History Main / AMindisaTerribleThingtoRead

** In fandom, Satori is frequently portrayed as subject to this trope in other ways, getting easily frightened by violent thoughts or offended at [[DirtyMindReading dirty thoughts]].

* Kongu finds this out after activating his [[MaskOfPowerMask of telepathy]]in ''{{Bionicle}}''. It's also implied that Orde's psionic powers have made him very impatient with other people, as he is able to know exactly what a person is going to say before they say it, and he often appears frustrated when he then has to endure the actual conversation that he's already heard.

* Satori from ''{{Touhou}}'' is widely feared and hated because of her powers. Animals that can't speak like her, though, as do animal youkai who befriended her as non-speaking animals.

* In ''[[HeraldsOfValdemar The Last Herald-Mage]]'' trilogy, young Vanyel Ashekeveron is pushed a tiny bit further [[DrivenToSuicide towards the edge]] (''after'' his lover goes insane and suicides) when the same event gives him Mindspeech and he finds out that several of the Heralds despise him.

* ''{{GURPS}}: Pisonic Powers'' has rules for letting a psi trap an attacker inside her mind. More mundanely people with Anti-Psi can make their mind such a void that when people try to read it that the abyss gazes back into them.

* ''{{Firefly}}'': River is distraught by the thoughts of shipmates in the last episode, experiencing several upsetting emotions. In particular, it's implied that her brother blames her for the loss of his successful medical career.
** Simon never blamed her, just her needing to be rescued. The subtle difference is absolutely crucial to Simon and him going so far to help River.
*** Are we sure? He has some pretty telling slips of the tongue at times. "And I would be back there right now if she hadn't... I mean, if THEY hadn't done those things to her."

*** Perhaps you'd prefer the ''MadTV'' parody, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6pffM10oaw ''What Men Want'']].

* In ''{{Twilight}}'', Edward Cullen's telepathy is strongly hinted at as one of the reasons he's so alone previous to Bella's coming to Forks. He's rich, pretty, smart, strong, and wanted by every woman who comes in contact with him (it seems), but he ends up falling in love with a rather droll, uninspiring, self-described plain girl who's distinguishing feature is the fact that ''he can't read her mind.''

--> "You don't get it. I didn't just hear what they were dumb enough to say out loud. I heard everything they were thinking about us. Every drop of pity, every shudder of horror, every bit of backhanded gratitude. Yes, I wanted to leave. Yes, I wanted to take Rita with me. It physically hurt to hear them thinking of her that way. How many times can you save the lives of this mob of people only to read their minds and find their contempt? Humanity are bastards; I've read enough of their minds to know."

* In ''TheDresdenFiles'', it is against the Laws of Magic to read a human mind, because doing so tends to mess up the target, and being black magic it is highly addictive and messes with your brain as well. It is not against the Laws of Magic to read a supernatural's mind, but if the RPG is to be considered a reliable source then it is not recommended unless you specifically want to fry your own brain.

* An [[TroperWorks original work]] by Troper {{Tropers/JewelyJ}} features an antagonist who was driven mad by this trope. She states that she has always believed in this trope. She doesn't get why so many people and shows and books act like reading minds is such a cool thing. You don't WANT to know whats going on in '''her''' head. Sometimes, even ''she'' wishes that she didn't know.

See Also: UnhappyMedium. If telepaths want to avoid others snooping in their thoughts, they may give each other a PokeInTheThirdEye, or they may use PsychicStatic.

[[AliceAndBob Alice's]] life is going swell until she gains the ability to [[MindReading read minds]]. She becomes very distraught when she discovers that the vast majority of the people around her have very negative thoughts; she hears a lot of things that she was better off not knowing. She might hear random people thinking snide things all day long. Her friends may think that she's an idiot, are only using her, or maybe even wish that they'd never met her. Maybe she'll discover that the love of her life has been cheating on her since day one. Most likely, all of the above and more.

!!Examples

* In YuYuHakusho, the mind-reader Murota seems to have no problem with his telepathic powers... until he reads the mind of Sensui [[spoiler:and his other six personalities]], after which he has a severe nervous breakdown before being taken out by one of Sensui's henchmen.
* ShamanKing: This is part of the reason main antagonist Hao went batshit insane and became a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. An accident left him with a very dangerous ability, Reishi ("Reading the Heart"), that he could not control. The negative emotions and thoughts of others constantly overwhelming him and, since he was unable to turn his Reishi off, the deluge of negativity eventually drove him to become the Shaman King so that he create a Shaman only kingdom on earth.

* The minor character of the boyfriend of Shin's babysitter on ShinChan is a telepath (although she doesn't this); it's mainly used for throw away jokes where he laments being able to read his neurotic girlfriend's mind while she she thanks god he can't hear all the crazy things she thinks and worries about.

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[[AC:Film]]

*** Perhaps you'd prefer the {{Mad TV}} parody, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6pffM10oaw ''What Men Want'']].

* In TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy series, the Belcerebons of Kakrafoon Kappa were found to be in contempt by the Galactic Tribunal for smugly living lives of peaceful contemplation. As a punishment the Tribunal inflicted a terrible social disease upon them: telepathy. For some time they could only mask their minds by chattering endlessly about trivia. Their salvation came when they hosted the plutonium rock band 'Disaster Area'; music so loud it wiped their telepathic abilities out for good.

* In TheRedemptionOfAlthalus, there is Leitha, who was born with the ability to read minds. Unfortunately, the bad guys know this from the beginning, and from the moment that she joins the group, the bad guys constantly throw at her horrible and disturbing thoughts to try and break her. This is made worse by the fact that all of the bad guys are varying degrees of CompleteMonster, ranging from a chaotic evil cannibal to a lawful evil warlord wannabe, and just their ordinary thoughts would be bad enough.

* In {{Twilight}}, Edward Cullen's telepathy is strongly hinted at as one of the reasons he's so alone previous to Bella's coming to Forks. He's rich, pretty, smart, strong, and wanted by every woman who comes in contact with him (it seems), but he ends up falling in love with a rather droll, uninspiring, self-described plain girl who's distinguishing feature is the fact that ''he can't read her mind.''

* In DaCapo, Kotori actually does like her mind reading ability. However...

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* Satori from ''{{Touhou}}'' is widely feared because of her powers. Animals that can't speak like her, though.

## Situations like when she accidentally mentions she used to bath with her sister in front of Junichi are extremely embarrassing, apparently.

* In ''WhatWomenWant'', Mel Gibson's chauvinistic character starts this way, once he's given the power to read women's minds from a freak accident. Although later on in the film it dawns on him that he can use this power to manipulate womens' emotions even more than he did before without the ability, at first he's definitely a little anxious and eventually winds up at his former marriage counselor's work building.