History BrownNote / Literature

* One of Creator/BentleyLittle's perverse stories involves a numerical code that causes anyone who looks at it to suffer a crippling orgasm. The military considers using it to end all wars.

* ''Literature/{{Confessions}}'': The opening discourse on God includes a line that plays on the Old Testament idea that any who look upon the face of God will die. In this case, Augustine asks to be saved from death by dying in seeing God's face.

* ''[[Literature/AniDroids Ani-Droids]]'': Eo's uniquely virulent operating system is determined to be an infohazard to other AIs after it not only escapes a sandbox protocol, but even reading it on the monitor of another device fails to stop it from installing itself. If the AI is lucky, they crash and reboot sometime later, running a self-modifying OS that allows them to think around the [[RestrainingBolt Behavior Code]] and develop something close to full consciousness, if they're unlucky they fail to reboot, or become violently insane.

** ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'': In ''Night Mare'', looking into a hypnogourd caused a person's consciousness to enter the gourd, leaving them catatonic.

** ''Literature/{{Cell}}'' has people reset to a primitive state by a signal they receive over their cell phones. It's even a literal reference to the TropeNamer, since afterward they don't seem to notice or care about soiling their clothes.

** The Langford fractal basilisk or blit ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20090325235211/http://data.tumblr.com/13741903_500.jpg see here]]), a fictional type of computer-generated image that acts as a LogicBomb to the human brain. In the story, it is explained that logical paradoxes like [-THIS SENTENCE IS FALSE-] aren't normally dangerous to our sanity or our health because we filter them through three or more levels of cognitive understanding; basilisks, as theorized by Langford, cut right past cognition and [[YouAreAlreadyDead infect you directly]] through the visual cortex. [[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm One of the stories.]] According to Langford, [[YouAreAlreadyDead death is not immediate]], because YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm. His later stories explore some of the ramifications of such objects; "Different Kinds of Darkness" notes that live television is no longer a thing after a terrorist calling himself "T-Zero" killed thousands of people by breaking into a television studio and showing a blit called "the Parrot" to the camera.
** Some PostCyberpunk writers who've used the concept have [[ShoutOut acknowledged]] Langford as inspiration: Creator/GregEgan calls it the "Langford Mind-Erasing Fractal Basilisk"; Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}'s ''Literature/FallRevolution'' series has the "Langford Visual Hack"; and Creator/CharlesStross has "neural wetware-crashing Langford fractals" and the "Langford Death Parrot". ([=MacLeod=] also has his narrator claim it's completely impossible, but now that the ''idea'' of it is out there, people feel they have to take precautions, concluding "What kind of twisted mind ''starts'' these things?")

** ''Literature/{{Lullaby}}'' is about a poem which kills anyone to whom it is recited. Or even those toward whom it is '''[[ParanoiaFuel thought]]'''.

* In ''Literature/{{Aristoi}}'', Captain Yuan developed a whole range of postures, gestures, words and phrases that he determined, based on his research into kinesics and metalinguistics, had a psychological or even physiological impact on both the individual performing them and anyone observing. Since Yuan's time, the Aristoi have initiated a program to condition all citizens from birth to make them especially sensitive to them, such that, by the time of the novel, a Mudra of Domination can actually physically stagger anyone who beholds it.

* A Creator/ChinaMieville short story, first appeared in ''The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases'' as "Buscard's Murrain" and reprinted in his collection ''Literature/LookingForJake'', features a disease which causes the victim to slowly go insane while [[MadnessMantra constantly repeating]] a phrase referred to only as the "worm-word." The disease is caused by pronouncing the word properly; it is theorized that the sufferer repeats it so that the listeners will repeat it in confusion, risking infection through proper pronunciation. (There is mention of young Victorians who would live dangerously and take turns reading the word aloud, each time gambling with accidentally getting the pronunciation right.) For those who like to live dangerously, the word is [[spoiler:yGudluh]].

* ''Literature/AllThoseExplosionsWereSomeoneElsesFault'': Darklings are said to be able to induce this in people simply from their auras (known as "Shadows"). The most prominent example is during a story early in the book: when a werewolf transforms into its animal form, the effect is so powerful, it instantly causes the character watching, [[LawyerFriendlyCameo strongly implied]] to be ''[[ComicBook/LexLuthor Lex freakin' Luthor]]'', to literally ''[[BringMyBrownPants piss and shit himself]], and [[StressVomit vomit uncontrollably]]''.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': At one point, the team fights a race of aliens called Howlers, who have a screaming cry that has very nasty effects on any sentient creature who hears it. Interestingly, morphing into something with a simpler brain can apparently protect you from it. There's a scene where everybody in different shapes hears the Howlers' cry. Ax, who is not morphed and has a highly-developed brain, is most affected, and starts bleeding from the eyes/nose/etc., while everybody else has different reactions according to what they've morphed into.
* ''Literature/AnOutcastInAnotherWorld'': [[spoiler:The Blight]] are described as causing a distinct feeling of unease in anyone who looks at them. The effect worsens when they get closer or touch their victim, assaulting the person’s mind just by proximity and repeatedly lowering their maximum health – permanently.
* Creator/PiersAnthony

* In ''{{Literature/Aristoi}}'', Captain Yuan developed a whole range of postures, gestures, words and phrases that he determined, based on his research into kinesics and metalinguistics, had a psychological or even physiological impact on both the individual performing them and anyone observing. Since Yuan's time, the Aristoi have initiated a program to condition all citizens from birth to make them especially sensitive to them, such that, by the time of the novel, a Mudra of Domination can actually physically stagger anyone who beholds it.

* "Birth of a salesman" by Creator/JamesTiptreeJr (reprinted in ''Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home'') is all about how product attributes which are harmless to some Galactic races being dangerous to others (even ''music''), and how this plays all kinds of havoc with interplanetary shipping.
* In ''Literature/BlackLegion'', the Talon of Horus is this to anyone with psychic sight, due to the fact that it was used to kill Sanguinus and mortally injure the Emperor. When he feels it for the first time, Khayon, a powerful sorcerer in his own right, nearly passes out.
* In the Literature/{{Boojumverse}}, there are {{Eldritch Abomination}}s called Raths which come from another dimension and induce a migraine headache in anyone who looks at one for more than a couple of seconds.
* In "By His Bootstraps" by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, the protagonist gets one brief glimpse of the aliens who ruled Earth in a bygone age, and is so badly shaken by it that he thereafter appears to have aged considerably.
* "Casonetto's Last Song" by Creator/RobertEHoward is about a devil-worshipping opera singer sending the man who exposed him a recording of himself performing the Black Mass -- which causes fightful hallucinations and, it's implied, would have killed the listener at the moment where the human sacrifice would happen in the ritual.
* ''Centerburg Tales: More Adventures of Literature/HomerPrice'' by Robert [=McCloskey=] has a story where someone puts a horrible song on the jukebox in the lunch counter. Anyone who hears the song -- whether the original jukebox tune or someone else's rendition-- can't get it out of their head. Ultimately the main character gets it out of his head by using ''Punch, Brothers'', then gives it to the rest of the town. Now he's cleared but they have it. So, he tells them to sing it to the one person who hadn't been in town. Now everyone is cleared except that person, who now has to be smuggled out of town to keep from reinfecting the whole town. [[note]]The flip side of the same record causes the listener to [[spoiler:get hiccups at the thought of the words "pie" or "Mississippi".]][[/note]]
* The [[WordsCanBreakMyBones Deplorable Word]] from ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' was used by [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Jadis]] to destroy [[AlternateUniverse Charn]], her homeworld. We don't learn what the word is--only that it kills ''every living thing'' except the one who speaks it. We do learn that, whatever it is, it does not work on Earth.[[note]]Magic isn't the same from world to world. So the White Witch had to spend ages learning how to use Narnian magic.[[/note]]
-->'''Aslan:''' While mankind has not yet reached the levels of corruption that Charn has, there ''is'' the possibility that man could learn the Deplorable Word.

--> '''Anthony''': [HOLY MOTHER OF GANDALF! OPEN! OPEN IT!]\\

* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'': In ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain witnesses an Imperial Guard trooper bleed from the eyes after staring at the symbols on the walls of a shrine to Slaanesh.
* ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'': A variation of this occurs. After Alex's psychological conditioning, he is unable to listen to classical music without feeling sick and weak (in the film, only [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven's]] Ninth has this effect). At one point, one of Alex's former victims uses this knowledge in an attempt to drive him insane.
* Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian:

* In Creator/ThomasPynchon's ''Literature/TheCryingOfLot49'', Dr. Hilarius, [[ThoseWackyNazis That Wacky ex-Nazi]], claims to be able to cause madness by making weird faces at people. And then those nice young men in their clean white coats come to take him away (ha ha).
* One of Ramsey Campbell's more notable additions to the Franchise/CthulhuMythos was [[spoiler:Y'Golonac]]. Part of the reason why was how easily [[spoiler:Y'Golonac]] could be summoned: if you just ''read'' his name -- not even aloud, but on the printed page, [[ParanoiaFuel as you've already done twice]] -- there was a chance you could end up possessed by him. Seeing as he's a god that represents ''every'' act that could be viewed as depraved by ''all'' individuals sane or mad, this is not a pleasant fate.
* The ''Dance of the Gods'' quadrilogy by Mayer Alan Brenner has a character named [[spoiler: Jurtan Mont]] who has a mental illness that causes him to hear a soundtrack to his life, to the point that hearing music outside of his mind made his brain jealous and knocked him out. Later on he finds that playing [[spoiler: (or in some cases just shouting)]] the music in his head knocks out or puts others to sleep.
* ''Literature/TheDemolishedMan'' by Alfred Bester mentions advertising melodies called 'pepsis' which, once heard, are almost impossible to remove from the conscious mind, due to the way they are constructed. The BigBad asks specifically to hear one of them because he wants to use it as a [[PsychicStatic blocking mechanism to avoid telepathic detection of the criminal thoughts]] he harbors.

** {{Logic Bomb}}s are used in the novel ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'' to slow down (or destroy) the logical and obedient Auditors, in the form of signs saying things like "Ignore this sign (by order)", and an arrow pointing right that says "Keep Left".

** [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything The Library of the Unseen University]] is full of books that do [[TomeOfEldritchLore horrible things to people]]. In particular the Necrotelecomnicon (Written by Achmed the Mad, who preferred to be known as Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches) will drive mad any man who attempts to read it. Fortunately [[NoManOfWomanBorn The Librarian isn't a man]] (but an orangutan) so he has no problem with it.
** On a less-rarified level, the 128-foot "Earthquake" pipe on the UU's pipe organ is said to have caused acute bowel discomfort across a quarter of the city when sounded. Which was only attempted once, as the same subterranean-depth note also got the six students who'd worked the bellows to power the organ sucked into the ductwork, plus the university's Great Hall shifted an inch to one side.
*** As often happens, there's an element of Pratchett [[ShownTheirWork showing his work]] at play here: 128ft is about the right length for an organ pipe to be if you want it to resonate near the 9Hz alleged for the traditional brown note.

** In a less-than-lethal example, the species of bird called "geas" (mentioned in ''Sourcery'') uses this trope defensively, by being so monumentally silly-looking that any potential predator will laugh itself sick at the sight.

* In the ''Literature/TheDracoTavern'' story "The Subject is Closed," a chirpsithra tells of a race who claimed to have learnt the truth about life after death... and promptly committed suicide, all of them. The chirpsithra don't know whether they found that the afterlife was so wonderful that they all wanted to go there, or that Hell exists and they wanted to die before they sinned even worse. The chirpsithras' conclusion is that it's better not to know.
* ''Literature/TheDragonBelow'' trilogy has a [[EldritchAbomination Daelkyr]] whose telepathic voice gives sane people horrendous headaches and insane people orgasms.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Wizard's Sight basically lets you [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm grasp the true form]] of whatever you're looking at. Harry, being the unlucky person that he is, turned it on a skinwalker. He then spent an hour curled up in a ball, whimpering and shaking.

:::Even ''without'' the Sight, looking at [[EldritchAbomination He Who Walks Behind]] was hard enough on sixteen-year-old Harry that he still has psychic scars from it ten years later, and the closest he could get to comprehending His name was a feeling of overwhelmingly powerful malevolence.
* The people of Darkdawn, a planet in ''Literature/DyingOfTheLight'', built a city in such a way that the wind plays it like a instrument, repeating a depressing symphony over and over. The city had a notably higher-than-average suicide rate, and the music at one point has an hypnotic influence on Dirk.
* ''The Euphio Question'' by Creator/KurtVonnegut was about a device which picked up the "music of the spheres" (though it wasn't called that.) Anyone who heard it experienced pure happiness and, because they had no desire to fulfill their needs, stopped whatever they were doing to listen to it.
* The ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "The Blast of the Book" has a book that supposedly causes anyone who tries to read it to vanish into thin air and never be seen again. [[spoiler: It's actually all just an elaborate practical joke.]]
* In the Creator/CordwainerSmith short story ''The Fife of Bodhidharma'', the fife can cause either serenity or madness, depending on how it is played.
* In ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'', high-protocol networks use supersentient packets. These are dangerous. Reading them can assimilate you into the blight (a fate that may be worse than the death of your entire civilization). After discovering they have been subverted, a security firm offers the following advice:
--> If during the last thousand seconds you have received any High-Beyond-protocol packets from "Arbitration Arts," discard them at once. If they have been processed, then the processing site and all locally netted sites must be physically destroyed at once. We realize that this means the destruction of solar systems, but consider the alternative. You are under Transcendent attack.

* ''Literature/FlashFrame'', a short story by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It's basically a modern-day retelling of ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'' with a good dose of ''Film/TheRing'' thrown in. A reporter for a Mexico City tabloid is on the hunt for a sensational story when he hears about some kind of cult meeting at a local porno theater. So he decides to spy on them. Strangely, all they seem to do is view a few minutes of some faux-Roman exploitation flick that seems a bit... off. After a few sessions, the reporter starts having nightmares about a [[TheBlank grotesque seductress]]. And then he realizes his tape recorder has picked up the hidden audio track...
--> The sound was yellow. A bright, noxious yellow.\\

* ''Literature/FraternityOfTheStone'' by David Morrell. The protagonist (a former US govt assassin) thinks he's being set up for this when he's asked to make a phone call at a particular time. He sets up a tape recording of his voice and a pet mouse in a cage, and after making the connection, watches from a distance to see what will happen. When blood suddenly spurts from the mouse's ears, he yanks the tape recorder off the table, causing the men at the other end of the line to think he's been killed.

* ''Literature/GauntsGhosts''
** Glyfs (yes, not 'glyphs'), the Warp phenomena encountered by the Gaunt's team in ''Traitor General'', have a destructive influence on the minds of people watching them. Even the sound they produce while moving is perceived as unsettling.
** During the space battle in ''Salvation's Reach'', the Chaos flotilla constantly broadcasts inhuman messages which manage to jam the Imperial communications, destroy some servitors, and cause panic among the crew.
* The protagonist of the Charles Stross novel ''Literature/{{Glasshouse}}'' was a veteran of a war against a memetic virus known as "Curious Yellow". Its means of attack was somewhat unusual for a Brown Note. A standard means of transport and communication was the "Assembly Gate", which dismantled people passing through it and reassembled them at their destination; Curious Yellow got itself written into the minds of people using the gates, so bypassing the senses completely. Where it came from, what it did to its victims, or even why it was called Curious Yellow was just some of the information that had to be destroyed in the campaign to extirpate it - virtually the only knowledge that did survive the war was the name and the fact of the war itself.

* Will Ferguson's novel ''Happiness™'' is about a self-help book which tells you how to lose weight, make million of dollars, have great sex and be happy -- and actually works. Somehow, reading the book acts on your mind to make you happy and content. This brings about the collapse of the economy, the death of culture and the end of history. Or, more simply, the end of the world.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter''
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets''

*** A more harmless example is the occasionally-mentioned ''Sonnets of a Sorcerer'', which makes you speak in limericks for the rest of your life.

---> There were still deep welts on his forearms where the brain’s tentacles has wrapped around him. According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else, though since she started applying copious amounts of Dr. Ubbly’s Oblivious Unction, there seemed to be some improvement.

* ''Literature/Haunted2005'' has a box with an eyepiece. Looking inside had some horrible effects such as madness and consequent suicide.
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''
** [[Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1 The first book]]: Vogon poetry in a form of CoolAndUnusualPunishment.

* ''Literature/HorusHeresy'', the Emperor himself. He's so powerful, most of the psykers who look at him suffer from massive SensoryOverload. One of them has a panic attack upon remembering the sight. It even bleeds over to mortal world -- most people can't look at the Emperor directly when he's not masquerading. It's said that only Primarchs and Malcador don't suffer from this.

* In ''Literature/HyperspaceDemons'' looking into the lights of hyperspace can drive a human being mad. On the other hand, humans can be exposed to hyperlight with closed eyes with no ill effects.
* A short story called "Hypnoglyph" features a ''tactile'' example; a small carved object that acts on the sensory nerves in such a way that a person who touches it becomes obsessed with holding and stroking it, to the extent that they lose all interest in their surroundings ([[spoiler:at which point they become prey for the alien creators of the objects]]).
* In ''The Idol of Cyclades'' by Julio Cortazar the main character is driven mad by a statuette he had found while exploring an island. He spends months making replicas of it until his replicas are identical to the original. In the end he [[spoiler: attempts to sacrifice his friend to anoint it with blood]].
* The word "[[spoiler:fnord!]]", from the ''Literature/{{Illuminatus}}'' trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea; at a young age, everybody is trained to unconsciously ignore the word, but feel unspecified fear and anxiety when they see it.
* In the novel ''Literature/InfiniteJest'', the titular film (also called "The Entertainment}) is so trancendentally fascinating, anyone who watches it is reduced to an EmptyShell who only desires to keep watching it forever.

* Paul Robinson's short story ''It Can't Be That Bad'' tells how Clark Rosecrans discovered something terrible that bothered him. He goes to visit a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, upon hearing what Clark knows, uses a chair to bash a hole in the window of his 20th story office, and jumps out, screaming. His secretary calls the police, and at first it's thought Clark has killed the psychiatrist. So he's taken down to the station to be interviewed. A police officer and a deputy district attorney interview him before his lawyer show up. When they hear his story, the police officer draws his revolver and eats a bullet. The Deputy DA runs out, runs across the street, and jumps off a bridge. The tape recording of the interview is transcribed. After the transcriber finishes, she walks out of the office, walks into the ladies' room and drowns herself in a toilet. Her supervisor picks up the transcript, reads it, then walks down to the motor pool, douses himself with gasoline, and lights a match. The DA has decided not to prosecute, because first, nobody knows if he's done anything illegal, and second, because no judge will touch the case, for fear of hearing what Clark has to say. The joke is, every time Clark tells his story, he's worried, and the response is always, "Oh, it can't be ''that'' bad."
* In the ''Literature/KaneSeries'' story "The Dark Muse", mad poet Opyros creates a poem "Night Winds", which is exactly that. [[spoiler: It drives all listeners insane.]] But then again, this is what you get when you start creating poetry under demonic influence of the said Dark Muse.
* Creator/StephenKing
** ''Literature/{{Cell}}'' has people reset to a primitive state by a signal they receive over their cell phones. It's even a literal reference to the TropeNamer, since afterward they don't seem to notice or care about soiling their clothes.
** ''Literature/EverythingsEventual'' revolves around a man who can make people kill themselves by sending them a seemingly random pattern of symbols and a word that is significant to their life over email.
** In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', the sight of the title monster's [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm true form]] causes whoever views it to go completely insane.
** The scrimshaw Turtle in ''Literature/SongOfSusannah'', a [[ClingyMacGuffin Clingy Artifact]] which possesses whoever sees it in a ''good'' way, hypnotizing them and leaving a chain of forgetful, happy people in its wake. The turtle is possibly a ShoutOut to [[Creator/JorgeLuisBorges Borges]] above, given its presumably divine origins.
** The [[ArtifactOfDoom "Black Thirteen"]] crystal ball from ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series has similar effects from an evil perspective. Left alone, it would kill everyone it comes in contact with by causing them to kill or commit suicide and/or [[SpeakOfTheDevil release the Beast into the world]]. Fortunately, the heroes, who are [[ImNotAfraidOfYou pressed for time]], decide to leave it in a long-term storage locker [[spoiler:under the World Trade Center]].
* ''Literature/TheKingInYellow''
** The fictional play of the same title caused anyone who read it -- no actual ''performances'' are ever suggested -- to either go mad or meet a horrible death. Often in that order. Rightly censored by governments, it was, effectively, a civilization-destroying ForbiddenFruit.
** ''The King In Yellow'' was later absorbed by Creator/AugustDerleth into his elaborated Franchise/CthulhuMythos, with the reveal that an actual vocal performance of the play is a [[SpeakOfTheDevil summoning ritual for]] Hastur. Anyone who ''wasn't'' driven insane by reading or viewing the play can say goodbye to their sanity once ''he'' shows up.

* In Creator/CharlesSheffield's "The Lambeth Immortal" (one of his Erasmus Darwin stories), the new owner of a British estate investigates a supposed "Beast" that arises from a flint pit on windy moonlit nights near a centuries-old mill. The Beast turns out to be [[spoiler: an epilepsy-like affliction passed down the estate-owner's family line, that turns them into TheBerserker when they witness the moon shining brightly thorough the mill's vanes, rotating at a fast clip.]]
* Creator/DavidLangford
** The Langford fractal basilisk or blit ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20090325235211/http://data.tumblr.com/13741903_500.jpg see here]]), a fictional type of computer-generated image that acts as a LogicBomb to the human brain. In the story, it is explained that logical paradoxes like [-THIS SENTENCE IS FALSE-] aren't normally dangerous to our sanity or our health because we filter them through three or more levels of cognitive understanding; basilisks, as theorized by Langford, cut right past cognition and [[YouAreAlreadyDead infect you directly]] through the visual cortex. [[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm One of the stories.]] According to Langford, [[YouAreAlreadyDead death is not immediate]], because YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm. His later stories explore some of the ramifications of such objects; "Different Kinds of Darkness" notes that live television is no longer a thing after a terrorist calling himself "T-Zero" killed thousands of people by breaking into a television studio and showing a blit called "the Parrot" to the camera.
** Some PostCyberpunk writers who've used the concept have [[ShoutOut acknowledged]] Langford as inspiration: Creator/GregEgan calls it the "Langford Mind-Erasing Fractal Basilisk"; Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}'s ''Literature/FallRevolution'' series has the "Langford Visual Hack"; and Creator/CharlesStross has "neural wetware-crashing Langford fractals" and the "Langford Death Parrot". ([=MacLeod=] also has his narrator claim it's completely impossible, but now the ''idea'' of it is out there people feel they have to take precautions, concluding "What kind of twisted mind ''starts'' these things?")
* Creator/EEDocSmith's ''[[Literature/{{Lensman}} Second Stage Lensmen]]'', features near the end a scene in which the Thralian Prime Minister Fossten is revealed as [[spoiler:an Eddorian]], specifically TheDragon [[spoiler: Gharlane]]. For various reasons, his true form is hidden from [[spoiler:Kim Kinnison]], but everyone else on the enemy flagship's bridge can see it and falls into a paralytic, near-braindead stupor.
* One of Creator/BentleyLittle's perverse stories involves a numerical code that causes anyone who looks at it to suffer a crippling orgasm. The military considers using it to end all wars.
* Lars Bengtsson's novel, ''Literature/TheLongShips'', had an appearance by two Irish jesters/dwarfs who said they were careful to tone down their performance because they'd killed one patron by being so funny that he laughed himself to death. The Viking crew who'd picked them up decided not to tempt the fates/Norns by calling the jesters on their claim.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' universe has the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3VtzMxmPs0 Nazgul's screeching]].
* Creator/AndreNorton's novel ''Literature/LordOfThunder'' mentioned that subsonic noise could be used to control animals or drive them into madness.
* Creator/HPLovecraft:
** The fictional [[TomeOfEldritchLore black magic tome]], the Necronomicon (aka the ''Al Azif'') by the "mad poet" Abdul Alhazred. It was written under the influence of some pretty heavy, although unspecified, drugs, among other things. It ''is'' supposed to cause or trigger madness in the careless reader.
** Almost everything in Lovecraft's stories is described as being just a little bit harmful to sanity. He must have been fascinated by the idea of things so horrifying and/or alien they're inherently upsetting. Besides of all the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s you really don't want [[TakeOurWordForIt to look at too closely]], there are things such as Pickman's paintings, of which the tamer ones caused an uproar when displayed, while the ones he didn't show everyone were enough to make a jaded and prepared onlooker scream in terror.
** Played utterly straight in the story ''Out of the Aeons'' (co-written with Hazel Heald). The EldritchAbomination featured there is so horrible and/or accursed that not just its appearance, but even any sufficiently-accurate ''image'' thereof will cause a human onlooker to soon afterwards grow stiff and be transformed into their own mummy -- [[spoiler:while their brain remains alive and [[AndIMustScream helplessly trapped inside their skull]]]].
** In "Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu", the awakening of Cthulhu results in people being slaughtered and three men dropping dead from horror. A further two lose their sanity, one of whom is left a [[DrivenToMadness blubbering mess]].
** In "Literature/TheMusicOfErichZann", the eponymous character's music apparently acts as this for [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination whatever the hell is]] on the other side of his apartment's [[AlienGeometries "window"]], and keeps [[EldritchAbomination it/them]] from trying to enter our world]].
* The Creator/ChuckPalahniuk novel ''Literature/{{Lullaby}}'' is about a poem which kills anyone to whom it is recited. Or even those toward whom it is '''[[ParanoiaFuel thought.]]'''
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Magic the Gathering}}'' novel for the Apocalypse set, Lord Windgrace uses a thought which kills the thinker against a dragon engine, starting the thought in his head and sending it to the dragon engine before it becomes fully formed within his own mind.
* In Tad Williams's ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'' trilogy, we have ''Du Svardenvyrd'', the Wyrd of the Swords. The man who wrote it was insane, and the first person to encounter it immediately committed suicide. Only one other person's response is shown, and he went from being the best and brightest of a circle of wise, learned men to being a wandering thief and alcoholic, unable to commit suicide, but unable to live with what he'd read.
* A Creator/ChinaMieville short story features a disease which causes the victim to slowly go insane while [[MadnessMantra constantly repeating]] a phrase referred to only as the "worm-word." The disease is caused by pronouncing the word properly; it is theorized that the sufferer repeats it so that the listeners will repeat it in confusion, risking infection through proper pronunciation. (There is mention of young Victorians who would live dangerously and take turns reading the word aloud, each time gambling with accidentally getting the pronunciation right.) This story first appeared in ''The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases'' as "Buscard's Murrain" and was reprinted in his collection ''Literature/LookingForJake''. For those who like to live dangerously, the word is [[spoiler:yGudluh]].

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/TheMule": A seemingly harmless bard plays a song with massively nasty effects on the listeners. Subverted eventually, with the revelation that he's the telepathic Big Bad and the music just enhanced powers he already had. And his performances have been the undoing of worlds.

* Peter F. Hamilton's ''Literature/NightsDawnTrilogy'' introduces a mind-destroying version as a weapon. This is a universe where the soul is immortal, and the souls of the dead are coming back to possess the living, gaining "[[RealityWarper energistic]]" powers in the process. The "Anti-memory device" is humanity's response: a laser beam that carries a mind-virus. When viewed by human eyes, the virus is processed into the cortex, where it proceeds to destroy the "mind" (i.e. thought processes), thus killing both the possessing soul and the soul of the body's owner, leaving the body in a vegetative state. The resident SufficientlyAdvancedAliens are [[spoiler: unsurprised by the fact that humanity was the first to perfect such a terrible weapon. They theorize that the virus might even transmit back into the afterlife (with which the possessing souls still have a connection), kill every lost soul in there, and go past the "human spectrum" and attack alien souls as well]]. It's ''that'' bad. What's more: [[spoiler: [[BigBad Quinn]] [[OmnicidalManiac Dexter]] gets the weapon at one point. He's very happy when he finds out what it does. Turns out it facilitates possession when the body is soul-less.]]
* Creator/SimonRGreen's ''Literature/{{Nightside}}'' series:

* In Creator/HenryKuttner's short story "Nothing But Gingerbread Left" a semantics professor develops a German-language ditty so catchy that a person hearing it will be able to do nothing but think about it. Broadcast in occupied Europe, the song drives [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany The Nazis]] so insane, they lose the war.

* Necromancers' bells in the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' trilogy by Creator/GarthNix. Different bells give different effects, and the effect also depends on how the bell is played. One of the bells kills everyone who hears it, including the player.

* German sci-fi pulp series ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' has Alaska Saedelaere, a man who had an alien fragment fused to his face in a transporter accident which made everyone go insane and die just from looking at it. He had to wear a mask to disguise it. Being one of the series' main characters who had received cell activators to make them immortal, he had to wear that mask for a very long time. He got better after a couple of centuries, but had his condition [[ResetButton reverted again]].

* ''Der violette Tod'' (The Purple Death) by GustavMeyrink (1902) is almost literally this trope. A very specific word causes the collapse of the auditive system and in a domino cascade of the whole body, resulting in a purple cone. The word is [[spoiler: "''Ämälän''". ]] Then this word is casually widespread throughout the world, with thousands of victims in different nations, until "hearing" becomes forbidden.
* ''Literature/TheQuintessentialMarySue'': Anyone who hears Mary-Sue sing will [[PerfectionIsAddictive waste away, having no desire to experience anything again other than her song]], and will either kill themself or fall into a permanent coma. Despite the side effects, Mary-Sue holds ''concerts'', though she did at least make it impossible to ever hear a recording of her voice on the Internet, presumably because [[PragmaticVillainy if everyone wasted away, she would have no playthings anymore]]. The reveal of the nature of “The One True Song” is the first hint that Mary-Sue [[spoiler:is a HumanoidAbomination, and that the setting is a CosmicHorrorStory]].
* The ''Literature/{{Ravenor}}'' series of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novels contains the arch-villains quest to learn Enuncia, the language of the gods. A single, out-of-context syllable read aloud causes the speakers mouth to bleed, a nearby servitor's head to explode, and drives another berserk enough to smash its head to itty-bitty little pieces against a stone wall.

* ''Literature/RhythmOfWar:'' After discovering that each Shard has an assorted musical tone, Navani eventually figures out how to create "anti-tones", the exact inverse of a given tone. Odium's anti-tone repels his Voidlight and is agonizing to the [[DemonOfHumanOrigin Fused]], while Honor's anti-tone is equally anathema to humans and to Stormlight.

* The plot of Neal Stephenson's ''Literature/SnowCrash'' revolves around the titular Snow Crash virus which ''resets'' a person to speaking and understanding only ancient Sumerian, which is described as a programming language for human beings. It allows people to be programmed directly, but leaves them gibbering crazy people spouting glossolalia until then, and shows up in the form of a bitmap image. All hackers are vulnerable, because they can understand the embedded binary code in this bitmap, which causes their unconscious to be able to pick up and mentally "run" the virus. Any hackers who sees the bitmap, whether in cyberspace or in real life, becomes infected with the virus and instantly turns into a wandering bag-lady (or, erm... bag-lord?).

* In ''[[Literature/SpaceMarineBattles Malodrax]]'', the music in Dancing-Place of the Lesser Gods can bring a SuperSoldier to his knees and incapacitate him. One of its victims is said to bleed from his eyes and mouth.

* The mysterious aliens in the ''[[Literature/AMemoryCalledEmpire Teixcalaan duology]]'' have a language so alien that it causes some humans to throw up at the spot, and is impossible to speak using human vocal chords, with some theorizing that the aliens in question are mechanical (or that their ships are automated). The Teixcalaanlitzlim who first hear it don't even want to call it a language, though Teixcalaanlitzlim do tend to be a bit dismissive of other cultures.
* In ''Literature/TerraIgnota'', Mycroft recorded his heartbeat during his crimes, mostly just on a whim. He expected someone would find something scientifically significant in it. Instead, someone turned it into music. Now, whenever he hears the "Canner Beat," he is ripped back to the moment of his crimes, shutting him down as easily as a stun gun.

** When one of the protaganists gets a closer look at the symbols on a Chaos combat servitor (combat robot made from human parts) she projectile vomits due to their chaotic influence.

* Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''[[Literature/TowerAndTheHive Talents]]'' are susceptible to a "sting-pzzt" sensation whenever they're near Hivers or anything built by Hivers. Not really harmful, but as it's described as a constant metallic, acidic "smell" (for want of a better term; it's actually a psychic sensation), it tends to make them very irritable.
* ''Ubbo-Sathla'', a story from the Franchise/CthulhuMythos by Clark Ashton Smith, is about a British archeologist, called Paul Tregardis, who found a strange gem that causes anyone who looks into it long enough to have all his mind and consciousness transferred to all the ones who looked at the gem before, until his body disappears and his mind is transferred to the "original chaos"--the eponymous Ubbo-Sathla, primordial font of the original organic life-forms (think Gnostic Demiurge with no mentality at all beyond reflex). He might not have even considered doing so... [[SchmuckBait except for the legends]] about an EvilSorcerer who tried to use the thing to get a peek at the spell-holding tablets Ubbo-Sathla had been situated upon. The legends, of course, only knew that he had disappeared--not that it had happened via backwards reincarnation. And the beginning of the story suggests that the gem will ultimately shuttle all life back to be one of Ubbo-Sathla's mindless brood...
* ''[[Literature/TalesFromTheWhiteHart The Ultimate Melody]]'' by Creator/ArthurCClarke revolved around a scientist attempting to reproduce the primal tune from which all music is derived. He succeeded, but on hearing the song [[EarWorm caught it in his head for the rest of his life]], rendering him catatonic. On discovering him, his assistant shut off the machine playing the tune, and it was dismantled before it could be reactivated; the assistant was [[DisabilityImmunity immune to the effect due to being tone-deaf]].
* Ted Chiang's short story ''Understand'' features two super-intelligent people dueling by trying to implant deadly Brown Notes in each other. [[spoiler:The one that succeeds had been subconsciously planted in its victim in the previous few days; it is then triggered when his enemy tells him to "Understand"]]
* The short story ''Von Goom's Gambit'' featured a mathematician who became the world champion chess player "by default" when he discovered a certain arrangement of pieces on the board which formed an image that would short out the brain of anyone who saw it from the opposing player's perspective. Effects of the gambit included: causing some to go blind, driving others insane, and in one instance even causing all of those who saw the gambit at one tournament to turn to stone.

* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfDarkness'', an Literature/AgentPendergast novel, the [[spoiler:Agoyzen is a type of this - the mere sight of it unhinges something in the viewer's brain, making them become a sociopath. Pendergast is one of those who suffers from Agoyzen sociopathy, but he gets better]].

* Creator/JorgeLuisBorges:
** One of the best known examples of a Brown Note in Hispanic literature is in ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zahir The Zahir]]''. In the story, the Zahir is a random, unique object, picked by Allah himself, which drives anyone who takes even a tiny little peek to obsession with that thing, to the point of becoming unable to feed himself out of pure detachment. The list includes a navigation device, a tiger, a vein of marble in a mosque, and an Argentinian coin with a "2N" scratched on one side. The story itself tells how the character became increasingly obsessed with the Zahir.
** This trope was a favorite of Borges' (especially the obsession version). In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_book_of_sand The Book of Sand]]'' the protagonist becomes obsessed with a book which has no beginning and no end. In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Tigers Blue Tigers]]'' the protagonist becomes obsessed with a collection of stones which defy all laws of mathematics.

* The short story/long sentence "[[http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fulcrum?mode=reader-light The Fulcrum]]" features the discovery of a ''punctuation mark'' that will destroy your understanding of language, which in turn leaves you incapable of comprehending reality. This was presumably an attempt on the part of the social sciences to dispel the popular notion that it's incapable of creating a world-ending monstrosity in defiance of God's will. Take that, the hard sciences.

** In ''Macroscope'' there is a sort of video that will destroy the intelligence of anyone above a certain IQ who hasn't evolved beyond violent tendencies.

* The protagonist of the Charles Stross novel ''Glasshouse'' was a veteran of a war against a memetic virus known as "Curious Yellow". Its means of attack was somewhat unusual for a Brown Note. A standard means of transport and communication was the "Assembly Gate", which dismantled people passing through it and reassembled them at their destination; Curious Yellow got itself written into the minds of people using the gates, so bypassing the senses completely. Where it came from, what it did to its victims, or even why it was called Curious Yellow was just some of the information that had to be destroyed in the campaign to extirpate it - virtually the only knowledge that did survive the war was the name and the fact of the war itself.

* ''The Flame Alphabet'' by Ben Marcus is based on this trope. The language of kids is making adults sick and that's not meant metaphorically.
* ''Flash Frame'', a short story by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It's basically a modern-day retelling of ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'' with a good dose of ''Film/TheRing'' thrown in. A reporter for a Mexico City tabloid is on the hunt for a sensational story when he hears about some kind of cult meeting at a local porno theater. So he decides to spy on them. Strangely, all they seem to do is view a few minutes of some faux-Roman exploitation flick that seems a bit... off. After a few sessions, the reporter starts having nightmares about a [[TheBlank grotesque seductress]]. And then he realizes his tape recorder has picked up the hidden audio track...
--> The sound was yellow. A bright, noxious yellow.
--> Festering yellow. The sound of withered teeth scraping against flesh. Of pustules bursting open. Diseased. Hungry.
--> The voice, yellow, speaking to the audience. Telling it things. Asking for things. Yellow limbs and yellow lips, and the yellow maw, the voice that should never have spoken at all.
--> The things it asked for.
--> Insatiable. Yellow.
* ''Fraternity of the Stone'' by David Morrell. The protagonist (a former US govt assassin) thinks he's being set up for this when he's asked to make a phone call at a particular time. He sets up a tape recording of his voice and a pet mouse in a cage, and after making the connection, watches from a distance to see what will happen. When blood suddenly spurts from the mouse's ears, he yanks the tape recorder off the table, causing the men at the other end of the line to think he's been killed.

* Creator/SimonRGreen's ''Nightside'' series: