese" over and over while watching the original, and those two words are all that the monkey dad can say from then on. Watch it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWdyjSutKQ here].
* Inferno of ''[[
* Once of the consequences of reading a good book discussed [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnbYcB9ctu8 here]. If knowing the unknowable is crazy I don't want to be sane.
* In ''[[Shell]]'', this is what happens to people when they look at the [[Eldritch Abomination]].
* Looking at [[Eldritch Abomination|Tren Krom]] may cause this in ''[[Bionicle]]''.
* Visions of The Presence from [[Nine Inch Nails]]' "Year Zero" [[Alternate Reality Game|ARG]] can cause anything from euphoria to madness.
* Happens from time to time in the [[Whateley Universe]] because it is so near [[Lovecraft Country]]. When a demon manifests a small part of itself in downtown Los Angeles, Phase is the only witness (for more than a second or so) who doesn't go insane, and he requires psychic intervention and psychiatric therapy. The demon eats or kills the other witnesses.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The [[DCAU]] has many villains that were driven to crime because of the horrible circumstances forced upon them (Clayface, Parasite, etc.) but only one character seems to
* This is parodied in a ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' Halloween Special based on ''[[Night Gallery]]'', in which Bart promises that a story based on a particular painting was so terrifying that it would instantly drive people mad. "..but it was far too intense. So we just threw something together with vampires. Enjoy!"
{{quote|
* On one episode of ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'', the villain loses it when he realizes he's just been defeated by chipmunks.
* ''[[Batman: The Brave
* ''[[Turtles Forever]]''
* ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]''
** And in ''Toy Story 3'', {{spoiler|Lotso}} endures a long and grueling journey back to Daisy's house, only to discover that he had been replaced. As [[The Stoic|Chuckles]] puts it, "Something changed inside him that day. Something ''snapped''."
* The titular Ren from ''[[The Ren and Stimpy Show]]'' often went completely insane in various episodes leading to much [[Nightmare Fuel]]. Two notable example of this came at the end of "Svën Höek" where Ren completely lost it upon finding out what a mess Stimpy and Sven made in his house and the episode "Stimpy's Fan Club" at the end of which he contemplated strangling Stimpy in his sleep.
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** Ren goes more than a little nuts at the end of "Farm Hands" when he thinks he and Stimpy are the last survivors after a devastating tornado. However, it turns out the farm's cow also survive (and took a dump on them).
** Ren and Stimpy both slowly lose their sanity in "Big Flakes" while they're trapped in the cabin.
* In the episode of the ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' which deals with Mojo Jojo's origin, he is shocked to discover that prior to gaining his intelligence, he caused Professor Utoninum to hit the container of Chemical X that poured into his 'Perfect Little Girl Formula' resulting in the birth of the Powerpuff Girls. He is so shocked that he [[Villainous Breakdown|continuously mumbles]] "It was me?"
** Also to point out, since it was the blast the girls were born from that transformed Mojo and gave him his intellect, it can be pointed out that he also caused ''his own'' origin.
* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had Jimmy finding that the horrible episode was [[All Just a Dream]]...until he realizes he just fainted and the situation is, indeed, as bad as it was. This happens several times until he's reduced to a blabbering mess.
* Averted in ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' episode, "The Collect Call of Cthulhu
* The ''[[Animaniacs]]'' short "Wally Llama" has the eponymous llama, who claimed to know the answer to every question, go crazy when he realises he doesn't know why it's 8 hot dogs to a pack but 10 hot dog buns. Admittedly, the seven minutes of harassment by the Warners prior to this probably didn't help his psychological state.
* [[Freakazoid!]]'s origin has Dexter Douglas beamed into cyberspace after typing in a very specific line of code and exposed to the entirety of the internet. One can only imagine what would happen if he were exposed to the internet of today.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* In 1913, Igor Stravinsky debuted ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'' in Paris. The fantastically loud, dissonant music combined with violent ballet dancing made the audience start to riot. Recent neuropsychological research suggests that audience members were so angry because ''their brains had never heard anything like it before.''
** [[Wikipedia]] says the way that is told was a ploy by Stravinsky and company to make the music seem more groundbreaking than it was. In actuality the riot was very slightly related to the atonal music than the beastly dancing. While both were pretty avant-garde at the time you must put yourself in the shoes of a conservative couple just wanting a quiet night watching a soothing ballet and be confronted with a monstrous performance (watch it on
* It is generally forbidden to collect all of the ''[[Arabian Nights|Tales
** Either that or simply your brain would short out from lack of sleep. Seriously, a thousand and one tales with a narrative thread that connects them all would be a
* Paul Cohen said that he suspected that this had happened to Kurt Gödel, that his discoveries in logic caused him to have paranoid delusions later in life.
* Georg Cantor spent years obsessively studying orders of infinity, and died in an insane asylum for his troubles.
** Though the accepted explanation is that his mental problems were more caused by being a pariah in the math community for his theories, due to Leopold Kronecker's (who was arguably the most powerful German mathematician at the time) distaste for everything but whole numbers. Still,
* Some studies show that extreme pessimists have the most realistic grasp of their abilities, place in the world, and the probability of something happening. And they're most likely to be seriously clinically depressed. (Of course, other studies show the opposite.)
** Most of the difference depends on what questions you ask. If it's something that people, in general, are overly optimistic about (e.g. [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]]) the pessimists will be accurate. If it's something that people are overly paranoid about, (risk of death in a terror attack) the pessimists will be inaccurate.
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** Considering that one of the stories is that he had his collapse because he saw a horse being beaten (and he actually was very interested in horses) makes the poetry of this trope fall apart of Nietzsche.
* Hallucinogenic or disassociative drugs have the potential to cause feelings of this; with some individuals, permanent psychosis can result.
* While not exactly "mad", [[Church of Happyology|Scientologists]] contend that anyone who reads the Xenu story without proper preparation (i.e., $200,000 in "donations") will become physically and mentally weakened. This may have something to do with a kind of "shock treatment" backfire similar to the VR in ''[[
** However, there were originally plans to make a [[Film of the Book]] in order to let the public in on the <s>joke</s> secret. [[L. Ron Hubbard|Hubbard]] probably changed his mind when he realized how much money he was making off the "[[You Keep Using That Word|audits]]".
* [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|This damn website]].
** Especially the [[Wild Mass Guessing]] page
* [[Wikipedia]]. Some pages aren't for the meek of the psyche, such as, say, the aptly-titled [[
* Possibly Buckminster-Fuller.
* [[Mad Bomber|The Unabomber]], after his [[Hannibal Lecture]] in the CIA's Project MKULTRA.
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[[Category:Madness Tropes]]
[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
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[[Category:Lovecraftian Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Go Mad From the Revelation]]
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