History Main / AMindisaTerribleThingtoRead

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[[caption-width-right:350:[[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Medicham is confused!]]\\
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* ''Manga/CrayonShinChan'': The minor character of the boyfriend of Shin's babysitter is a telepath (although she doesn't know this); it's mainly used for throwaway jokes where he laments being able to read his neurotic girlfriend's mind while she thanks god he can't hear all the crazy things she thinks and worries about.
* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' reading minds is usually harmless, but reading the mind of a suicidally depressed rape and abuse victim held in captivity for 16 years since she was 10 (her daughter is ''at least'' 10 years old) is ''not'' recommended.
* A {{downplayed|Trope}} example in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'': When famous manga artist Rohan Kishibe finds out that two of his teenage fans, Koichi and Hazamada, have tracked down where he lives, he uses his [[FightingSpirit Stand]] Heaven's Door to read their minds, hoping to find new material for his manga ''[[ShowWithinAShow Pink Dark Boy]]''. Upon reading Hazamada's mind and finding out that (among other things) he attempted to rape a classmate and chickened out, Rohan is thoroughly revulsed.
** Later weaponized by [[BigBad Yoshikage]] [[SerialKiller Kira]]: his Stand, [[HavingABlast Killer Queen]], later gets [[spoiler:an evolved form called "Bites The Dust"; this new bomb attaches to a host, activates whenever anyone tries to get information on Kira from the host, and then rewinds time by an hour, with only the host aware of it. We first see it used to kill Rohan when he tries to read the mind of Hayato Kawajiri, the son of a man whose identity Kira had stolen to hide from the heroes.]]
* ''Literature/KinosJourney'': This is the entire plot of the first episode, in which one country developed a technology to allow its citizens to read one another's minds. This becomes so unbearable that they all move out to the countryside and stay out of each other's "mental ranges."
* A ''Anime/KnightHunter'' doujin rewrote Schuldig and Omi’s confrontation to have Omi fighting Schuldig's mind reading abilities by first imagining Schuldig in a Tutu... followed closely by a Schuldig/Reiji Takatori romantic scene. Schuldig ended up begging for mercy while Omi threatened to imagine even more vivid scenarios.

** In the beginning she was socially shunned because of this trope-- it didn't affect her sanity, but she was InnocentlyInsensitive enough to blurt out whatever she read. As a result she was treated as a freak or even a ''compulsive liar'', and she caused her own ParentalAbandonment because she blurted her parents were cheating towards each other.
** After she had became a BrokenBird in her teens, she {{invoked|trope}} this trope to drive people away, as she thought she'd [[DoomMagnet bring harm to anyone she cared about]].

** {{Discussed|trope}} later in episode 1, when Manabe admired her powers...
--->'''Haruka''': You idiot. There's nothing cool about it, you idiot... You don't know anything! You don't know how it feels to look into other people's minds!

* ''Mousou Telepathy'': The main plot. Ayako Nakano can see people's thoughts (and apparently can't prevent it). While some of her grief comes from being aware of other people's ugly thoughts and double standards, most of it stems from her classmate Toda Hayato, who has a crush on her... along with a very lewd imagination.

* ''Anime/{{Paprika}}'': Getting stuck inside other people's fantasies is dangerous enough, but it's even worse when [[spoiler:the wall between reality and fantasy begins to erode and one of the users of the MacGuffin dies, creating a psychic black hole.]]

* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' anime-only character Satori has the power of mind reading. When he visits the Tendo house he tries to prove it by reading [[MoneyFetish Nabiki's]] mind first, but he gets terrified by almost drowning in money. Then he reads [[DirtyOldMan Happosai's]] mind, it's unknown what he saw but he faints with a nosebleed. When he regains consciousness he complains that this family is so weird.
* In ''Manga/SchoolRumble'', Yakumo's ability to see the thoughts of people who are infatuated/in love with her (As text floating in the air) generally only makes her miserable. She gets asked out/confessed to/propositioned by boys all the time, but is put off by what they REALLY want. (Except for Hanai, who actually thinks what he says, but he puts her off in other ways.) Even worse, she can't read the guy she's actually interested in, because he's one of the few guys she knows that is NOT infatuated with her.
** The exceptions are her sister, whom she can read the mind of and cares very deeply for, and a cat she adopted, whose thoughts are unintelligible because they're still in cat.

** Anna also had a powerful Reishi ability as a child. By the time she first met Yoh in person, it was causing her to accidentally manifest demons when she was around other people. She lost her Reishi powers not long after that meeting, sealing it herself after [[spoiler: Matamune [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificed]] himself to help Yoh defeat the [[WakeUpCallBoss Oo-Oni]] created by Anna's Reishi]].
* ''Manga/SPYxFAMILY'': This is a major source of comedy (and conflict). Anya Forger can read minds, and is often reading the minds of her adopted parents, a secret agent and a professional assassin. The latter's thoughts are often [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant incredibly disturbing]], such as Anya asking for a dog and seeing her mother's ImagineSpot of [[BlackComedy Anya being killed by one]]--''twice''.
* ''Tell Me A Lie'': The theme of this one-shot by Gosho Aoyama, better known as the creator of ''Manga/CaseClosed''.

* Mindfuck from ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'' not only lives most of the time on a space station to avoid getting headaches from reading other people's minds, but admits being tired of reading the filthy minds of lunatics.
** And interestingly inverted in the way her telepathy scuppered her romance with [[spoiler: Sistah Spooky]]; instead of being unable to have a romance because she had full access to all her partner's most unpleasant thoughts (as is normal for this trope), her partner was too self-loathing to believe that anyone who could see through her facade would be capable of truly loving her. Mindfuck herself thinks the partner's mind is very sexy, and does deeply love the "beautiful mess" she is beneath her mask.
* ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'': Kay [[spoiler:has the ability to see every evil deed someone has done by looking at them. He uses this on Gepetto. [[MindRape He probably shouldn't have.]]]]

* ''ComicBook/JLA1997'': In an issue, the Star Conqueror has 99% of Earth's population locked in a deep sleep, trapped in a dream where they serve it. As the Conqueror has [[StarfishAliens evolutionary similarities to marine life]], ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} tries to use his telepathy on it. He starts to go mad the deeper he goes, mumbling things about how small and meaningless an ocean is compared to the bottomless depths of the cosmos, until the other Leaguers snap him out of it. This seems to be Creator/GrantMorrison's rejoinder to the "Aquaman could mind-control [[Literature/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]]" meme.

** What about the time he tried to rewire [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker the Joker]]'s mind to include sane thought patterns? Damn nigh gave himself a stroke with ''two minutes'' of effort. Course ''the Joker's'' mind would give anyone nightmares. And it did work, it just didn't last.
** Another one in ''Martian Manhunter'' #23 is when J'onn is in his P.I. alter ego John Jones and he tries to scan Jim Corrigan AKA ComicBook/TheSpectre. While J'onn didn't sense anything amiss when he was talking to Corrigan (though they are bonded and essentially the same person, they also have very distinctly different personalities), when he tried to do a simple mind scan (I.E. just a quick read of surface thoughts, nothing invasive), the image of the Spectre putting on his GameFace appeared and J'onn almost had an aneurysm. Let that be a lesson: if you're a telepath with strong mind-reading powers, DON'T try to read the mind of a guy who's also the host for the embodiment of God's own wrath.
* ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2008'': Mantis winds up reading the mind of a Zom, an undead cyborg created by the Badoon. She's horrified to discover there's still some of the original being's mind left.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': In one of the Darth Maul comics, he is sent on a mission to destroy all the leaders of the galaxy-spanning crime organization Black Sun. After all of the remaining leaders and the head are at the safest stronghold, he begins butchering their elite mooks with his lightsaber, his bare hands, a blaster, and the Force. The last one he fights before he kills most of the crime lords is a telepathic alien who tries to read his mind, but Darth Maul is so infused with the dark side of the Force the telepath either dies or goes into a permanent state of shock, complete with black blood dripping from his nose.

* ''ComicBook/SupergirlCosmicAdventuresInThe8thGrade'': When ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'s jerkass duplicate is crystallized, Kara can briefly "hear" her thoughts...whose nature elicits an "Ew" from Kara.
* ''Wandering Star'': Cassie quotes Madison in describing what it's like to be psychic: "It's like being locked alone in a room. Next door they begin to kill someone. You can hear everything. The screams. The sobs. The pleading. And you can't do a thing. All you can do is listen."

** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Gail Young has frequent freakouts and meltdowns due to her overhearing an overwhelming number of thoughts and not being able to tell who they're coming from not get a coherent read on them. It doesn't help that she's in frequent contact with [[ComicBook/{{Cheetah}} Priscilla Rich]] who often has murder on the mind.

** Rogue isn't a mind-reader, but she can absorb people's memories, which can be very discomforting. When this happened with individuals of the totally evil Dire Wraiths -- the bad guy race from the series ''Rom: Space Knight'' -- this caused Rogue [[VomitIndiscretionShot to be physically sick on-panel]] on two separate occasions.
** X-Men villain Gamesmaster reads minds. ''All'' minds. ''Everywhere''. And he ''can't turn it off'', so is ''constantly'' bombarded with the thoughts of ''billions'' of people throughout the world. He orchestrated the deadly "games" of the Upstarts in order to distract himself from all the thoughts he's bombarded with. [[StalkerWithACrush He becomes obsessed]] with ComicBook/{{X 23}} because her mind is so quiet.

* ''ComicBook/AltHero'': Soulsight can glimpse moments of people's past and feel their resulting pain. "Poor bastard," remarks Martel. It could be worse though: at least he [[NonIndicativeName can't actually see people's souls]].

-->'''Dilbert''': Are you worried?]\\
'''Wally''': Nah. If they read my mind, they'll all go blind.

** As the author Scott Adams noted in one of his annotated Dilbert compilations, he's glad women don't know what men are really thinking.

--> '''Lisa:''' That's what I like about you, Amelia. You know you're not a good person. Nobody is, really. But despite everything, you still want to be.

* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'':
** It is said that anyone who tries to read Monster X's mind ends up passing out screaming, after seeing [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Kaizer Ghidorah]].

* ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum'': Apparently, it's for the best that nobody looks into a Newfoal's mind. The complex lattice of spellwork governing their minds is [[TakeOurWordForIt apparently]] [[YouDoNotWantToKnow so horrifying]] to see directly that it left TCB!Fancy Pants vomiting and suffering nightmares for the better part of a week when he went on a JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind of one.
* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3641075/1/Cruel Cruel]]'': In canon, the angel Arael [[MindRape looked into Asuka's mind]] and traumatized her. Here, it looks into Gendo's mind instead and is DrivenToSuicide by what it discovers. Knowing what an utterly loathsome person Gendo is, the [=NERV=] staff and [[EvenEvilHasStandards even his superiors]] in [=SEELE=] find themselves empathizing with the angel.

* ''Fanfic/{{Domoverse}}'': Glitch's ESPer defense strategy sets up his mind with shocking thoughts for {{ESPer}}s to read. [[spoiler:He altered his brain to have a small section of it constantly and loudly remembering a Hentai video he watched.]]
* ''Fanfic/DownToAgincourt'': It features a new psychic who can't control her mindreading and [[PowerIncontinence doesn't know how to turn it off.]] No individual mind is too terrible, but she can "hear" anyone who's in her range, all the time, and gets migraines--though she has not, as yet, had a PsychicNosebleed.
* ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}}: Tom is mortified at the idea that Jake might've seen some of his most intimate memories that [[PuppeteerParasite Temrash]] brought up time and time again.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12957273/4/Harry-Potter-and-The-Cursed-Power-of-Mad-Love Harry Potter and The (Cursed) Power of (Mad) Love]]'': After Snape read Ginny's mind (especially her obsessive thoughts about Harry) he ''begged'' Dumbledore to obliviate him. After Dumbledore read Snape's mind to see just what was so bad, they ''both'' got obliviations from Madame Pomfrey.

* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBoilingPoint'': Boscha has the ability to [[{{Psychometry}} look into the memories of someone by touch]], and both times she uses it (one on Lapis, one on [[spoiler: Chloe]]), what she sees causes her to ''flip out''.
* ''Fanfic/{{Inheritance}}'': Tattletale likes to mislead people about her super-intuition power by claiming to read minds. However, when Weaver invites her to do so, Tattletale doesn't get further than, "Well, you’ve clearly--" before Weaver cuts her off and concludes that she isn't a mind-reader after all.
--> '''Weaver:''' If you were, you would have recoiled in disgust and likely need years of therapy to get over what the chorus just ran through my head.
* ''Fanfic/{{Legion of Lawndale Heroes}}'': (''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}[=/=]ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes''): Cadet David Allen Farrington --one of the uber-powerful 'Class Five' psionics at the [[AcademyOfAdventure U.S. Academy of Extranormal Studies]]-- is seen by most of the people around him, as well as the Legionnaires, as a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk. This comes into focus when you realize that his primary power is not ''telepathy'', ''[[TheEmpath but empathy]]''... and that not only [[HearingVoices can he feel the emotions of everyone around him]], but (except for when he [[BroughtDownToNormal takes a power-suppressing drug]]) [[BlessedWithSuck has been able to do just that since he was a week old.]]
* ''[[http://raygunworks.net/maldoror/monsters.html Monsters]]'': In Maldoror's ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' AU fanfiction, the pilots are vampires, werewolves, and so on. Except for Quatre who (as in the series) is an empath. The "steady diet of fear, greed, lust, anger, and the occasional nugget of happiness" makes him the most scarily psychotic of the lot.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12674696/2/The-Mind-s-Eye The Mind's Eye]]'': In this a short ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' FanFic, Jaune discovers his semblance is reading minds. It's all fun and games until [[spoiler: he tries reading the mind of a Grimm, bringing him face-to-face with a very ticked off ''[[HumanoidAbomination Salem]]'']]. Things [[MoodWhiplash go down]] [[DarkFic hill]] [[NightmareFuel from]] [[MindRape there]].
* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5092454/1/ Need to know]]'': PlayedForLaughs in ths ''Literature/HarryPotter'' Fanfic. Ron suddenly starts hearing people's thoughts and is understandably horrified to learn that, among other things, [[HoYay Harry and Draco secretly fancy each other.]]

* ''Fanfic/TheSmurfsThatCanonForgot '': ''Smurf Village Upturned'' offers a variant when Brainy and Vanity are given the power of Insight, enabling them to see the souls of their fellow smurfs. Brainy flips back and forth between regarding his newfound ability as overwhelming and wanting to be able to see, process and retain even ''more''... as well as wishing he could see ''himself''. Vanity, meanwhile, ''was'' granted Insight for himself along with Brainy and everyone else, and becomes completely absorbed with admiring himself... as a defense mechanism, as he quickly decides that this power is horribly invasive and doesn't wish to intrude on anyone else's privacy.
* ''Fanfic/SorrowfulAndImmaculateHearts'': In "Unpaid Internship", series, J'onn J'onzz refuses to read Batman's mind to satisfy the Flash's curiosity, partly because it would be unethical and partly because "exploring Batman's mind is extremely unpleasant. I would prefer to be able to enjoy the rest of my day."

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657847/chapters/67678225 The Tresine Troubles]]'': This ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic has a terrorist group use telepaths to take over key personnel for a coup and later, hijacking the Enterprise. Said telepaths are all mostly untrained teenagers (or in their early twenties) and are clearly run to the ground by the strain put on them. Spock, a much better experienced and trained telepath, warns them directly that they are close to burning out. Unfortunately, the telepaths in question are more than willing to attain martyrdom.

* ''Film/{{Dredd}}'': Averted. The villainous Kay tries to use this on [[{{Telepathy}} psychic]] cop Anderson, hoping that his mind would break hers. It appears to work at first... only for Anderson to show she's in complete control of his mind.
* In ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', American Queenie has a breakdown in the middle of Paris because she’s being drowned out by a cacophony of gibberish she can’t understand because it’s in French and not English.
* A major element of Creator/MattDamon's character in ''Film/{{Hereafter}}''. He can read people's minds and/or communicate with their dead relatives by touching their hands, and this is ''not a good thing at all''. Imagine accidentally discovering the girl who you've been flirting with [[spoiler:was sexually abused as a child by her father]]. BlessedWithSuck, indeed.

* In ''Film/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 women's 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.
-->'''Marriage counselor:''' This is phenomenal! You can hear inside my head. Why on earth would you want to get rid of such a brilliant gift?\\

'''Counselor:''' ''(thinking)'' ''That's what I thought when I first met ya.''\\

* In ''Film/WhenEvilCalls'', a student who is failing an exam wishes he could read the mind of the smart kid sitting next to him. He gets his wish, but discovers that the boy whose mind he is reading is panicking about the possibility of recieving TheBGrade. The boy is so stressed that [[DrivenToSuicide he commits suicide]] by driving pencils up his nose into his brain. And the first student is still reading his mind when this happens!

* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' many species are capable of "thought-speak," a form of willing telepathy, but Leerans read minds automatically even if the subjects don't want them to. Though this is normal for them, the Animorphs found it disturbing when they morphed into Leerans and suddenly could hear each other's neuroses. Luckily, they figured out how to shut it off.
* Creator/KevinJAnderson's novel ''Literature/{{Blindfold}}'' has the entire justice system on the human colony of Atlas based on a telepathic caste of people called Truthsayers and the premise that they're always right and truthful. Truthsayers touch the accused and scan his or her mind in order to determine guilt or innocence. A Truthsayer's verdict is final and cannot be appealed (there is no higher authority). However, given the kind of minds they scan, Truthsayers have to undergo years of training (from early childhood) in order to detach themselves from crawling around minds of murderers (they don't deal with lesser crimes). The book's main story arc involves a young female Truthsayer who, after crawling around in the head of an insane mass murderer (who believes in the rightness of his brand of justice), is ''extremely'' disturbed. Her next scan is of a young dockworker who was caught next to the body of his supervisor (wrong place at the wrong time). However, the dockworker still felt intense guilt over failing to submit his paperwork on time, and this, coupled with her previous experiences, resulted in her declaring him guilty. She did finally realize she was wrong a few days later, but too late for the poor kid who has already been sent to an orbital facility from where no one returns.

* ''Literature/TheDemolishedMan'': A {{Subversion}} in Alfred Bester's novel. Police Prefect Lincoln Powell is an Esper, one of a small minority who can read minds. His boss the Commissioner is prejudiced against Espers. So, in order to try to soften the prejudice, Powell tells the Commissioner how lucky he is that he can't read minds, because of this trope. Of course, Powell is lying, since he doesn't read minds except on invitation (or unless he suspects criminal acts), and Powell actually finds much to love in every mind.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', it is not recommended to read the mind of a supernatural unless you specifically want to fry your own brain.

** If you are a wizard, you have to be careful about making extended eye contact with anyone who has a soul. Otherwise, a Soul Gaze will be triggered, which exposes you to a visual representation of that person's soul and vice versa. Gazing into a sufficiently nasty Soul (or when using 'Sight', like when Harry 'looks' at the Skin Walker in Literature/TurnCoat) is an extremely traumatic experience that can ''never'' be forgotten since the memory of a Soul Gaze will never fade.
** [[spoiler:Molly]] gets the worst of it. As her magical power grows, so does her sensitivity to the thoughts and emotions of beings around her -- humans, various evil supernaturals, and {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. It gets so bad that, by ''Literature/ColdDays'', she can barely stand to be in a crowded room.

%%* A short story in the magazine ''Teen Ink'' had this as the premise.
* ''Literature/TheSookieStackhouseMysteries'': The eponymous Sookie, who can't turn off her powers. She is forced to read the minds of people and see the dark underbelly of her town. Highlights include finding out abusive relationships, a woman who is married to a man but is actually a closeted lesbian, a teacher who has dark thoughts about abusing her students, and the nasty things people say about Sookie herself. Sookie never had control of her powers until she found Bill and the other supernaturals. She is pretty much the personification of this trope.
* Spider Robinson's ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'' story "Two Heads Are Better Than One". A telepath suffers from PowerIncontinence: he regularly makes full contact with any mind within a certain radius, which causes him great distress. One time it's so bad he tries to bash his own head open to make it stop.
** In two other Robinson novels, ''Literature/VeryBadDeaths'' and ''Very Hard Choices,'' the telepath Zandor "Smelly" Zudenigo is so painfully sensitive that in college he avoided bathing, so his body odor would keep other people out of his physical range for mind-reading. Later in life his range has expanded, and he has to live as a hermit on a remote island.
* In ''[[Literature/{{Deryni}} The King's Justice]]'', Kelson questions Gorony and Loris telepathically after they're captured. Gorony was an enthusiastic inquisitor, and Kelson likens reading Gorony's mind to "taking a swim in the castle middens in the summertime." When it's Loris' turn, Kelson finds "[r]eading Loris was even more loathsome than reading Gorony had been"; Loris gave explicit instructions to Istelyn's executioners and reveled in their grisly work, and he engaged in inquisitions and burnings in many outlying areas of the kingdom prompted by his "long-standing and unreasoning hatred of the Deryni."
* Another Alfred Bester {{Inversion}} -- In ''Literature/TheStarsMyDestination'', there's a reverse telepath. Instead of reading minds, she constantly projects ''her'' thoughts to everyone around her. Whether she wants to or not.
* The short horror story "[[Literature/PointHorror The Ring]]" by Margaret Bingley, in which a girl acquires a cursed ring that enables her to read the minds of everyone around her and is soon driven insane when she discovers how much her family and "friends" really despise her. [[spoiler: In the ending, the ring returns to TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday where the girl bought it, and is purchased by a woman whose husband is about to kill her to claim on the insurance. When the original victim reads the minds of her three-year-old half-brothers, she hears that they love her. So, perhaps the ring wasn't that evil and everyone really did hate her. What a cheery little tale!]]

** Elva, however, was cursed with the ability to sense the pain of everyone around her. Her 'range' so to speak, is several dozen miles, and the effects of it nearly drive her insane. And she's been enduring this since she was a baby (which wasn't that long ago, as she matured rapidly).

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheTommyknockers'', an entire town becomes mind-linked to each other as an alien ship causes them to mutate. It's implied that this effect is part of what makes the creatures evil -- or at least callous and careless; they are forced to hear each other's petty gripes and trivia 24/7.
* In ''[[Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy The Last Herald-Mage]]'' trilogy, young Vanyel Ashekevron spent a lot of time pre-TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening laying on the ObfuscatingStupidity so his father wouldn't learn he was gay, including staging a homophobic "attack" on his Herald lover. Later, after his lover commits suicide and all Van's potential Gifts are laid uncontrollably open, he finds out that most of the other Heralds fell for that act completely and despise him. Most would never have ''said'' so and some wouldn't have even thought it consciously, but his Mindspeech is so strong that he scrapes up every half-thought they had about him. Even the Herald set to watch him is not only unsympathetic but homophobic to boot.
** In the rest of the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series characters with untrained [[PsychicPowers Mindspeech or Empathy]] find themselves here by way of PowerIncontinence. Unless one learns (or is taught) how to shield out thoughts/emotions, one can easily be driven to madness or hermitage by the sheer weight of other people's thoughts everywhere, especially in a city.
* In the ''Literature/KnownSpace'' story "The Soft Weapon", the cat-like alien Kzinti have a telepath that they use to eavesdrop on their human prisoners. Nessus instructs the crew to think of eating delicious raw salads, which disgusts the meat-eating Kzinti so much that they can't continue to read their minds.
* ''Literature/ToRidePegasus'': This is one of the reasons why the Registered Talents tend to move into the large isolated and insulated estate established for them. Living in one of the crowded, high-rise residence blocks drives them to distraction.
* Creator/OrsonScottCard:
** In ''Literature/TheTalesOfAlvinMaker'', Peggy's ability to see into people's hearts doesn't bother ''her'' very much, but the fact that she knows all the deepest secrets of everyone she encounters makes other people very uncomfortable, and her being a LittleMissSnarker doesn't help much. She eventually gets lessons in social skills that include practicing ''not'' automatically reading everyone's mind; when it's all done, she's [[SheIsAllGrownUp all grown up]] and extremely popular.
** Card also discusses this in ''Literature/TheWorthingSaga'', though there it's a little bleaker, since [[LossOfIdentity other people's memories feel just as real as one's own]]. Jason Worthing is a virgin, but in his memory he's been involved in "acts he did not think his neighbors had enough imagination to invent." At the story's opening he's never killed, but he clearly remembers killing a man in a riot. All the worst aspects of humanity are a part of him.

* The main character's wife in ''Literature/{{Frameshift}}'' by Robert J. Sawyer can read minds due to a frameshift mutation. She developed a dislike of men because of the disgusting things they think about doing to her, and married the protagonist partially because he thinks in his first language (French), and she can't understand his thoughts.
* The short story "Through Other Eyes" by Creator/RALafferty involves a scientist who's spent his entire life wondering whether everyone experiences things the same way he does--whether what he calls red really looks to others like what he calls blue, whether roses smell as sweet, and so on. He builds a machine to translate the thoughts in one mind to another, and uses it on a woman he considers himself to be in love with. Through it, he learns that she sees the world as a place of vileness and horror; that (as she herself later says) every time a bird flies by she thinks of what's gurgling in its stomach -- and she [[NightmareFetishist glories in it]]. [[spoiler:Later on, she absolutely ''smashes'' him mentally by convincing him he has the worse worldview -- her world is twistedly beautiful, and his is utterly dead, lacking in any sort of romance or wonder. At the story's close, he's almost ready to sell the device to the public -- but first, he's modifying it so it lies to the user, making the subject's thoughts seem less different than they really are, because true understanding is just too horrible.]]
* ''Literature/TheRedemptionOfAlthalus'': Leitha 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 horrible and disturbing thoughts at her to try and break her. This is made worse because the bad guys range from a chaotic evil cannibal to a lawful evil warlord wannabe, and just their ordinary thoughts would be bad enough.
** Even an ordinary person's mind is deeply disturbing at times: Leitha herself states that most humans are much closer to animals than they would ever like to admit, and given that she's a rather beautiful woman, from men she tends to get [[DirtyMindReading horribly perverse thoughts]], while from women she tends to get [[GreenEyedMonster spiteful and jealous thoughts.]]
* In ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'', Edward Cullen's telepathy is strongly hinted at as one of the reasons he's so alone prior to Bella's coming to Forks. He's rich, handsome, 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 dull, uninspiring, self-described plain girl whose distinguishing feature is the fact that ''he can't read her mind.''
* Jeremy Bremen from Creator/DanSimmons' ''The Hollow Man'' suffers this as soon as his wife dies, who was the only other telepath he had met. Being around large crowds of people makes him suffer horrible migraines, considering his ability is the equivalent of watching thousands of television shows at once in 3D at full volume with no way to turn it off. The only people who he can be around with no negative effects to him are those who are mentally deficient or psychotic.
* This is pretty much what did in the Martians in ''Literature/TheMartianChronicles''. While they were perfectly fine being telepathic by themselves, the sheer novelty of thoughts emanating from the first handfuls of human explorers were enough to drive them completely insane, resulting in the rapid downfall of their civilization and the destruction of the entire species.
* A major danger for the Tines from ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'', who are all sort of mini-{{Hive Mind}}s (usually about 3-8 Tines per each individual pack) that "think" by transmitting their thoughts as sound among packmates. Because of this, the notion of personal space means having enough distance (usually about 20' or more) where they can whisper politely among themselves and yell at normal conversational levels to chat with other packs, as being closer means the packs' thoughts will muddle together making coherent thought impossible without intense concentration. Such mental discipline is especially crucial during close combat, as weaker-minded packs will break down into animalistic “singletons” under such proximity to another pack.
* Literature/JakubWedrowycz uses this to protect himself from nosy telepaths and possessive demons -- the {{squick}}y [[NoodleIncident things he has among his memories]] will make anyone or [[HorrifyingTheHorror anything]] [[BrownNote back out in panic]].
* Creator/KimNewman's Richard Jeperson, agent of the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'', developed psychic powers at school, where he was horrified to discover that many teachers fantasized about killing the boys. He soon realized that the ones to [[BewareTheNiceOnes really be wary of were the ones who didn't]], since they had the same frustrations, [[StepfordSmiler but no safe release for them]].
* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'' the title character's late father, James, used to have a bitter teenage rivalry with Harry's least favorite teacher, Snape; naturally, Harry disregards every single thing Snape says about his father being a pompous JerkJock. At one point Harry uses a magical device called a Pensieve, which stores thoughts, to see a memory Snape put in. To Harry's horror, the memory shows James acting like a self-absorbed jackass and humiliating Snape for no reason. It ends with Harry's own mother, Lily, coming to Snape's defense and [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech telling James that he's a miserable person who absolutely disgusts her]]. Harry is so shocked he begins to wonder how the two of them ever wound up HappilyMarried.
** In the last book, he sees more of Snape's memories and discovers the necessary but rather startling information that [[spoiler:he's actually one of [[BigBad Voldemort's]] {{Soul Jar}}s and [[BigGood Dumbledore]] wants him to basically let Voldemort kill him. Though, this one ends up a subversion since Snape didn't know that Harry could possibly survive thanks to his blood running through Voldemort's veins and therefore Harry didn't learn that either until later]].
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] quite a bit in Brendan Rizzo's [[http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2881798/1/Reading "Reading"]]. The telepath's abilities have caused her to become a misanthrope, but since she has always been able to read minds, she actually considers it a benefit, as it allows her to know people's [[HumansAreFlawed true nature]].
* In ''Literature/MephistoInOnyx'', Rudy Pairis is a telepath who has yet to encounter a mind that doesn't make him want to vomit. Unfortunately, he frequently finds himself in situations where he is tempted to reach out and touch some mind. The story gets rolling when a friend he can't turn down asks him to read the mind of a convicted serial killer to prove him innocent. It doesn't go well from there.
* Mahnahmi from the ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' series was born a telepath, fully aware of the thoughts of everyone around her. As it happened, she came into the care of a certain fellow by the name of Conda Challis, who was probably in the running for the Most Depraved Person of the Commonwealth award. Among the least of the things she learned was that he intended to use her as a torture/sex slave when she grew up. This, understandably, permanently warped her psyche and drove her to [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds utter nihilism]].
* The protagonist of [[Creator/RobertSilverberg Robert Silverberg's]] ''Literature/DyingInside'' can read other people's minds, and he is unable to function in society because of it.
* The young-adult book ''Literature/TheLiesTheyTell'' tells the story of a young girl who develops telepathic abilities after a blow to the head. She has some upsetting experiences, but eventually learns how to block out thoughts, and manages to discover a corrupt politician's dastardly plot.
* Scott and Jamie from ''Literature/ThePowerOfFive'' don't like to read minds for exactly this reason.
* Series/TheZackFiles book ''Zap! I'm a Mind Reader'' is basically all about this (at least until he overhears what sounds like someone planning a murder) -- he learns that his father hasn't gone to the dentist in years, some of the kids in his class haven't changed their underwear in a week, and a creepy lady in his apartment building has a crush on his dad.
* In ''[[Literature/SwordOfTruth Stone of Tears]]'', Zedd heals a badly wounded seer. To do that, he must first enter her mind. The pain of the wound itself is described as mild once he manages to get past [[PrescienceIsPredictable the seer's visions]].
* In ''Literature/{{Gone}}'', Orsay has the ability to see people's dreams if they go to sleep near her. One of the people she reads in this way is [[AxCrazy Drake]]. Made even worse by the fact that Drake noticed her presence in the dream and finds her in the real world shortly thereafter.
* Literature/SandmanSlim once notes two ways to block out mind readers: PsychicStatic or taking the intruder for a ride. Nosy telepathic guard gets to experience some choice memories from literal Hell and is left curled on the ground bubbling and crying.
* Inverted in the YoungAdult ''Literature/JackBishop'' novels, Alexandra Courtney is freaked out and horrified when she CAN'T read minds as immune types come across as zombies to her.
* In ''Literature/{{Horns}}'', while Ig can't actually read minds, his new power does cause people to tell him their dark thoughts and desires, which leads to him discovering a ''lot'' of unpleasant secrets being kept by his friends and family.
* One of the original trope setters here is the short story "Journeys [sic] End" by Poul and Karen Anderson, in which a male and a female telepath discover each other after a lifetime of loneliness. In their eagerness, they open themselves completely to each other, [[spoiler:only to recoil in loathing from their own personal failings, quirks, and oddities, which they can see reflected in each other's minds]].
* Kind of {{Inverted}} in ''Literature/{{Touch 2017}}.'' Caspar doesn't necessarily like [[TheEmpath his power]], finding it [[DirtyMindReading uncomfortable]] or [[MySkullRunnethOver overwhelming]] at times, but he notes that finding truly "bad" people is harder than you might expect.
-->"Like, I can tell there’s a robber in a shop, but I can see [[DrivenToVillainy how desperate he is for money]]. Or I can tell you about [[HotForStudent the teacher who has dirty feelings about kids in his class]], but I can also feel how guilty it makes him, and I can tell from the kids around him that he hasn’t done anything. [[HumansAreFlawed It’s... complicated]].”
* In ''Literature/TheLicaniusTrilogy'', Augurs are able to read minds at great personal danger to themselves. It's possible to get lost and die if they lose themselves in another's memories.
* In ''Literature/WildCards'', a villainous telepath tries to read and control [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Modular Man's]] mind, not knowing his true nature. The last we see of him he's in an asylum, capable of nothing but reciting endless strings of 1s and 0s.
** Additionally, if an Augur tries to forcefully read someone's memories, it can render the target brain-dead.
* Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheZeroStone''. In order to convince a Patrol officer that he's innocent of the crimes he's accused of, Murdoc Jern is mentally joined to the officer by his companion Eet. It's extremely uncomfortable for both men.
* A short story featured a black businessman who frequently harangued the people around him. When a scientist appears with a helmet that he claims can allow you to read minds he promptly tries it on and starts hearing just how much people hate him, either for his behavior or his race. Worse the helmet burns out leaving him permanently stuck hearing the thoughts of everyone around him driving him insane due to being unable to cope with reality being far harsher than the fantasy he'd lived that people liked him. Eventually, he commits suicide in the asylum they place him in (no surprise there, given what kind of thoughts he got bombarded with THERE).
** A similar story features a crooked businessman who's cursed with gradually increasing empathy with and sensitivity to others' pain, past and present. At first he is able to ignore it, but eventually it becomes such a horror he steals a boat and rows to a buoy several miles from the shoreline. He's caught by police, sedated and sent to a brand-new mental health facility... which was built on a former slaughterhouse and site of an illegal dogfighting ring. The story ends just as he starts waking up.
* Witnesses in ''Literature/{{Nevermoor}}'' can't literally read minds, but they can see colors and lights that no one else can, which reveal things about the world around them. For example, Jupiter sees a black cross over someone's heart and knows they've just lost a loved one and are in mourning, or he sees someone with a smaller, second shadow following them and knows they have problems with their younger sibling. The problem with this is that seeing everyone's secrets, emotions and insecurities all the time is a lot of information to process, and incredibly stressful, to boot--especially in highly populated cities like Nevermoor -- and it can cause psychosis if allowed to go unchecked. Most Witnesses are said to live out in rural areas where there aren't too many people, or wear eyepatches to act as a filter. Jupiter can handle it, but it took him many years of practice and training.

** Some of the early [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse expanded universe]] works implied that Vulcans did not like to be touched - especially by more emotional species - because such physical contact was often enough for Vulcans to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of the person who initiated contact.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel "Metamorphisis", in an alternate timeline the mercenary Sdan - who was a mixed species individual with some Vulcan ancestry - remarked that even before Surak's reforms most Vulcans were reluctant to kill others as it would mean feeling the thoughts, pain, and fear the other would feel before dying.
** In ''The Next Generation'' novel "Q-in-Law" Deanna Troi is revealed to be somewhat envious of her mother due to Lwxana's ability to errect strong telepathic shields that eliminated telepathic background noise. While Deanna was able to errect similar shields, her lesser telepathic abilities made errecting such shields something of an effort for her.

* Amusingly subverted with Gary [[spoiler: and Cindy's]] daughter, Leia, in ''Literature/TheSupervillainySaga'' as everyone tries to watch their thoughts around her due to the fact she's a small child. Leia responds that as a small child, she doesn't understand most of what she reads and isn't affected by it anyway.
* In ''Literature/{{Strata}}'' the protagonists find themselves having to deal with a rather annoying demon. Having had enough of it, Marco (a Kung, i.e. a tightly wound ball of violent impulses ''barely'' held together by a thin veneer of civilization) confronts the demon.
--->"I hear you can read minds? Then ''read mine.''
::The demon is utterly terrified and perfectly docile afterwards as long as Kin (the sole human in the team) promises to protect it from the alien monstrosity...

--->'''Garibaldi:''' (''bending over in pain'') I think I'm in love.

* This happens to Buffy in the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E18Earshot Earshot]]". The problem more arises from being overloaded with hearing people's thoughts, as opposed to being shocked at what people are truly thinking. Though she was surprised to learn that AllMenArePerverts.
-->'''Buffy (to her mom):''' You had sex with Giles?... On the hood of a police car?!... ''Twice?!''\\
'''Xander's internal monologue:''' Four times five is thirty. Five times six is thirty-two... Naked girls... Naked women... Naked Buffy! Somebody stop me!\\
'''Random guy in the hallway:''' Buffy's so beautiful... (she pauses, flattered) I mean, look at that body. God, I'd love to shove her against that locker right now and..... (Buffy hurries away)
* Parodied in ''Series/ChappellesShow'' as [[Film/WhatWomenWant What Men Want]]. A woman walks into an [[UncomfortableElevatorMoment elevator]] full of men, [[AllMenArePerverts who all start thinking incredibly perverse things]] about her... [[DirtyKid including a little kid]], much to her disgust. Though the end of the sketch seems to imply they were all deliberately {{troll}}ing her.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E9Hide "Hide"]], the Doctor explains that empaths tend to be both extremely compassionate and extremely lonely.
* ''Series/FantasyIsland2021'': In "Girlboss, Interrupted" the episode's guest Courtney gets mind-reading powers. She isn't pleased at how many people insult her in their thoughts, and some off.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': River is distraught by the thoughts of shipmates in "[[Recap/FireflyE14ObjectsInSpace Objects in Space]]", experiencing several upsetting emotions. It doesn't help that she's only getting fragments, so that she hears Simon thinking about the loss of his old life and career, making her feel guilty even though he neither holds her responsible nor regrets rescuing her--he just misses it sometimes.
** Subverted in one instance: When River reads Jayne's mind, she sees what appears to be [[spoiler: regret for trying to sell her out to the Feds.]] It's surprisingly sweet considering that he's spent the whole series trying to get rid of the Tams. And again in the same scene, when she gets a [[HiddenDepths brief peek]] at the [[BewareTheNiceOnes Shepherd's thoughts.]]
** In ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' the Operative believes this to be the reason for River's insanity, or at least a major part of it, that she was driven crazy by the secrets she inadvertently picked up from the Alliance Parliament. It's also the reason the mere presence of Reavers is enough to send her into a HeroicBSOD until the film's climax.
* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': In "Voices Carry", Gary Navarro, a baseball player who disappeared in 1973, is unable to cope with his telepathic powers. He hears every thought of every person around him and can't filter any of them out. As such, he becomes increasingly unstable. NTAC gives Gary an anti-psychotic drug called haloperidol which quietens the thoughts in his mind. However, when he is goes undercover in the 4400 Center, the drugs are confiscated and the voices return. Gary blows his cover when he bursts into Jordan Collier's office demanding the return of the haloperidol. In "The New World", Gary tells Diana that he eventually learned to control and harness his power and he now thinks of it in the same way as he does his other senses.

* An octopus-like [[OurMonstersAreDifferent Wesen]] in ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' can steal people's memories with his tentacles. It clearly takes its toll on the guy. Then he accidentally tries to read a Grimm's mind, which is apparently a bad idea. The last we see him, he's screaming in a jail cell, constantly reliving all the ways she's killed Wesen.

* Kelly from ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' develops the power of telepathy, which only heightens and exacerbates her personal insecurity as she is frequently judged harshly by the people she encounters - while she is a genuinely kind and sensitive person she's something of a rough diamond who uses her abrasiveness and slightly gaudy appearance to mask her low self-esteem. Her power causes her to break up with her fiancée, and generally hear a lot of things she'd rather not about the way people see her. Also, she tends to hit or shout at people whose thoughts particularly offend her (making her look entirely mad, of course) and she frequently embarrasses others when she blurts out their secrets without thinking, so really her power sucks for just about ''everyone'' involved.

--> '''Octopus:''' You think I like it in there? It's darker than the woods in a Tim Burton movie.
* An episode of ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' involves three psychics being brought in to aid the [[TheFederation UEO]] in negotiating with other maritime nations after the discovery of the Library of Alexandria on the ocean floor. One of them is determined to prove that using psychics in this manner is a bad idea by deliberately giving false information to [[TheCaptain Captain Bridger]] (e.g. that the Libyan ambassador is bluffing when he isn't). His daughter (one of the other two psychics) admits to Bridger that she was once asked to go into the mind of a criminal, and she's still suffering the aftereffects. She also discovers that Bridger himself has latent PsychicPowers and even tries to train him a bit in using them. This is the last we hear of his powers, though.
** It's also strange that foreign dignitaries would agree to the presence of psychics, unless they don't believe in their powers.

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E20TinMan Tin Man]]" has Tam Elbrun, a Betazoid who has had his ability from birth, resulting in PowerIncontinence (most Betazoids develop telepathy [[PubertySuperpower during puberty]], and are able to control it). He was quite relieved when he met Data, who had no (organic) mind to read.

* Toshiko Sato of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' gains telepathy in "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E7GreeksBearingGifts Greeks Bearing Gifts]]". She races home hurt and angry after hearing the petty thoughts of her co-workers. On the other hand, it does help her stop a man from killing his ex-wife and kid in a MurderSuicide.
** At the same time, Jack is an utter blank to her, resulting in a NothingIsScarier situation. However, during the episode's climax, it's revealed that he may have suspected something and [[PsychicBlockDefense deliberately blocked out his mind]], only letting carefully-selected thoughts slip to let Tosh know what to do. Given his past as a Temporal Agent, this could be part of his training. Alternatively, it could very likely be because he was changed when the Bad Wolf entity made him immortal in ''Series/DoctorWho''.
* ''Series/TrueBlood'': Sookie hears a great deal she doesn't want to, and people treat her as if she is stupid because her power makes her behave oddly. She was also a twenty-five-year-old virgin since hearing what guys really thought was a big turn off, and she only lost her virginity when she did because vampiric minds can't be read.

* Music/{{Hawkwind}}'s song "Psi Power" is all about this trope.
* Music/TomSmith's FilkSong "I Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind", naturally enough. (And the Christine Lavin song that inspired it, "Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind", though more hypothetically in that case.)
* The subject of Music/PeterGabriel's [[Music/{{Car}} "Here Comes The Flood"]]. The inspiration was from a dream Gabriel had where "the psychic barriers which normally prevent us from seeing into each others' thoughts had been completely eroded producing a mental flood. Those that had been used to having their innermost thoughts exposed would handle this torrent and those inclined to concealment would drown in it."

* Satori Seers are Ayakashi that can look into a person's heart. ''VideoGame/AyakashiRomanceReborn'' features Aoi, a Satori Seer, as one of the love interests. He thinks everyone has darkness in their hearts, and being naïve to the ways of the human society, he is quite terrified of looking into people's hearts. He is quite cynical because of this.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' has Psycho [[PsychoForHire Mantis]]. He stated in his FinalSpeech that as a kid he was unable to shut off his powerful {{telepathy}} (learning that his father hated and likely wanted to kill him), and that apparently looking too deep in too many minds of {{Serial Killer}}s drove him off the deep end. Apparently he still couldn't completely shut off his powers since he asked for his mask back to block the voices out, and complained about "how everyone thinks of only one thing".
** He even mind controls Meryl a minute earlier and makes her behave like some sort of a caricature, a sex-crazed meat puppet.
---> '''PM:''' In my lifetime I've read the pasts, presents and futures of thousands upon thousands of men and women... and each mind that I peered into was stuffed with the same single object of obsession: That selfish and atavistic desire to pass on one's seed. It was enough to make me sick... every living thing on this planet exists to mindlessly pass on their DNA.
** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', it's shown to have been even worse for him, as he read the minds of [[AlreadyMetEveryone Naked Snake, Venom Snake, Colonel Volgin,]] and [[BigBad Skull Face]] with their malice and lust for revenge wreaking havoc on his psyche and turning him into an EmotionEater.
* Satori Komeiji from ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' is widely feared and hated because of her powers (and her [[MindOverManners lack of discretion about them]]). However, she is still liked by animals that can't speak, and by animal youkai who befriended her as non-speaking animals. The non-predator kinds, of course. Predators like her too, but in the way mind-reading makes it nightmare fuel to poor Satori.
** Her younger sister, Koishi, hated this so much she closed off her mind reading third-eye. This came with a whole bunch of side effects like immunity to mind reading, the ability to read and mess with people's ''sub''conscious mind, and, unfortunately, also left her unable to read ''her own'' mind which has resulted in her becoming [[EmptyShell devoid of feelings and thoughts]][[note]]A good number of fan works tend to ignore this, however[[/note]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' cracking open one of the mental vaults in the mind of Sasha Nein reveals that as a young boy he [[spoiler:ran away from home after reading his father's mind and [[PrimalScene seeing some things]] about [[MissingMom his late mother]] that would be rather traumatizing to a growing boy.]]
* ''[[VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam and Max Save the World]]'': In "Situation: Comedy", Hugh Bliss reads Max's mind and comments that what he read was "unspeakably depraved", whereupon Max says he's right.
** In the [[VideoGame/SamAndMaxTheDevilsPlayhouse third season]], it's ''Max's'' turn to read the dankest recesses of peoples' minds.
* In ''VideoGame/FragileDreamsFarewellRuinsOfTheMoon'', [[BigBad Shin]] tries to [[OmnicidalManiac end what's left of humanity]] because of this. [[spoiler: However, at the very end it's revealed that the experiment which granted him the ability to pick up on the selfishness and hatred in the human psyche was flawed and incomplete. He loses the will to fight upon realizing that [[CuteGhostGirl Sai]] [[ThePowerOfLove loved him deeply]], he simply didn't sense it.]]
* Comes up briefly in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn''. Sveta demonstrates her mind-reading power and then talks about how she'd rather not use it unless necessary, since [[FantasticRacism reading minds full of hate for beastmen caused her father to hate humans]]. Karis mentions that her father Ivan isn't as fond of his own telepathy these days as [[MindOverManners he used to be]], and she's grateful she didn't inherit them.
* In ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery ADOM]]'', using mindcraft powers on any undead will cause injury to your character, due to backlash from the horror of reading an undead mind. (This can be problematic, since mindcraft powers go through walls and a zombie could be lurking on the other side.) Using mindcraft on a corrupted creature will cause you to get [[TheCorruption corrupted.]]
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar 2'' has a group of powerful psychics on board Gabriel Angelos's ship who weren't even trying to read the Tyranid HiveMind, just push back its influence on [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]] so their ship could get back home safely. Only one survived even that ''indirect'' contact with the Hive Mind. [[spoiler:And in his bad ending in ''Chaos Rising'', the mental scars from that effort make it much easier for a daemon to possess him and force his betrayal.]]
* At one point in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', Takeda tries taking a peek inside [[MindHive Ermac's]] head. Seeing as how there's something around ten thousand souls in there, he nearly has an aneurysm from the overload.

-->'''Oracle''': By the gods! Why would Athena send one such as you?
* In ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', the first time Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor meet, halfway through updating him on the situation we have this exchange.
-->'''Kerrigan''': Captain Raynor, I have finished scouting out the area, and - you pig!
-->'''Raynor''': What? I haven't even said anything to you yet.
-->'''Kerrigan''': Yeah, but you were thinking it.
-->'''Raynor''': Oh yeah, you're a telepath.
** Becomes a BrickJoke in ''VideoGame/StarCraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm''.
** In the book ''Liberty's Crusade'', the reporter Michael Liberty meets Kerrigan and learns that she's a telepath. He immediately things how great such an ability would be for someone in his line of work, but Kerrigan picks up on the thought and tells him that it really wouldn't be.

* ''VisualNovel/ChaosHead'' has [[spoiler: Kozue]], a young girl, that is forced to hear the thoughts of people in her general vicinity without any control over it and is unable to shut them out, which makes her go crazy to a fair degree mentally.
* ''VisualNovel/ChaosChild'', the sequel to aforementioned Chaos;Head, has [[spoiler: Hinae Arimura]] who can also sense the emotions and feelings of people she interacts with, and is able to tell how they feel about her at any time, which makes her very uncomfortable and she struggles to form any genuine connections with people as a result of this.

* Jigsaw Forte from ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' suffers from this, [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/2007/11/among-the-blind-the-one-eyed-man-is-insane/ to the point of having a panic attack when a crowded room gets all abuzz]]. Daisy can bring Jigsaw [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/2009/01/i-bet-she-would-love-some-earplugs/ pretty close to the brink when she panics, too.]]
** It gets worse when she discovers that she has a hard time telling the difference between what she hears and ''what she reads'', causing her to mix the two up and respond to information she's not even supposed to know.
* ''Webcomic/ASofterWorld'' [[http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=281 281]]; "I thought a psychic girlfriend would see the real me. And she did. I just didn't think she'd call the police".
* A more positive, but still awkward, version in ''Webcomic/ThinkBeforeYouThink'', a romance about an involuntary telepath. One of the difficult situations that arises: when he overhears a stranger contemplating suicide, how can he be the friend she needs without seeming unfaithful to the girl he's dating?
* In ''Webcomic/TheNonAdventuresOfWonderella'', Intelli-Ape [[http://nonadventures.com/2012/01/14/the-kong-and-short-of-it/ comes to this conclusion]] after making the mistake of prying too deeply into [[StepfordSmiler Wonderita's]] mind.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Gaia}}'', [[http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia/2011/11/04/the-red-hall-003/ Alissa is "shocked"]] that magical genius Lilith can't read minds, but she then points out it might be a good thing to not know what runs through the heads of men thinking about Lilith.

* ''Webcomic/{{Archipelago}}'': Accomplished hypnotist [[SmugSnake Vaniji Ralo]] avoided this by simply brainwashing people, no mind-reading involved. Except [[https://web.archive.org/web/20210411204252/http://www.archipelagocomic.com/comic/?id=777 when he encountered a mind]] [[MindRape that fought back]].
-->'''Raven:''' Broke into the wrong brain, didn't you? [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} He]] looks all frail and frightened, but he has a mind that will swallow you up before it lets you take over. Take it from me, more powerful minds than yours have tried.

* A problem for both Vriska and Aranea Serket in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. They go to extreme lengths in order to get attention and be admired, because they can sense the thoughts directed towards them. Vriska also says this is why she never tries to MindControl Karkat: she certainly ''could'', but she hates being in contact even for a second with his acerbic, hate-filled psyche.
* In ''Webcomic/NobodyScores'' the broadcast inanity of [[Main/{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Jane Doe's]] thoughts [[http://nobodyscores.loosenutstudio.com/index.php?id=374 is fatal]] to virtually everyone subjected to them.
* ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'': A rare villain reading the hero's mind example of this occured when the comic spoofed ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons2000''. Damodar tries to read Piffany's mind instead of Marina's. Being bombarded with the IncorruptiblePurePureness of her thoughts is [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth far more than he can handle]] and he hastily lets her go.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', at one point Durkon is held prisoner by an evil negative energy spirit that's going through all his memories. Durkon can't actually break free, but if the spirit taunts him too obnoxiously, he can punish it by forcing it to relive memories of him being sick.
-->'''Evil Spirit:''' Biology is disgusting! I don't know how the living can live like that!\\
'''Durkon:''' Ye've na ev'n seen half tha gross stuff ''skin'' can do yet! Yer gonna love tha extended pus-squeezin' montage I got lined up!

* Early in ''Webcomic/VoldemortsChildren'', [[spoiler: Harry discovers that he is a Legilimens]]. Unfortunately, this trope is in full force.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Brought up in ''WebVideo/AfterHours'', when discussing what the best individual superpower would be.
--> '''Katie''': I only get to hear like three percent of what people are thinking and I already hate almost everyone. If I could read minds, I'd probably just end up knocking motherfuckers out.

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3QR1OMJMo0 a 2016 short]] by WebAnimation/DorklyOriginals, a Haunter uses Dream Eater on a sleeping Pikachu, only to find its dreams rather racy, including sexual fantasies with its trainer and a Tentacruel.
* Similarly, Level Up has [[https://youtu.be/3uW166yY7D4 a short in one of their literal Pokemon moves videos.]] Medicham uses Mind Reader on Mr Mime and learns Mr Mime’s Google search history.

* PlayedForLaughs when WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick once tried copying the technique from Film/WhatWomenWant above to read the minds of men. She kidnapped WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows as usual and actually fell over in frustration when she found out [[Creator/AllisonPregler Lupa]] was the ''only'' thing that existed in his brain. AllMenArePerverts, apparently (not that she isn't). Also, they all think the exact same word over and over.
* In ''WebVideo/MyLittlePonyTheMentallyAdvancedSeries'' Zecora's curse gave Fluttershy the ability to read minds. She insists it's this trope while everyone else bitches that she got the cool power.

* ''Literature/RaisingAngels'': All rooms in Mind Hall are singles and the room doors come standard with a very hardy lock. Being capable of reading the minds of man is apparently not conductive to a good nights sleep. Telepathics are stated to be a paranoid lot.
* The fanart of ''WebVideo/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed'' [[http://25.media.tumblr.com/07a92b24f91b56fda8a15e84505b3645/tumblr_n1hwosBvSV1su6eopo6_1280.gif depicts the]] [[http://imgur.com/5SXZ7Rd unpleasantness]] of reading a MindHive.
* In Episode 37 of ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', Piccolo tries to reach Gohan telepathically. Instead, he gets Vegeta [[TheFightingNarcissist thinking about looking at himself naked as a Super Saiyan]], Tien singing "Cat Loves Food" in his mind, then trying to reach King Kai, [[BrickJoke only to get interrupted by]] Creator/GeorgeTakei.
* In Episode 7 of ''WebVideo/HellsingUltimateAbridged'', Zorin is trying to MindRape Seras, only the first "repressed memory" she digs into is one of [[ItMakesSenseInContext her being sensually fed blood by Integra.]] Zorin decides to just leave that memory behind, stating that it "needs context". She's also disturbed when she tries to enthrall a Wild Geese member with illusions of his loved ones and the illusion that ''works'' is [[spoiler:Sonic the Hedgehog with a GagPenis erection]].

* In the fourth ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie, "[[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder Into the Wild Green Yonder]]" Fry suddenly gains mind-reading abilities and is soon overwhelmed by the random brain-chatter of everyone around him. After he figures out what's going on ([[TheDitz and realizes he isn't invisible]]), a mind-reading hobo gives him a TinfoilHat to block the brainwaves.

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'', when Manhunter tries to enter ComicBook/TheJoker's mind, it ends with him doubling over in pain.
--> '''Joker''': Scary in there, isn't it?

*** In ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', Spider-Man meets Jean Grey and she compliments him on being one of the first guys who, upon waking, [[SchmuckBait doesn't picture her naked]]. She then has to revise her statement. What follows is seven panels of awkwardness as Spiderman tries to '''stop''' thinking of her naked.

* In ''Fanfic/StarWarsVsWarhammer40K'', Jedi have learned that it is best to ''never'' try tapping into the minds of the Sisters of Battle due to the more direct mental link they have with the Emperor of Mankind. The way it breaks those who have done so has forced them to have memories erased to save them from permanent mental damage.

* In the fourth ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie, Fry suddenly gains mind-reading abilities, and is soon overwhelmed by the random brain-chatter of everyone around him. After he figures out what's going on [[TheDitz (and realizes he isn't invisible)]] a mind-reading hobo gives him a TinfoilHat to block the brainwaves.
* In an episode of the US Acres side of ''WesternAnimation/{{Garfield and Friends}}'', aliens give Orson the pig a device that gives him the power to read minds ("How did you know I wanted the power to read minds?" Orson asked, and quickly realized it was a stupid question). He uses it to topple a corrupt game show, but then throws it into a river because it's a power he decides he doesn't want. The episode closes with the alien on his ship in the company of another alien, who is concerned that the Earthling would not know what to do with it. The alien who gave the device to Orson then turns on the viewscreen and they remotely observe Orson throwing the device into the river, and the episode ends with the alien who gave it to him saying "See? He knew exactly what to do with it."

* Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse:
** ComicBook/MartianManhunter goes through this from time to time: In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' he is forced to read the thoughts of an entire city. The effect is... disillusioning to say the least. While he wasn't surprised by the hatred, the pure and constant [[ItsAllAboutMe selfishness]] of people almost made him leave the team because he was so disgusted by it, and [[HumansAreFlawed wondered why he should even help them]]. He [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity regained his faith in humanity]], though, [[RousseauWasRight when he stumbled upon a search party looking for a little girl in the woods]] and "heard" all the thoughts concerned purely with helping a lost little kid. Even the ones who weren't even related to her only cared about finding her.
** Invoked by Batman in an earlier episode, when almost the entire League is incapacitated by a DreamWalker villain. Batman is the last of them to keep himself awake and warns the bad guy that [[DarkAndTroubledPast his mind is not a nice place to be]]. As in, even a hostile intruder would take damage from the kind of thoughts Bruce lives with all the time.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktims Morty", after Jerry returns with a cat that can talk for unexplained reasons, Rick performs a mind-scan to learn its secret. Immediately both Rick and Jerry are disgusted and horrified by seeing the truth, demanding the cat leaves while the both of them continue freaking out.
** In "Morty's Mind-Blowers", Rick gives Morty a device allowing him to hear the thoughts of animals, and he is horrified to learn that the world is controlled by a secret cabal of squirrels. When a few squirrels catch on to Morty's powers as a "Dolittle," he is suddenly chased through the streets by dozens of squirrels.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'': In "The Slaver Weapon", the cat-like alien Kzinti have a telepath that they use to eavesdrop on their human (or half-Vulcan) prisoners. Spock instructs the crew to think of eating delicious raw salads, which disgusts the meat-eating Kzinti so much that they can't continue to read their minds.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsTheSiegeOfLothal "The Siege of Lothal"]] has a variant -- [[spoiler:When Ahsoka Tano uses a Force connection to reach out to the mind of the hotshot pilot who is attacking the ''Ghost'', she learns firsthand that not only is this the Sith Lord Darth Vader, but also that, deep down, Vader is her former mentor Anakin Skywalker. The combination of this shocking revelation and the sheer power of the Dark Side veiling Vader's mind causes Ahsoka to scream and then faint. When she wakes up, she denies knowing anything about the Imperial pilot, and it's made clear to the audience that she's lying and deeply in denial about it.]]

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E52APennyForYourThoughts A Penny for Your Thoughts]]", Hector B. Poole discovers how petty and self-centered the people around him can be when he becomes inexplicably psychic. It's not as bad as some cases [[spoiler:(and it helps him get the girl, Helen Turner)]], but he's still relieved when his newfound power vanishes. Moreover, the point is made that thoughts aren't always an accurate gauge of people's real intentions. For instance, he overheard his co-worker Mr. Smithers thinking of getting revenge on the bank that employed him by robbing it wasn't really angry and determined enough to carry out his plan, having had that thought ''everyday'' at closing for years, but never following through.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'' episode "Mind Over Matters", Tong Fo tries to acquire his father's mind reading power, but Po accidentally gets it instead. Po at first thinks it's awesome, until he learns from Master Shifu that Tong Fo's father went insane from it. Sure enough, Po doesn't know how to turn off the mind reading and his almost driven to madness, to the point where he goes to Tong Fo for help. Tong Fo complies...only to reveal that the process to remove the mind reading power involves melting Po's brain. Thankfully, the Fearsome Five are able to save Po and destroy the power before that happens.

** What about the time he tried to rewire [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} the Joker]]'s mind to include sane thought patterns? Damn nigh gave himself a stroke with ''two minutes'' of effort. Course ''the Joker's'' mind would give anyone nightmares. And it did work, it just didn't last.

* One story in ''WebOriginal/BadTwoSentenceHorror'' is about a person who could read minds when making physical contact with someone. When he shakes hands with his future boss, [[AmbiguousSituation whatever the boss was thinking]] was so unspeakably vile that he started [[TearsOfBlood bleeding from his eyes]].

* In ''Webcomic/TheLastDaysOfFoxhound'', [[http://www.doctorshrugs.com/foxhound/comic.php?id=67 a telepath really suffers from this]] (see last two panels, then go back to see the context).

* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/TheSoftWeapon'', the cat-like alien Kzinti have a telepath that they use to eavesdrop on their human prisoners. Nessus instructs the crew to think of eating delicious raw salads, which disgusts the meat-eating Kzinti so much that they can't continue to read their minds.
* ''Literature/ToRidePegasus'': This is one of the reasons that the Registered Talents in Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's trilogy tend to move into the large isolated and insulated estate established for them. Living in one of the crowded, high-rise residence blocks drives them to distraction.
* Creator/OrsonScottCard's:
** In the ''Literature/TheTalesOfAlvinMaker'' series, Peggy's ability to see into people's hearts doesn't bother ''her'' very much, but the fact that she knows all the deepest secrets of everyone she encounters makes other people very uncomfortable, and her being a LittleMissSnarker doesn't help much. She eventually gets lessons in social skills that include practicing ''not'' automatically reading everyone's mind; when it's all done, she's [[SheIsAllGrownUp all grown up]] and extremely popular.

* In ''[[Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy The Last Herald-Mage]]'' trilogy, young Vanyel Ashekevron is pushed even further [[DrivenToSuicide towards the edge]] (''after'' his lover goes insane and commits suicide) when the same event gives him Mindspeech and he finds out that most of the Heralds despise him. And the Herald set to watch him is not only unsympathetic but homophobic to boot.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657847/chapters/67678225 The Tresine Troubles]] has a terrorist group use telepaths to take over key personnel for a coup and later, hijacking the Enterprise. Said telepaths are all mostly untrained teenagers (or in their early twenties) and are clearly run to the ground by the strain put on them. Spock, a much better experienced and trained telepath, warns them directly that they are close to burning out. Unfortunately, the telepaths in question are more than willing to attain martyrdom.
* Apparently, it's for the best that nobody looks into a Newfoal's mind in ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum''. The complex lattice of spellwork governing their minds is [[TakeOurWordForIt apparently]] [[YouDoNotWantToKnow so horrifying]] to see directly that it left TCB!Fancy Pants vomiting and suffering nightmares for the better part of a week when he went on a JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind of one.
* In ''Fanfic/DiariesOfAMadman'', Navarone deliberately invokes this when Shining Armor tries to read his mind, resulting in the good captain on the floor screaming in terror.
* The ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/DownToAgincourt'' features a new psychic who can't control her mindreading and [[PowerIncontinence doesn't know how to turn it off.]] No individual mind is too terrible, but she can "hear" anyone who's in her range, all the time, and gets migraines--though she has not, as yet, had a PsychicNosebleed.
* Satori discovers this the hard way in ''Fanfic/{{FREAKINGENSOKYO}}'' when she reads the protagonist's mind, and promptly uncovers his memories of [[RuleThirtyFour steamy Touhou porn]].
* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' fanfic ''[[Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}} Ghost in the Shell]]'', Tom is mortified at the idea that Jake might've seen some of his most intimate memories that [[PuppeteerParasite Temrash]] brought up time and time again.
* In ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheNightmaresOfFuturesPast'':
** Harry tries to use Legilemency on Luna, and finds that her mind is complete chaos.

* ''Fanfic/{{Inheritance}}'': Tattletale likes to mislead people about her super-intuition power by claiming to read minds. However, when Weaver invites her to do so, Tattletale doesn't get further than, "Well, you’ve clearly--" before Weaver cuts her off and concludes that she ''isn't'' a mind-reader after all.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}[=/=]ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' crossover ''Legion of Lawndale Heroes'', Cadet David Allen Farrington - one of the uber-powerful 'Class Five' psionics at the [[AcademyOfAdventure U.S. Academy of Extranormal Studies]] - is seen by most of the people around him, as well as the Legionnaires, as a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk. This comes into focus when you realize that his primary power is not ''telepathy'', ''[[TheEmpath but empathy]]''... and that not only [[HearingVoices can he feel the emotions of everyone around him]], but (except for when he [[BroughtDownToNormal takes a power-suppressing drug]]) [[BlessedWithSuck has been able to do just that since he was a week old.]]
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12674696/2/The-Mind-s-Eye The Mind's Eye]]'', a short ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' FanFic, Jaune discovers his semblance is reading minds. It's all fun and games until [[spoiler: he tries reading the mind of a Grimm, bringing him face-to-face with a very ticked off ''[[HumanoidAbomination Salem]]'']]. Things [[MoodWhiplash go down]] [[DarkFic hill]] [[NightmareFuel from]] [[MindRape there]].
* In Maldoror's ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' AU fanfiction ''[[http://raygunworks.net/maldoror/monsters.html Monsters,]]'' the pilots are vampires, werewolves and so on. Except for Quatre who (as in the series) is an empath. The "steady diet of fear, greed, lust, anger, and the occasional nugget of happiness" makes him the most scarily psychotic of the lot.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' Fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5092454/1/ Need to know]]'', in which Ron suddenly starts hearing people's thoughts and is understandably horrified to learn that, among other things, [[HoYay Harry and Draco secretly fancy each other.]]
* In the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/872646/1/bOne_b_bFlew_b_Into_The_bCoocoos_b_Nest One Flew Into the Coocoo's Nest]]'', Fred debunks the possibility of he and George having TwinTelepathy with this trope:
-->We can't read each others minds, or anything; but, even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Stepping into the mind of George Weasley would be like wearing clothes made out of bacon and climbing into the den of a half-starved werewolf, singing at the top of your lungs: ' ''My trousers are made of pork products! Dinner's served! Come and get it!'' ' Oh yes, like ''that's''' healthy . . .
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11032690/1/Pareidolia Pareidolia]]'' when he's chided by the Rikudo Sennin for his actions, such as letting Naruto die, Kyuubi retorts that after centuries of sensing only hatred wherever he went, he started returning said hatred onto the world.

* ''[[Fanfic/TheSmurfsThatCanonForgot Smurf Village Upturned]]'' offers a variant when Brainy and Vanity are given the power of Insight, enabling them to see the souls of their fellow smurfs. Brainy flips back and forth between regarding his newfound ability as overwhelming and wanting to be able to see, process and retain even ''more''... as well as wishing he could see ''himself''. Vanity, meanwhile, ''was'' granted Insight for himself along with Brainy and everyone else, and becomes completely absorbed with admiring himself... as a defense mechanism, as he quickly decides that this power is horribly invasive and doesn't wish to intrude on anyone else's privacy.

* In ''Fanfic/UltimateReImaginings'', Emma has Joey try to read the minds of a group of people to help him control his powers, but he gets distracted by one person's thoughts and renders the exercise ineffective.
* In "Unpaid Internship", part of the ''Fanfic/SorrowfulAndImmaculateHearts'' series, J'onn J'onzz refuses to read Batman's mind to satisfy the Flash's curiosity, partly because it would be unethical and partly because "exploring Batman's mind is extremely unpleasant. I would prefer to be able to enjoy the rest of my day."
* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736435 Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash]]'', Marc Maddhouse floods his own mind with images of everything crass and vulgar he wished he could do to the telepathic Callista. Said target, previously established to be overly conservative, wails and reacts as if she were in actual pain. Marc's later attempt at using this tactic against her fails, however.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2229939/1/Thoughts Thoughts]]'' after Harry suddenly gains the ability to read minds, he discovers that all of Ron's thoughts about him are derogatory.
* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBoilingPoint'': Boscha has the ability to [[{{Psychometry}} look into the memories of someone by touch]], and both times she uses it (one on Lapis, one on [[spoiler: Chloe]]), what she sees causes her to ''flip out''.
* PlayedForLaughs in the ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]'' short fic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3641075/1/Cruel Cruel]]''. In canon, the angel Arael [[MindRape looked into Asuka's mind]] and traumatized her. Here, it looks into Gendo's mind instead, and is DrivenToSuicide by what it discovers. Knowing what an utterly loathsome person Gendo is, the [=NERV=] staff and [[EvenEvilHasStandards even his superiors]] in [=SEELE=] find themselves empathizing with the angel.
* ''Fanfic/{{Domoverse}}'': Glitch's ESPer defense strategy sets up his mind with shocking thoughts for {{ESPer}}s to read. [[spoiler:He altered his brain to have a small section of it constantly and loudly remembering a Hentai video he watched.]]
* In ''Fanfic/AtTheEdgeOfLasglen'', Thranduil is a powerful telepath who is something of a captive audience to the thoughts of humans around him...whether he likes it or not. The more exposure he has to humans, the more he wishes the ability came with an 'off' switch.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12957273/4/Harry-Potter-and-The-Cursed-Power-of-Mad-Love Harry Potter and The (Cursed) Power of (Mad) Love]]'' after Snape read Ginny's mind (especially her obsessive thoughts about Harry) he ''begged'' Dumbledore to obliviate him. After Dumbledore read Snape's mind to see just what was so bad, they ''both'' got obliviations from Madame Pomfrey.

* Franchise/{{DCAU}}:

** In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' Black Adam does this to the Manhunter all by himself.
** What about the time he tried to rewire ComicBook/TheJoker's mind to include sane thought patterns? Damn nigh gave himself a stroke with ''two minutes'' of effort. Course ''The Joker's'' mind would give anyone nightmares. And it did work, it just didn't last.

** ComicBook/JeanGrey had this problem early on after her mutant ability surfaced. She still deals with this problem, although she's much better at coping with it. The problem early on is that [[PowerIncontinence she didn't know how to turn it off]].

*** In ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', Spiderman meets Jean Grey and she compliments him on being one of the first guys who, upon waking, [[SchmuckBait doesn't picture her naked]]. She then has to revise her statement. What follows is seven panels of awkwardness as Spiderman tries to '''stop''' thinking of her naked.
** ComicBook/EmmaFrost, as revealed in her origin comics, did not have a fun time of things when her telepathic powers first manifested. Over the course of three books, she realizes her brother is secretly gay and in a relationship with an illegal immigrant, kisses her teacher because she hears him thinking about how beautiful and smart he thinks she is (this leads to her dad getting him fired), is able to win just enough money gambling to get her new boyfriend's loan sharks to demand interest on his debts ([[spoiler:which leads to the boyfriend's death and her kidnapping, though she does manage to escape with her own ransom]]), finding out that her college roommate, who she had an actually healthy friendship with, was in love with the same teacher she kissed before, [[spoiler:and sees that her next roommate used her own psychic powers to make her little half-sister murder their parents]]. That's not even going into her constantly reading people's minds to see how secretly anti-mutant they are.
** ComicBook/{{Psylocke}} once remarked to Havok that she made every effort not to read others' minds... the problem was shutting out the psychic background noise.
** ComicBook/{{Rogue}} isn't a mind-reader, but she can absorb people's memories, which can be very discomforting. When this happened with individuals of the totally evil Dire Wraiths -- the bad guy race from the series ''Rom: Space Knight'' -- this caused Rogue [[VomitIndiscretionShot to be physically sick on-panel]] on two separate occasions.

** ComicBook/{{Gambit}} once memorably ensured that his thoughts were free of telepathic eavesdroppers by imagining the Blob naked.
** David Alleyne, aka Prodigy, telepathically downloads all the information from the minds of those around him. This ranges from technical knowledge like advanced science and magic, and extremely personal habits like sex activity and how someone prefers to wipe.

* ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'': This is the entire plot of the first episode, where one country developed a technology to allow its citizens to read one another's minds. This becomes so unbearable that they all move out to the countryside and stay out of each other's "mental ranges."

* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "You Can't Handle the Truth", the MonsterOfTheWeek magically forces everyone in earshot of its victim to practice [[BrutalHonesty unedited honesty]] in order to provoke this effect. The victims are DrivenToSuicide.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', Edward Cullen's telepathy is strongly hinted at as one of the reasons he's so alone prior to Bella's coming to Forks. He's rich, handsome, 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 dull, uninspiring, self-described plain girl whose distinguishing feature is the fact that ''he can't read her mind.''

* A ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' doujin rewrote Schuldig and Omi’s confrontation to have Omi fighting Schuldig's mind reading abilities by first imagining Schuldig in a Tutu... followed closely by a Schuldig/Reiji Takatori romantic scene. Schuldig ended up begging for mercy while Omi threatened to imagine even more vivid scenarios.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' FanFic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5092454/1/ Need to know]]'', in which Ron suddenly starts hearing people's thoughts and is understandably horrified to learn that, among other things, [[HoYay Harry and Draco secretly fancy each other.]]

* Parodied in ''Series/ChappellesShow'' as [[Film/WhatWomenWant What Men Want]]. A woman walks into an [[UncomfortableElevatorMoment elevator]] full of men, [[AllMenArePerverts who all start thinking incredibly perverse things]] about her... [[DirtyKid including a little kid]], much to her disgust. Though the end of the sketch seems to imply they were all deliberately [[{{Troll}} trolling]] her.

* In ''Roleplay/DCNation'', [[http://community.livejournal.com/dc_nation/116814.html?view=509294 Mento was recently revealed to be a decent telepath,]] even without his helmet. However, he hadn't any ability to ''block out'' thoughts. Rita (his wife) and The Chief knew, but he never thought to say it to anyone else. Worse, his brief superheroing career was with Comicbook/DoomPatrol, a group of BlessedWithSuck superheroes with dubious acceptance among not only the community they served, but the superheroing community as well.

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', when Manhunter tries to enter ComicBook/TheJoker's mind, it ends with him doubling over in pain.

:The demon is utterly terrified and perfectly docile afterwards as long as Kin (the sole human in the team) promises to protect it from the alien monstrosity...

::The demon is utterly terrified and perfectly docile afterwards as long as Kin promises to protect it from the alien monstrosity...

:::The demon is utterly terrified and perfectly docile afterwards as long as Kin promises to protect it from the alien monstrosity...

* In ''Literature/{{Strata}}'' the protagonists find themselves having to deal with a rather annoying demon. Having had enough of it, Marco (a Kung, i.e. a tightly wound ball of violent impulses ''barely'' held together by a thing veneer of civilization) confronts the demon.
--->"I hear you can read minds? Then ''read mine.''\\
The demon is utterly terrified and perfectly docile afterwards as long as Kin promises to protect it from the alien monstrosity...