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"I'm giving this guy such a headache right now."

Uncle Mr. Bones: You see, everyone has different brains. Some brains can talk to each other. We call this "E.S.P."
Meg: E.S.P.—
Uncle Mr. Bones: NO INTERRUPTIONS!
Control, "Threshold Kids: You and Your Special Powers"

Telepathy/Mind Reading is a psychic power that allows a character to read another person's thoughts and/or communicate with them mentally.

Usually, those thoughts are Conveniently Coherent Thoughts.

At its most basic level, it functions as a short range radio, allowing the character to pick up the thoughts of those around him. Sometimes, it has limitations such as touch or proximity, or only being able to "hear" rather than "see" thoughts. A common hurdle comes from being unable to probe deeper into the minds of those around them, as well as being something of a Fainting Seer whenever an especially strong-willed or horrifying character is around. Psychic overload is also common in crowds, represented by a Psychic Nosebleed. Being a passive receptor and not being able to shut other people's thoughts out can easily drive a psychic insane, making this potentially Blessed with Suck.

More advanced uses of telepathy involve receiving and transmitting thoughts and memories, and probing beneath surface thoughts into memories, or outright going into a Journey to the Center of the Mind or dream travel. Some telepaths may be able to use Astral Projection, or at least see through other people's eyes.

At its strongest, a telepath will be able to Mind Control others, sometimes even to the point of possessing their bodies, create Fake Memories after applying Laser-Guided Amnesia, create a Split Personality and let it take over, or in general be a terrifying god who can Mind Rape their opponents.

It's worth noting that for the above reasons telepathy is one of the most potentially pervertable powers, since it's basically an invasion of privacy of the worst kind. The telepath is the sighted man in the kingdom of the blind, and, provided he's discreet, he can know everyone down to their most intimate detail, and can use them accordingly. This is a lot worse when he's the overlord. Thus, mind readers in Real Life would be complete Paranoia Fuel. This is why in settings with un-masqueraded telepaths, they are often persecuted, policed, and registered. That is, when they aren't used as weapons or killed.

Heroic telepaths are thus in a difficult position both inside and outside a story proving Bad Powers, Bad People is not true. An author wants them to be heroes, but has to somehow assuage the reader the character isn't a mental voyeur (or if he is, he's got a chivalrous side) and the character will also have to put their colleagues at ease that they aren't likely to turn into a Mind Probing Hive Queen. To solve this, they often practice what they preach with Mind over Manners.

Telepathy comes in a lot of flavors:

In a setting where there are telepaths, expect people to use Psychic Static to protect their thoughts, and telepaths to construct a Psychic Block Defense to give each other a Poke in the Third Eye when they're snooping. Usually indicated by the Pstandard Psychic Pstance. Characters with a Cranial Plate Ability may gain immunity to telepathy.

Subtropes:


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • In Baki the Grappler, there have been rare instances where characters have displayed this. Mainly baki via the power of imagination but also Yuuichirou, who apperared as an astral projection or the ´´true psychic´´ sabuko tokugawa, called forth musashi miyamoto's soul and let it possess his clone body.
  • Some of the Espers of A Certain Magical Index have forms of telepathy. There are only two noteworthy cases, though; Haruue in A Certain Scientific Railgun, and Misaki Shokuhou (a.k.a. "The Queen of Tokiwadai"). Haruue, as a Level 2, can only receive thoughts transmitted by other telepaths (such as her best friend Edasaki). Shokuhou, on the other hand, is a Level 5 telepath, and thus is capable of Mass Hypnosis and memory manipulation.
  • Joshua Christopher in Chrono Crusade is able to read minds after he takes the horns of a demon from the Big Bad. However, he can't turn it off, so it drives him insane. Mary Magdalene is also implied to be some sort of empath in the manga version of the series, but it's averted in the anime—she specifically tells Chrono that she can only see the future, and that she can't read minds.
  • City Hunter: Episode 41 of season 2 where Ryo's client is a young girl with a unique telepathic ability to read minds. She can also gain access to other people's thoughts by touching them. When she does this on Ryo, this often leads to Dirty Mind-Reading.
  • Code Geass:
    • Mao has the ability to hear the thoughts of anyone within 500 meters, even on a subconscious level if he concentrates, making him a formidable opponent to the highly thought-oriented Lelouch. It does, however, have the drawback of being unable to turn off, meaning he always hears everyone's thoughts within five hundred meters.
    • The gender-bent Mao in Nightmare of Nunnally had a similar power, which also included the ability to see into a person's memories as a bonus. To a degree, all the geass powers involve a vague form of telepathy (Lelouch controls minds, the Emperor can mess with memories, etc.). At least, the ones in the anime do.
  • The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Played for laughs. The title character is possibly the most powerful psychic individual on the planet, but none of his powers can be disabled, so telepathy ends up being a cacophony of noise. Despite this, he's learned to deal with it and it doesn't bother him, but being able to hear peoples thoughts and understand them simultaneously, he isn't surprised by anything, and can discern anyone's location by their thoughts (save for Nendo who is implied to be so stupid and impulsive that Saiki cannot determine where he is until he sees him as Nendo doesn't think, he just acts). This is part of the reason he refuses to try and get to know certain characters, as he can hear their true thoughts (such as the haughty Teruhashi who talks nice to people but is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing).
    • An episode focuses on Saiki discovering a Germanium ring that allows him to shut his telepathy off when worn, and it shows that he's so used to using his telepathy that he has a hard time walking about in public. He gets startled by his dad who opens his door rather calmly to tell him about dinner, and he dad figures he's just making fun of him given he knows his son can hear his thoughts.
    • One episode played for laughs is the sudden appearance of a cockroach. Saiki admits he's terrified of bugs because they don't have thoughts he can read, and spontaneously teleports himself from his home in Japan to Texas in a panic. He teleports back, and gets a knock at the door, which turns out to be Nendo. He then teleports across the world again for the same reason.
  • Dragon Ball is usually more concerned with physical strength, but telepathy is important to the plot every now and again. The Kais all seem to have some level of mind reading and telepathic ability (King Kai's is so powerful he can psychically communicate with an entire planet at once, from anywhere in the universe). Babidi can use his magic for it, and even Goku and Vegeta will very rarely display low-level mind reading abilities.
    • Master Roshi read the mind and memories of Nam, a powerful Indian mystic, without him noticing, just by standing near him. Korin can also read minds by just standing in front of a person and much later Goku learns to do this, but he needs to touch his target.
  • Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle: By borrowing the "Song of the Egg", the Houta are able to telepathically communicate with the landing team.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Telence D'Arby's Stand Atum grants him a limited form of telepathy, wherein he can ask someone a question and then read their aura to get his answer; the drawback is that he's limited to "yes or no" questions. He uses this to trounce Jotaro at a baseball video game (asking questions like "Are you going to throw a curveball?", for example), until Jotaro's grandfather Joseph secretly uses his own Stand Hermit Purple to reach into the game console and change the inputs without even Jotaro knowing what they'll be. This means that while Jotaro's aura might say "Yes" to the curveball question, he'll throw a change-up, to D'Arby's growing confusion and anger; even worse, Atum reveals that Jotaro is cheating, but he has absolutely no idea how until after he's lost and the Joestars reveal the trick.
  • Kichikujima: Satoru, the youngeset child of the family, can read minds.
  • Haruka Kotoura from Kotoura-san is a fifteen-year old telepath who can't turn her ability off. As a child her naturally naive personality causes her to simply blurt out sensitive information. This causes her to be labelled as a compulsive liar, to drive her friends and classmates away, and to cause her parent's divorce. However in highschool she is finally able to meet Manabe, someone who is transparent and honest and not scared of her ability.
  • In Lyrical Nanoha, mages can communicate telepathically (but are not able to read minds), which they primarily use for communication from distances at which their voices cannot reach one another, or to communicate with one another without those in earshot finding out. An early episode features Nanoha communicating with Yuuno about the Jewel Seeds while she's still in class and he's at home.
  • The Mute Girl and Her New Friend is about Mashiro, a mute girl whose Tsundere new friend Kokosaki can read minds, enabling her to know what Mashiro feels without having to say it outright.
  • In Naruto, this is the signature ability of the Hidden Leaf Village's Yamanaka clan, who can possess others, read minds, perform consciousness transfers, and form psychic communication networks.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Negi displays very limited mind reading ability in the first chapter (he puts his hand on the target's head and gets maybe 2 words out of it). Later on, the Pactio cards are introduced, which allows Negi and his partners to communicate telepathically. In addition, Nodoka gets a book that allows her to read people's thoughts as her artifact; after an upgrade she can essentially listen to the thoughts of anyone whose name she knows while another upgrade lets her find out anybody's name.
    • Nodoka can also use her artifact on herself, which sometimes has hilarious results.
    • Jack Rakan at one point peers into an opponent's mind to see their past. The only explanation we get is: "Nothing's impossible for me!"
    • There are numerous levels and types of telepathy in Negima; it is implied to be an almost universal skill in Mages, with various degrees of power. For example telepathic communication even without Pactio's is rather basic, and Word of God states the reason Eva could instantly recognizes Nagi as an aged up Negi is because of another form of telepathy.
  • Yukina from Night Raid 1931 uses this to great effect during spy missions with the Sakurai organization.
  • One Piece: Viola's Glare-Glare Fruit grants her the ability to see through things, both literally and figuratively. Amongst other things, she can use it to look into the minds and memories of people... or allow them to look into hers.
  • Pokémon:
    • Yellow from Pokémon Adventures can read the minds of Pokémon. As can Lance.
    • Almost every Pokémon movie has the Pokémon it centers around being capable of telepathy. This almost never happens in the anime, and the first time it happens (in, of course, the first movie) everyone is surprised. By the eighth movie, Ash knows that Lucario is speaking to him through telepathy. Of course, it can be handwaved because a good deal of them are Psychic-Type (like Mewtwo and Jirachi), but it’s harder to explain for ones that aren’t (like Shaymin, Keldeo, and Diancie).
    • One Pokémon: The Series episode featuring Jynx had a Lapras who spoke to Ash through telepathy.
    • Anabel could communicate with her Pokémon with telepathy. This gave her a massive advantage in battle because she stays silent instead of Calling Your Attacks out loud, meaning her opponents could not predict her moves until they are launched. She tried to teach Ash and May to use telepathy, but failed.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey and magical girls can communicate with each other through telepathy.
  • Satori of Ranma ½ can read minds, much to Ranma's annoyance. He uses this power to reveal lies, find out people's most private thoughts, and pit Akane against Ranma.
  • Ryu's Path: Because Mutumbai cannot speak, this is how him and Ryu communicate. It's one of the many supernatural powers in his arsenel and why he's hailed as a Messianic Archetype in universe.
  • Sailor Moon: Artemis and Luna have displayed some telepathic power, mainly the ability to re-awaken the Sailor Senshi's memories during the second season.
  • Saint Seiya: Hound Asterion can read minds, forcing Marin to completely clear her mind to beat him.
  • SPY×FAMILY: Anya Forger is an orphan who was experimented on at a very young age, and thus gained the ability to read minds. Thanks to this, she knows that her adopted parents are a spy and an assassin even when neither of them know the other's true occupation, or about Anya's psychic abilities.
  • In Summer Days with Coo, this is how Coo and the family dog communicate.
  • In Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, vampires can read minds and communicate via telepathy, even with humans. Fai D. Flourite can communicate with Celes!Chii telepathically, too, but does not seem to read minds accidentally or without permission; perhaps in this case telepathy is a skill acquired through magical training. In the same vein, King Ashura is able to project flashbacks directly into people's minds, which can be fought against, with effort.

    Comic Books 
Marvel Universe:
  • X-Men: Professor Charles Xavier has formidable psychic powers, being the world's most powerful telepath. Other telepthic mutants include Jean Grey, Cable, Rachel Summers, X-Man, Psylocke and Emma Frost and her clone daughters the Stepford Cuckoos.
  • The Eternals: Almost all Eternals are telepathic, although this is unsurprising for an entire race that has won the Superpower Lottery. Their exact level of ability does vary by how much they have developed it, as is the case with all of their powers.
  • Black Bolt is skilled enough of a telepath to overwhelm his brothers mental manipulation. He also communes with his wife Medusa via his telepathy.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Heather Dougles, aka Moondragon, is a powerful telepath who unlocked psionic abilities thanks to training from the Titanian monks of Shao-Lom. Her feats include mentally enslaving an entire warring planet of people, psionically stalemating Doctor Strange for an extended period of time, and mentally killing a clone of Thanos endowed with psionic powers greater than Professor X.

The DCU:

  • Aquaman has a mental command over any creatures even vestigially connected to the sea: aquatic reptiles, crustaceans, squid, seabirds, mosquitos...after Flashpoint his telepathy has been greatly toned down, as he can't truly commune with fish or fish-derived life, but just implant compulsions and desires: such as the will to help him.
  • Telepathy is one of the Martian Manhunter's main powers, usually used in a benevolent manner to communicate with allies or to help heal damaged psyches. When in the Justice League, he often acts as a sort of psychic hub through which the team can communicate mind-to-mind. He's generally regarded as The DCU's greatest telepath.
  • The Flash: Gorilla Grodd is an evil gorilla with telepathic powers; his good counterpart, the late King Solovar of Gorilla City, had similar powers. Grodd usually uses his powers for Mind Control or more subtle manipulation, though he can also fall back on his natural strength.
  • Angel and the Ape: Sam Simeon (Flash's Rogue's Grodd's grandson or brother depending on the story), has a watered-down version of Grodd's powers that just lets him cloud the minds of people around him so they see him as a normal human.
  • Superman:
    • Lena Luthor, Lex Luthor's little sister and Supergirl's friend back in the Silver Age, was gifted with ESP after an incident in Lex's laboratory in Adventure Comics #271: How Luthor Met Superboy. Her telepathy was strong enough to control animals and bypass even Luthor's defences.
    • In Adventure Comics #397 story, Supergirl mind-reads a comatose girl. No explanation was given as to when Supergirl developed telepathy and she never used that power again, so it can be chalked up to the writer not doing his research.
    • Supergirl (1982): Several Supergirl's Rogues like Psi or Barry Metzner are powerful telepaths.
    • In Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, Superior Girl somehow is able to broadcast her thoughts after being turned to stone.
      Supergirl: Belinda! I can hear your voice in my head! I can hear your very thoughts! ... Ugh. Ew.
    • In New 52, Superboy can at least see and erase memories. Though it takes him quite a while to realise that he actually has this.
    • In Crucible, Comet from the Wanderers is a telepath who uses his mental powers to track and knock the villains down.
    • In Strangers at the Heart's Core, Lesla-Lar is able to read, influence, control and invade minds after becoming a disembodied ghost.
    • In The Untold Story of Argo City, alien Zygors can communicate -and dominate other minds- through telepathy.
    • Supergirl's Greatest Challenge: Supergirl meets Whizzy, Streaky the Supercat's descendant, who can communicate with humans telepathically.
    • "The Super-Steed of Steel" introduces Comet the Super-Horse (really a centaur turned into horse by an evil wizard and given powers by a sorceress), who is able to mind-reading, broadcast his thoughts and induce dreams in other people.
    • In Lazarus Planet: Assault On Krypton #1, Power Girl finds that she has gained telepathy after a battle with the Silver Horn King in a nightmare state.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes:
    • Titanians (formerly Lanothians) are an inherently telepathic race. Of course, Saturn Girl, the Titanian member of the Legion is the poster girl for her entire race, with abilities similar to the telepatic ones of the aforementioned Martian Manhunter.
    • The Threeboot version of the Legion, placed in one of the 52 parallel universes of the DCU, features a retooled version of the Titanians. In this version their powerful telepathy borders on a collective form of Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training, as modern Titanians are a race of mute individuals, evolved without vocal cords as their prolonged use of telepathy made speech useless. Threeboot Saturn Girl may be as powerful as Mainstream Saturn Girl, but shut down her powers and she gets an instant downgrade to the resident Cute Mute.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942):
      • The Amazons had mild telepathic abilities under the pen of the comic's original creator. This largely amounted to sending messages and being able to defend against telepathic attacks.
      • Gail Young on the other hand can read minds and not much else, and can only really concentrate enough to get a clear read when she's blindfolded.
      • The Saturnians are telepaths, but rather squander the ability by just using it to make doubly sure their victims cannot see them at all while using their invisibility cloaks and to "talk" to each other without being overheard. This backfires on them with Diana, due to her aforementioned telepathy she can both sense their locations and "hear" them.
      • In Judgment In Infinity, the Adjudicator "speaks" by broadcasting his thoughts.
    • Angelica Wallis, a supporting character from Wonder Woman (1987), is a powerful but untrained telepath who is the first to confirm that Amazons turned back into clay statues are still alive by connecting with Poly mentally after the queen is reduced that state.

Other Publishers and Continuities:

  • Ace of Space uses an alien device to read minds.
  • From Astro City, both the Silver Brain and Lord Sovereign can read the thoughts of people nearby. The First Family are able to use electronic dampeners to stop the Silver Brain's attempts.
  • Deep Sea: When Patricia takes her diving helmet off near the source of Crudellis, it starts projecting its voice into her mind, begging her to set it free.
  • All elves in Wendy and Richard Pini's ElfQuest graphic novels have the ability to communicate telepathically via a process known as "sending". Wolfriders can also communicate this way with their wolf-friends although this requires eye contact and is more difficult than between elves.
  • In Strikeforce: Morituri, Scatterbrain could indiscriminately broadcast thoughts and mental states to everyone nearby.
  • In Violine, Violine can read minds when staring at people. Kombo is also able to recognize this and mistakes it for an evil eye. Her father has the same powers.
  • In the Chilean comic Mampato, Rena, being a mutant, has the ability to read minds, or pertel, as she calls it (pertelar, short for "percepción telepática"note ). In her first appearance, she's found about to be sacrificed by other mutants because of this, and Mampato, after saving her, helps her follow the mental call from other mind-readers. Turns out there's an entire country of them in South America. It's worth noting that she does not read the private thoughts of other people, because it's rude. To Mampato, who has a crush on her, this is a relief.
  • In addition to emotional disconnection, insensitivity to pain, and undeath, some of the revivers from Revival display the ability to either read or transfer memories by kissing another person.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): After San fuses to Vivienne Graham, they can communicate with each-other mentally, feel impressions of each other's emotions, and if they choose to, even exchange memories with each-other. It also turns out that Ghidorah, once its minds have regenerated, can also telepathically communicate with Viv and San, via a Psychic Link due to Viv and San's part-Ghidorah biology and origins.
  • Boldores and Boomsticks: Most (but not all) Psychic types use this to communicate. It causes some difficulty when Whisper tries to use Round, because she hadn't used her vocal chords before.
  • Johnny and Roy end up with a telepathic link in Bound by Friendship after they grab hands during a building collapse. They keep talking telepathically until over 24 hours later when they finally break the hold.
  • In The Bridge (MLP), several Kaiju such as Mothra, Grand King Ghidorah, and Kaizer Ghidorah possess telepathic abilities, allowing them to communicate with other races like humans. Since he's evil, Grand King Ghidorah also goes the mind-control and Mind Rape routes.
  • When Calvin and Hobbes Get XTREME! crosses over with Garfield in chapter 6, the Fridge Logic behind Calvin being able to hear Garfield's thoughts is naturally addressed, with Garfield's theory on the matter being that Calvin has this.
  • In Child of the Storm, there are a number of characters with greater or lesser degrees of telepathic abilities.
    • Natural-born psychics include Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Nathaniel Essex a.k.a. Sinister, Betsy Braddock, Emma Frost and Harry Thorson.
    • Telepaths via magic include Loki, Dumbledore and Voldemort. In chapter 68, he steals a significant portion of Harry's psychic powers.
  • The title character of Empath: The Luckiest Smurf is considered a telepath, as are the Psyches.
  • God Help the Outcasts: Dr. Cockroach believes that B.O.B. is this, as he sometimes says things that sound as though they're what someone else wants to say. He believes that, since he doesn't have brainwaves, he borrows other people's.
  • iFight Crime With Victorious:
    • Carly has the power to read minds and and can later sense others in her vicinity.
    • Tori has the power to actually "communicate" with other minds, unlike Carly, and send thoughts across long distances, though she can't hear other's thoughts.
  • In Just a Pony, it turns out that Vinyl Scratch is mute, but has a spell that lets her communicate via telepathy. She can only do it with one pony at a time, however.
  • In Kamikakushi, tsukumogami like Botan and Churippu communicate by projecting images.
  • The Keys Stand Alone:
    • John proves unable to do anything except talk with his water-telepathy; he can't even take information from an unwilling mind. However, the ability of the four to speak together in telepathic privacy turns out to be immensely useful, since they can plan without fear of being overheard by anyone.
    • John has to contend with a roomful of telepaths who are primed to mentally beat him up the second he tries to do anything. That he manages to evade them is partially due to the Kansael and partially to his own bad temper.
    • George occasionally becomes a telepathic creature, but never does figure out how to use telepathy.
  • In Kira Is Justice, there is the telepathy necklace, which lets Justice and Landras talk to each other via telepathy. This is enforced to fix the fact that Light talked to Ryuk in his room without his family noticing.
  • The Daria/Legion of Super-Heroes Fan Fic series Legion of Lawndale Heroes has a lot of telepaths, and deals with the problems of being a telepath. There are so many telepaths in society (albeit not revealed to the general public, they operate in government, the military forces of many countries, and in the corporate sectors) that the nations of the world have laws enacted and adhered to by even the rogue nations that police people with not just psi-powers, but powers in general. You can actually get a legitimate job with Psychic Powers, with the understanding that if you misuse them in your work, it's your fault, not the fault of the people who hired you.
  • In Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, Night Yagami can use her Shinigami Ears to hear people's thoughts.
  • In The Lion King Adventures, the Hermit of Hekima possesses this ability. In The Curse of Death, he reads Simba's mind in order to get an idea of his personality.
  • Meeting of Minds: Thanks to his extended time spent with Soundwave, Rumble's acquired some basic telepathic powers. While not accomplished enough to engage in mind-reading, he can pick up sufficiently loud thoughts from nearby individuals, like the Yeerk inside his head.
  • In My Immortal, Voldemort can read minds because he "hath telekinesis"
  • Racer and the Geek introduces a kind of pseudo-telepaphy in chapter seven. by which magic users can communicate telepathically.
  • Reflections, a follow-up story to Last One Standing by the same author, expands further on the idea. Apparently, Luna and Celestia don't even need to speak, be in close proximity, or even use language in order to communicate with each other. They choose to communicate almost exclusively by mortal methods in order to maintain those skills as well as to respect each other's privacy.
  • Second Wind: A minor version of this occurs with great proficiency in Observation Haki, allowing someone focusing hard enough to read the emotions of others with extreme precision, to the point of understanding their thoughts. Luffy and Zoro, two who possess such a skill, have used it a few times to convey messages while in the presence of others.
  • In Son of the Warp, Joseph can read surface thoughts, including what a person is about to do. He can't probe deeper, but he does have enough control to block out thoughts.
  • In Sword and Claw, Lilith knows a lot of magic for interacting with other people's minds, being a succubus.
  • Mostly monsters, but also humans to a limited degree, in Visiontale. Social customs dictate when a monster can read someone else's thoughts.
  • In With Strings Attached, the Kansael gives John the ability to communicate telepathically through water. Mostly this means he has to touch the others to "connect their water-strings", but he can also connect them via a puddle, and he has much longer range in a body of water like the ocean, though just how long is not known. Nor is it known whether he can do more than just talk. He can, however, tap into Ringo's mindsight.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • In Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, this is how Lord Poppinjay attempts to communicate with his staff, much to their bewilderment. Alex is able to "communicate" back by offering suggestions as to the course of action, but phrasing it as though it was Poppinjay's idea. He confirms that of course, that is exactly what he was thinking.
  • Alterien: As enhanced humanoids, the Alteriens are all telepathic.
  • Anyone in morph in Animorphs has the ability to project thoughts to others, called "thought-speech", conveniently solving the problem of how to communicate once your entire team has turned into, say, fish. Other than in the first book, mind-reading or receiving thoughts from a non-thought-speaker is not possible. Andalites have no mouths and use thought-speech naturally, as do a few other races; the Andalites presumably built it into the morphing technology so they wouldn't lose the ability when they changed form. The Animorphs do encounter one species, the Leerans, who can read minds; the Yeerks are highly interested in them because of this.
  • The spirits and the Aash Ra are all telepaths in Astral Dawn.
  • The Belgariad: Sorcerers can easily broadcast their thoughts over long distances, either to a specific recipient or to anyone with Supernatural Sensitivity. Some non-magical people can learn the ability as well; Polgara teaches it to her retainer Killane by tricking him with a Magic Feather at first.
  • In the Bounders series, this is how the Youli communicate. In The Tundra Trials, Waters implants Youli skin cells in Jasper and Mira's brain stems, allowing them to communicate mind-to-mind so Jasper can act as Mira's translator.
  • The Chronicles of Dorsa: Tasia communicates with Joslyn by using this after learning magic. It helps them to silently coordinate their fight with an enemy.
  • In The Chrysalids, the core characters can share what they dub 'thought-shapes', implied to be an intermediate stage on the way to full telepathy. In the midst of its larger points re: resistance to change and growth, the novel also acts as probably the most famous serious exploration of the fear and horror telepathy might inspire in the wider 'normal' community.
  • In The Cloak Society, Shade can not only read minds but reshape them, controlling people and erasing their memories.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses:
    • Feyre becomes one thanks to the power from Rhys.
    • Rhys is a "daemati", which is an exceedingly rare trait among the Fae.
  • The technological level of The Culture is so high that the super-intelligent A.I. Minds are capable of reading the minds of humans, thanks to some kind of 'action/sensing-at-a-distance' effect. This is, however, considered taboo.
  • In Dad, Are You the Tooth Fairy?, fairies had to leave, but if the children's parents sit with their eyes closed in a quiet area, they can hear the fairies talking to them in their heads.
  • In Darkover, the noble caste (referred to as "Comyn"), have telepathy as one of their defining features, along with red hair. With a society where most of the people (at least those who appear in the books) have telepathy has led to interesting social rules like 'Do not enter another's mind without permission' and if one accidentally 'hears' something they weren't meant to, it is considered polite not to mention it. Also, if one is suffering from mental anguish, one tries to keep one's thoughts to oneself so as not to burden others with their emotions. These do not apply to the mind-blind peasant class, who treat the Comyn as descended from Gods.
  • Daughter of the Sun: Aelia can read Orsina's mind, seeing memories of hers about her lover Perlita.
  • The Demolished Man explores what would happen to human societies if telepathy were discovered to be not only real and provable, but a talent that could be developed in the manner of any other skill. With a guild to maintain ethical standards, "peepers" become valuable, contributing members of society.
  • Deryni have a full range of telepathy from an empathic sensing of emotions through Truth Reading (detecting if someone is telling a lie) through compelling them to speak the truth and all the way up to total mind-control. They can also send and receive words (Mind Speech) and images at a much faster rate than ordinary speech. These skills prove highly useful when questioning people or gathering information from scouts, not to mention facilitating private conversations in the presence of other people. The good guys tend to reserve Mind Control for maintaining the Masquerade; the bad guys (and girls) have no such compunctions.
  • Design For Great Day by Alan Dean Foster: The Solarian Combine have developed telepathy into what is effectively a multi-species, intergalactic Hive Mind. This is treated as the natural and penultimate evolutionary stage of all species.
  • The Divine Comedy: Since they live within God's omniscient mind, Beatrice and other saints can respond to the complex theological questions Dante has before he asks them aloud. In Dante's own (heavily translated and context-extracted) words, Beatrice "read me as I read myself".
  • Downward to the Earth: One of the major reveals in the climax is that the nildoror and sulidoror are in constant species-wide telepathic contact, which is what allows them to share news across their world as quickly as they do.
  • Dragonriders of Pern: The dragons and their riders communicate telepathically. It is very unusual for a Dragon Rider to be able to talk with any dragon other than her or his own, but a handful of such people have existed, among them Moreta, Lessa and Brekke.
  • Dragonvarld: Dragons communicate with each other this way. Their mental language is made up of colorful images that have meanings to them. Ven, who is half-dragon, develops this too, as does his human half-brother Marcus.
  • Dreamcatcher: The childhood friends have this, and the Byrus somehow spread a low-grade version of it to the people nearby, which they weaponize in the movie when the Apache gunship crews can hear the aliens pleading in their heads that they're harmless and shouldn't be attacked (Colonel Curtis responds with his own Rousing Speech).
  • The Dresden Files: Although invading the mind of a human is against wizard law — that is, reading minds and mind control — transmitting one's own thoughts is legal. This was used once in a chaotic situation, when an Eldritch Abomination that could kill with a touch was released in a crowded room. A powerful wizard used magic to communicate a tactical plan for dealing with it to everyone in the room, complete with visual aids superimposed on the surroundings, all in the space of a second.
  • The Empirium Trilogy: Mind-speak is an ability unique to angels and wraiths. It allows them to read and communicate through the minds of other angels and wraiths, and even humans.
  • Firebird Trilogy: Both the Sentinels and the Shuhr have telepathic powers. The Sentinels are the "good guys", with strict and strictly enforced limits on how they are allowed to use their powers. The Shuhr are much less pleasant, as they do not put any limits on their use of power, leading to rather frequent Mind Manipulation among those they come in contact with (including the less powerful among their own race).
  • In The Girl from the Miracles District, both Frigg and Freya can read minds with no effort whatsoever.
  • "Green Patches": The life on Saybrook's Planet have evolved green patches that allow it to sense the minds of other living things. From the "little multipliers in the darkness" (bacteria) and "the non-movers, which, [...] were green and lived on the air, water, and soil" (plants), to "moving runners" (mice and hamsters) and "keen-thinkers" (humans).
  • In the Green-Sky Trilogy, telepathy in general is called pensing. A game called Five-Pense is played by little children to practice and strengthen these abilities, progressing from Signals and Choices to Images, Thoughts and Words.
  • "Greyback in Blue": Most of the animal mutants, later revealed to be Pilgrims possessing regular animals, in the story are telepathic and communicate by speaking directly to Joe's brain.
  • Appears in Harry Potter in the form of Legilimency, the magic art of navigating and interpreting the mind. Also generally an aversion of the Conveniently Coherent Thoughts trope common to telepathy stories.
  • Hell's Gate: Sharona's Voices have perfect recall and can send and receive telepathic messages to each other, including sensory information (sight, sound, smell, and touch), but can't read minds. On the other hand, Sifters can't send messages, but they can tell when other people are lying or telling the truth.
  • Heralds of Valdemar: "Mindspeech" is one of the most common Gifts among Heralds, and is occasionally found in other lands. Most, but not all, Heralds can speak mentally with their Companions. Stronger Mindspeakers can communicate with each other, pick up surface thoughts of others, and sometimes make themselves heard by the non-Gifted. The most powerful are capable of mind probes and mental control. Training is required to learn how to "shield" to prevent Hearing Voices and other Power Incontinence. Stories with Mindspeaking protagonists often discuss Mind over Manners; Heralds being Heralds, they never use their Gifts for personal gain, but often struggle with how much invasion of privacy and violation of another's free will is justified by the situation at hand.
  • In Hive Mind (2016), Amber is one of five telepaths, and as such is desperately needed to police a Hive City of a hundred million people (ideally, there should be at least eight telepaths). She's a particularly powerful telepath; as she reads minds she experiences "levels" of thought, and people are startled by an offhand comment implying how many levels she experiences. There are up and downsides; being so powerful makes her The Empath in addition and makes her invested in making people happy, but it also makes her vulnerable. There are also borderline telepaths, who only gain flashes or "insights" of telepathy and, while still rare, are more common than true telepaths like Amber.
  • I Am Mordred: It turns out that Mordred can hear Merlin in the form of a hawk this way.
  • In the Inheritance Cycle, it seems that all magic users have the potential to become telepaths. Anyone with sufficient training can attempt to resist an attack upon their mind.
  • Alex Courtney from the Jack Bishop novels possesses telepathy. Having been something she'd grown up with, she's pretty comfortable with them but they get very annoying when she's a teenage girl.
  • Jakub Wędrowycz has this ability. He refers to it as a "frequency" to which one must tune himself, much like a radio.
  • All the Martian races in John Carter of Mars are mildly telepathic — mostly this is used to control domestic animals, but can also be used to determine if someone is telling the truth during conversation. The First Born (aka Black Martians) largely do not have this ability, but their leader Issus does, which helps her cement her position as a living goddess. Certain groups have more advanced telepathic powers, such as the Lotharians (an isolated sect of White Martians who have developed tremendous powers of illusion, but become detached from reality as a result) and the kaldanes (crab-like creatures that are almost all brain and can seize control of anyone who makes eye contact with them). Earth humans, for whatever reason, can No-Sell telepathic probing, something that comes in handy for Earth-born hero Carter during his adventures.
  • A common ability among the people of Ki, the world where the Kadingir series is set. It is used both as a close-range and far-reach means of communication, and pretty much everyone can do it with a little concentration, although it's use is very uneven: for some races it basically replaced vocal speech, while others have too short of an attention-span to bother.
  • Kindling Ashes: Dragons can mind-speak with their flyers and only their flyers.
  • Known Space features several telepathic species.
  • Some of the Martian people of the Leigh Brackett Solar System novels are telepathic, including Captain Phil Kirby's Martian wife Shari in Alpha Centauri or Die. When Kirby's ship makes it to Alpha Centauri, Shari encounters indigenous creatures who are true telepaths, able to teleport things and people at will. They can even see inside atoms.
  • Lensman grants its heroes the Lens, which makes the user telepathic if they aren't already, and able to converse in any language, human or alien. The more powerful Lensmen, including some belonging to already-telepathic races, have powers extending to mind control. Author E. E. "Doc" Smith was well aware of the moral implications of access to this sort of power; producing the Lenses are the Arisians, guardians of Galactic Civilization who see to it that nobody gets a Lens who would in any way be tempted to misuse it. Furthermore, the Lenses themselves are explicitly tuned to the mind of the person they're made for, to the point where they'll kill anyone else who tries to wear it. (They evaporate after the wearer's death, to avoid being a perpetual menace.)
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • Lady Galadriel greets each of the Fellowship with a searching telepathic question, which greatly unnerves some of them. She also communicates without speaking with Gandalf, Celeborn and Elrond using telepathy at the end of the final book. It appears to be a family trait; her brother Finrod could not only communicate telepathically, but was actually able to full-on read people's minds (he used it to become an omniglot).
    • Sauron is a Maia who is very much capable of this. During his conversation with Pippin, he never speaks, just looks at Pippin, and he understands.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a more detailed account of telepathy among Ainur (lesser deities), Elves and to a lesser extent Men in the essay "Osanwe-kenta".
  • In The Mermaid Chronicles, this is how mermaids mainly communicate. They instinctively move their lips while they do it, but it's hard to hear each other underwater.
  • This is Saleem's power in Midnight's Children. He has a particularly powerful version: not only can he read surface thoughts, he can share perception; with effort, he can pry into deeper, specific memories; he can transmit and receive images and information; he can intuitively sense the other midnight's children; he can transform himself into a mental relay that allows every midnight child to communicate with each other; and his range extends across all of India.
  • Raziel from The Mortal Instruments can read minds and hearts due to his angelic status.
  • In the H. P. Lovecraft collaboration The Mound, a conquistador discovers a subterranean humanoid race which communicates almost entirely by telepathy.
  • Murder for the Modern Girl: Ruby Newhouse has the ability to read the minds of other people and discern their thoughts. She uses this as a vigilante to hunt down heinous men who harm women and poison them. It's later revealed that Ruby can break into the memories and minds of people, but it's dangerous for her as she could get permanently trapped in someone's mind that way.
  • Necroscope features telepathy in vampires, as well as humans in varying degree. The humans also occasionally sport other powers, such as locating someone from a distance, clouding someone else's telepathy, or precognition. The telepathy of the titular Necroscopenote  extends even to the dead.
  • The Norby Chronicles:
    • The Jamyn dragons can send/receive surface thoughts, and grant this ability to their human visitors such as Jeff, who can now use Touch Telepathy with his Robot Buddy.
    • One of Norby's many talents is his ability to communicate surface thoughts to people. When he first met Jeff, he inadvertently sent his feelings of loneliness when Jeff touched the stasis box that was holding him.
  • Of Fire and Stars: Queen Invasya communicates with Dennaleia when "advising" (manipulating) her in competition with other trainees this way. Dennaleia doesn't realize who's in her head at first.
  • In the Paradox series, the Eldritch and Glaseah are telepathic, the former species have little control over their powers and shun them, while the latter embrace it to the point of preferring telepathy to verbal speech. Jahir and Vasiht'h are an Eldritch and Glaseah pair of psychologists who use their abilities to affect their client's dreams.
  • The People communicate mentally as a routine thing. According to the narrator in "Deluge", they also have subvocal communication — which is real, and now being researched. Some of them are able to get in other people's heads and do file management, including deletion of information they shouldn't have.
  • Verge Foray's 1968 novella Practice! takes place in a private school. Ostensibly for "disturbed children", it is actually devoted to the encouragement of ESP skills.
  • Remembrance of Earth's Past: Sort of. Trisolarans' thoughts are transparent to each other, meaning that they can read each others' minds even at significant distances. As a result, they have very little experience with deception and political intrigue, forcing them to rely on their human collaborators to deduce Earth's defensive strategies.
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe references an entire planet of beings who were cursed with telepathy. Everyone on their entire planet could hear every thought in every other mind on the planet, whether they wanted to or not — which quickly threatened to drive them bonkers from information overload and/or sheer boredom. They solved this by adopting the habit of constantly talking loud enough to drown out the constant, unwanted incoming mental transmissions.
  • The aliens in Poul Anderson's Sargasso Of Lost Starships can appear however they please and launch nightmarish psychic attacks. Donovan, however, says that they are not telepaths, referring to their inability to receive thoughts or control minds.
  • Shade's Children: Ninde's Change Talent. She's capable of hearing creatures' thoughts, and those of the Overlords, though not humans'.
  • In The Shattered Kingdoms, Norlanders speak telepathically, although not at any significantly greater distance than normal speech allows. Their telepathy can convey emotional states as well as actual words, and makes it hard to lie. The Shadari are unable to use telepathy, and can't hear what the Norlanders say (although some Norlander characters have trouble believing this and express suspicion that the Shadari are just faking it so that they can eavesdrop).
  • Shatter the Sky: Maren gets flashes of what her girlfriend Kaia is experiencing over long distances, and can sense what dragons think as well. It later lets her see what Sev is going through as well. Dragons in turn communicate partly by telepathy themselves, and can bond to humans doing so. People can talk by telepathy over vast distances.
  • The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries: Sookie views her telepathy as a curse and usually tries hard to block out other people's thoughts.
  • Star Holmes in Mark Clifton's novella Star Bright has an IQ in the quadruple digits and is strongly telepathic. She makes contact with another child like herself, and they manipulate events so that his family moves in next door. She is even able to teach her dad some ESP.
  • Appears several times in Star Wars Legends:
    • In The Han Solo Trilogy, Glitterstim temporarily gives users this ability. Bria uses some to reveal that Teroenze, the High Priest of her religion, really is just a con artist who made the entire thing up.
    • Most Force-sensitives have some degree of telepathy, and some are able to create illusions, read and project thoughts, (of course) do a Jedi Mind Trick, create a Perception Filter, communicate with animals, etc. However, there is an interesting limitation — telepathic conversations are almost impossible, even for the most advanced Jedi and Sith. Even those who are close (either physically or emotionally) can only send a sentence or two at most, combined with images and feelings.
  • The Flame and Deca from Tales of an Mazing Girl can do this. The Latter most sensibly, To Insider Trades on the stock market to get a huge fortune.
  • In A Taste of Honey, the Ashëans, due to being Semi-Divine, are capable of communicating telepathically.
  • The telepaths in John Brunner's Telepathist covers the heroic range of this trope (split into "receptive" (able to listen) and "projective" (two-way), but most of all, it's seen as a benefit to mankind. Actually having the ability to feel and see what someone is thinking is shown to be invaluable in, say, clinical psychology or conflict negotiation. However, when a really powerful telepath succumbs to the temptation to construct a Dream Land like their patients', they can construct a grand hallucination that another telepath has to pull them out of.
  • In the Tempest (2011) trilogy, both merfolk and selkies can communicate telepathically. They can use different channels for communication, similar to radio frequencies. At first Tempest can only use the private channel she shares with Kona, but he teaches her to use a more common channel so she can communicate with his friends.
  • That Irresistible Poison: People from the planet Calluvia are all telepaths, though they have different levels of telepathic power.
  • In the Thousand Sons novels, the titular Evil Sorcerers all spend more time communicating with each other telepathically than they do with their actual voices. They can also use their telepathy to invade other people's minds and brainwash them, as Sanakht does to Hemellion in Ahriman: Sorcerer.
  • In The Twilight Saga, Edward can read people's minds, though for some reason cannot read Bella's. Shapeshifters in the same pack can read each other's thoughts while in wolf form; Alphas of different packs can communicate mentally but not read each other's minds.
  • In the Uplift series, Galactics have several technologies to enhance telepathy and use it primarily to detect sapient minds at great distances or last resort communications (the psionic equivalent of a distress beacon is called a "psi-bomb" for a reason).
  • Avery Lazar and Oksana from Vampire Academy can read minds.
  • "The Watery Place": Subtly implied by one of the aliens saying that they can see "in [his] mind" that the sheriff really wanted them to leave. Obviously not very good telepathy, because then they'd know he thought they were merely humans giving him grief.
  • Dolphins in Wet Goddess are capable of this. Human minds are mostly unfit for telepathy, unless they're stoned.
  • Date Bed from The White Bone is a mind talker. She can read the minds of other elephants, as well as communicate telepathically with most other species.
  • In The Witchlands, Esme can read Iseult's mind, regardless of whether the latter agrees to it.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Alien Nation: "Body and Soul" shows that Binnaum, the Newcomer catalyst third sex, can sense other Newcomers' thoughts.
  • Babylon 5 has one of the most fleshed-out portrayals of telepaths in fiction, even showing how different cultures treat their telepaths. The creator, J. Michael Straczynski, drew heavily from Alfred Bester's novel The Demolished Man, particularly for writing the Psi Corps.
    The Corps is Mother. The Corps is Father.
  • The Auronar in Blake's 7 are a race of telepaths. Cally, a member of Blake's crew, was exiled from Auron and is therefore isolated from other telepaths — all alone. Cally can be heard by other people (although reception varies) but cannot read minds. She does, however, act as an Evil Detector.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In the episode "Earshot", Buffy is exposed to some Applied Phlebotinum and gains the power of passive telepathy, which becomes progressively more powerful during the episode. Eventually, the power becomes so advanced that she is overwhelmed by the incessant stream of thoughts and needs some more Applied Phlebotinum to get better.
    • Throughout Season 6, Willow shows the ability to communicate telepathically with the people around her at will. She can give messages to others, who "hear" her voice in their heads. She can also read people's "surface thoughts," though most of the Scoobies prefer to speak aloud when communicating with her telepathically.
    • Season 7's "Showtime" shows that the main Scooby trio is apparently able to initiate contact even if Willow isn't actively using the ability, as Buffy begins a telepathic conversation with Willow, who promptly brings Xander in as well in order to formulate an Unspoken Plan Guarantee.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Doctor (from Eight onwards anyway) has a mild version of this. It mostly consists of being able to access other people's minds and memories upon contact, transfer images/sensations on a level which only he is aware of from his mind to someone else's, and weirdly enough, what seems to be a mental version of the Cooldown Hug.
      • This is actually present in ALL Time Lords. It's a trait of the species, as witnessed by the Master all the way back to the Third Doctor, and mentioned specifically by the Fourth Doctor in "The Deadly Assassin".
    • The TARDIS is also telepathic; she most notably uses the power to translate for the Doctor and companions. However, she can directly communicate with them, although a human may need to look into her heart.
    • The Eternals could use telepathy and create objects from the memories of Ephemerals, but their powers were not limitless and they could not read minds from great distance or from strong minds (though adrenaline from the mind they're accessing helps greatly).
    • The Sensorites communicate with each-other this way if they're not close to each other.
    • The Face of Boe primarily communicates with his mind. When his lips eventually move to form real vocalised speech in "Gridlock", it's a big deal.
    • The Family of Blood are able to communicate with each other this way, indicated by a green glow on their faces.
    • In "Last Christmas", this is the only way the Dream Crabs can sense the world around them, literally homing in on the image of themselves in their prey's mind.
  • Farscape:
    • Members of the Scarrans' ruling caste all have a certain degree of telepathic power; most of them use it for forcing their captives to tell the truth while under their influence of their heat projection, though a few have used it to read the surface thoughts of others.
    • The Skreeth assassin, who can telepathically speak through anyone wearing its bio-organic reciever (even over thousands of light years away) and read minds by touch.
    • Don't forget Zhaan's traditional Delvian mysticism, which lends itself to the occasional Mind Meld.
    • And of course, there's Maldis, the vampiric Evil Sorcerer, who knew all the details of John Crichton's life without being told. As he said once "Your mind is an open book. Big print and lots of pictures!"
  • In Fate: The Winx Saga, Farah Dowling is able to see memories and tried to use this ability on Beatrix.
  • In Firefly, River possesses one-way telepathic abilities, being able to read minds. However, she has the inability to control this, the thoughts she picks up are far from coherent or clear, and they are not conducive to sanity. It doesn't help that she's a traumatized wreck thanks to her experiences at the Academy.
  • In the Gilligan's Island episode "Seer Gilligan", the titular character comes across some seeds that have telepathic powers, but before long, the castaways' abilities to read each other minds causes more bickering than they've ever done before. Luckily, the effect is only temporary, and when Gilligan decides to burn the remainder, the Professor and Skipper applaud him for doing so.
  • Matt Parkman of Heroes is unusual as being a telepath who isn't inordinately brainy. His power is actually "full control over the brain", meaning, in effect, every single power in the Mind Manipulation index. Superpower Lottery to the max. Telepathy happens to be his earliest discovered ability and the most prominently featured.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): All vampires can read the thoughts of humans and their own kind (with the exception of their own maker and fledglings). It's an extension of their Super-Hearing, as explained by Lestat de Lioncourt when he teaches Louis de Pointe du Lac how to access this power.
    Lestat: I want you to peel away every sound until you find his heartbeat. Now hold the heartbeat. You hear his lungs leaking and flooding air? His mind is just another bodily sound.
  • Legend of the Seeker: Renn, a young boy, has an ability to read people's minds. In the series' world he's called a "Listener" because of this.
  • Downplayed in The Listener, when in one episode the protagonist just neglects to listen to the thoughts of the murderer, who stands over the dead body a few hours after the murder. Instead he gleans a thought from someone else in the room, so the episode doesn't end there and then.
  • Merlin (2008): Mordred has contacted several characters — including Merlin and Morgana — with his thoughts.
  • Downplayed in No Ordinary Family. The mind-reading character never seems to get the whole picture. She only reads people's minds at a few moments here and there, hearing not their full stream of thought, but a few relevant (and incomplete) thoughts.
  • The Outer Limits (1995):
    • In "What Will The Neighbors Think?" Mona gains this ability due to being accidentally electrocuted. She uses it to read her neighbors' minds and manipulate them to do things she wants.
    • In "Stranded", the shapeshifter Tyr'Nar has telepathic powers. This allows him to read Kevin Buchanan's mind and assume the form of the US Air Force captain on the box which one of Kevin's many model planes came in. He later poses as Cindy Parker after reading Brad's mind. After he kills Kevin's father Alex, his telepathy allows him to impersonate him full-time.
    • In "Better Luck Next Time", the Energy Beings in Gerard and Kimble's bodies are able to share their memories with Detectives Terry Russo and Frank Daniels telepathically.
  • The verse of Pandora has telepathy of some sort, but the only example we've seen as of two episodes in is really more of an Empath because he inherited his abilities from his father only, not both parents, so he's only got half-strength powers.
  • Power Rangers:
  • The justification for the Confession Cam segments on the kids' game show Raven is the titular character having this ability thanks to a device called the Raven's Eye.
  • Clark gained this ability for one episode of Smallville.
  • In one scene of Soap, Chuck and Bob show off Bob's telepathic abilities.
  • Stargate Atlantis: The higher castes of the vampiric Wraith have telepathic abilities, used mostly to control the far less intelligent Wraith soldiers, though Queens are strong enough to control humans as well. They were also able to project illusions in the pilot, but this trait was quickly removed.
  • Stargirl (2020): Brainwave can read people's minds, or communicate to theirs.
  • Star Trek has several telepathic species, including Vulcans, Betazoids and Ocampa.
    • In the first Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Man Trap", the Salt Vampire creature can read the memories of human beings well enough that it can shapechange into the form of someone the human remembers and pretend to be that person.
    • The Melkotians in "Spectre of the Gun" are described by Spock as true telepaths for their ability to speak directly into the minds of the Enterprise crew, each of them hearing the message in his or her own language, and for the realistic illusions they project.
    • The mating of Betazoid telepath Lwaxana Troi and a non-telepathic human results in their child, Counsellor Deanna Troi, being The Empath.
  • Supernatural: Not an uncommon power among supernatural beings and species. Missouri and Oliver are mediums who are able to read thoughts. Djinn can read their victims minds knowing their greatest desires and fears, and qarin use this in order to transform into whoever the victim finds most desirable.
  • Sookie Stackhouse, the central character of True Blood, is a telepath. She also meets another telepath, a character named Barry Horowitz.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In "To Serve Man", the Kanamits' means of communication is mental rather than verbal. As such, the voice that humans hear when speaking with Kanamits is "totally mechanical."
    • This is the main conceit of "Mute". Humanity communicated concepts this way before language came about, rather than with miscellaneous mundane sounds and gestures. Speech largely overwrites it, but with severe training, telepathy can be learned like any other language or talent. Interestingly, the talent also provides the ability to see things remotely, such as when Ilse remotely scans the wreckage of her home.
  • The Twilight Zone (2019): In "Meet in the Middle", Phil and Annie's minds are linked, with both of them being able to hear each other's thoughts. However, they have to intend for this and specifically think of the other person.
  • In the Two Up, Two Down episode, "I Know What You're Thinking", a visitor from America, Hoover, shows off his telepathic powers to Jimmy, Flo, Stan, and Sheila, which leads Stan to decide that he and Sheila need to stop being so ordinary all the time.

    Radio 
  • Journey into Space: In The Red Planet, the six-legged Martian giant beetle-like creature (which John and Martha Bodie believe to be their dog Bob) is telepathic.

    Roleplay 
  • Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
    • Zia's superpower is telepathy that's directly inspired by Charles Xavier. She can also manipulate and paralyze people's minds, but her telepathy is her most prominent power- not only does it have the longest range (that being fifteen miles), she also can't turn it off.
    • Jenna has a low-level version of telepathy to justify how other people can understand her after she's been turned into a swarm of insects. She physically projects her speech for those around her to hear. Unfortunately, this does mean that Edward, who is immune to psychic powers, can't hear her at all.
  • In The Gamer's Alliance, several mages are capable of telepathy although the recipient can always resist a mage accessing his or her mind with enough willpower.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Games Workshop games:
    • In Dark Heresy, psykers can have a range of these powers, from simple telepathy, through mind control, to full blown mind rape.
    • In Warhammer 40,000, the Librarians of the Dark Angels and their successors have developed their own unique form of telepathy, known as Interomancy. Intended to assist with the interrogation of the Fallen, this sinister mental discipline sees a Librarian insidiously invade their victim's mind to weaken their psyche, manipulate their fears and exploit the gaps opened in their mental defences. In all the versions of the game where the discipline is included, the Psychic Powers available to those proficient in Interomancy focus mostly on inflict penalties to opponent's abilities in addition to, or instead of, causing direct damage.
  • Traveller deals with this in an elegant way. The Zhodani Consulate is ruled by a caste of Psi-nobles. Everywhere else psionics tends to be distrusted and severely limited. This way the PC can have widely used telepathy or not, just by being in a different part of the Traveller Universe.
  • Telepathy is a standard blue ability in Magic: The Gathering. The Telepathy card allows you to see your opponent's hand. There are many variants on the ability, usually involving revealing hidden information in some way.
  • The current page image is that of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card, 'Mind Haxorz'.note  Its effects is functionally equivalent to reading your opponent's mind, too: by paying 500 Life Points, you get to see the opponent's hand and all their face-down cards on the field.
  • In Eclipse Phase Psi-Gamma slights are all telepathy used in different applications.
  • Any Green or Purple mage in Ironclaw can communicate by thought, and Mind Reading is a common Journeyman level spell.
  • World of Synnibarr. The Aquarian race has telepathy that works on sea creatures. It allows communication as well as hypnotic control.
  • This is one of the psychic Aptitudes in Æon, covering empathy, mental communication, and mind-warping, and is most commonly associated with the Chinese-affiliated Ministry for Psionic Affairs. The free web supplement Asia Ascendant goes into in-depth exploration of what the Ministry does and how it operates.
  • Chaosium's supplement All the Worlds' Monsters Volume III
    • The Dream Beast is a telepathic plant can cause any creature looking at it to see whatever it wants most. Once the target gets close enough the Dream Beast grabs it with its 5-10 Combat Tentacles and drags it in to be eaten.
    • The Great Wraith is an undead that is naturally telepathic.
    • The Zend-Avesta is a telepathic Silicon-Based Life form that gets its energy from sunlight and looks like a spherical white globe hovering in the air.
  • Rocket Age's telepaths transmit their thoughts into others and at the highest levels can outright possess others. The ability to gain information from others is considered a simpler talent simply gained from being psychic.
  • Gamma World. Having the Telepathy mutation allows a creature to read the emotions and thoughts of other creatures and send its own thoughts to them.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: A rare ability lets monsters communicate telepathically with any creature nearby that can understand any language; this doesn't confer mind-reading abilities by default, though some creatures have that ability in addition to or instead of mental communication. Spells like Telepathic Bond also serve this purpose.
  • Hunter: The Vigil: The Ascending Ones' Mind-Talking Drug Elixir, when injected at the base of the neck, allows its recipient to "hear" the surface thoughts of other people and project his own thoughts into others' minds.
  • Vampire: The Requiem: The Discipline of Auspex lets a vampire communicate telepathically — and, unknown to mortal victims, read the minds of the people it's speaking to.

    Video Games 
  • Mint Blancmanche of Galaxy Angel, although telepathy runs in her family. She once tries to use it to see how the main character feels about the five Angels on board the Elsior. Hilarity Ensues.
  • NetHack has this as one of many obtainable abilities: when blinded in any manner, you can see the exact location of any monster on the current floor that can think.
  • In The Legend of Zelda, Link often receives telepathic messages from the quest mentor or the princess. Although it's usually through the use of a magic artifact or an item, such as the Ocarina or a magical pendant. The Call to Adventure in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is Zelda contacting Link for help telepathically at the beginning of the game.
  • In Golden Sun, most Jupiter Adepts can read minds, and Sveta can even do this to dead bodies.
  • In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy this is the only psychic power that psychic prodigy Nick does not have. His Voice with a Psychic Connection Sara does however.
  • Similar to Psi Ops, Second Sight has this as one of the two powers John doesn't unlock- the other being Deflector Shields. Oddly, the only psychic in the entire game that uses direct telepathy at any point is the remarkably ambiguous Jayne Wilde.
  • Super Mario RPG: Hitting the Action Command when using Mallow's "Psychopath" spell reveals a sentence of the affected enemy's thoughts.
  • In the The World Ends with You series, Players in the Reaper's Game have a basic function called Scanning, which allows them to read the minds of people in the RG (AKA not part of the Game). This is oftentimes used for information gathering, and an extension of this feature called "Imprinting" allows Players to use a low-functioning form of Mind Manipulation on RG people. In NEO: The World Ends with You, Fret also has access to a latent power called Recall that allows him to force all people in the RG in a certain range to remember something related to what he's "tuned" to, then use Scanning to extract information from them that way.
  • Persona:
    • In Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Kiyotada Sumaru communicates to his forces via Telepathy.
    • While it's never exactly established as such, Mitsuru and later Fuuka must use some form of telepathy in Persona 3 to communicate with the protagonist and his party while in Tartarus, considering the fact that electronic devices don't work during the Dark Hour. More confusion is caused by the fact that such communications are displayed as electronic communications, complete with static, even though it's been stated that that's impossible.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis is such a powerful telepath, he can read your memory card. Oh, and he can also do mind control and read your controller.
  • Pokémon has a move, Mind Reader, that allows the user to make sure that the next hit does not miss.
    • A lot of Pokémon (usually Psychic types, though sometimes Ghost or legendary or just special) can communicate telepathically, and some can read thoughts and emotions.
    • Telepathy is also an ability certain Pokemon can have. If an ally in a Double/Triple battle is about to use a move that could hit it, like Earthquake, instead it will dodge the move.
  • Touhou Project:
  • Powerful magic users in the Warcraft franchise are capable of this.
  • Razputin in Psychonauts has mild telepathic abilities. They generally only come into play when his Love Interest is thinking about him, to her embarrassment. Though she does eventually have some fun with it:
    Lili: (thinking) When are you going to shut up and kiss me?
    Raz: Ummm... I can hear that, you know.
    Lili: (flirtatiously) I know...
  • The Terran units called Ghosts in StarCraft have this ability, as Kerrigan (who is a Ghost herself) mentions in the first game's campaign mode.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • The long-extinct Dwemer were said to have an ability known as "The Calling" which allowed them a "silent and magickal" means of communicating with one another, even over vast distances.
    • The Psijic Order, a powerful Magical Society and the oldest monastic order in Tamriel, is stated to have this ability as well, though due to their secretive nature, aren't keen on sharing the secret of how it is done. They also possess a number of other abilities unmatched by any other extant group in Tamriel, including Astral Projection, the ability to Freeze Time, and even a limited form of clairvoyance and sight into future events.
  • Mother:
    • EarthBound Beginnings: Telepathy is one of Ninten and Ana's PSI powers. It's used outside of battle to enter the Dream Land of Magicant, to read the minds of important NPCs in order to solve riddles, and once to unlock the power of Teleport for the party. It's also likely the reason why Ninten can "speak" to and understand certain animals.
    • EarthBound (1994): Paula, while being held prisoner by the Happy-Happy Cultists, telepathically contacts Ness in the hopes that he will and come rescue her, and she uses it again to contact Jeff when she and Ness are trapped underneath Threed. These uses are story-only, as unlike the prequel, the "Telepathy" command does not show up in-menu. Though much like his predecessor Ninten, this is likely how Ness can understand animals. Paula gets to really flex her telepathic muscle during the final battle against Giygas, showing that space, time, and even dimensions aren't barriers for her to communicate with the other cast members and the player in order to defeat Giygas.
  • In Nioh, Big Bad Edward Kelley usually speaks in English since he's not fluent in Japanese. When he wants to communicate with Japanese people, he uses telepathy, which is somehow translated into Japanese for them.
  • Religious Idle: Telepathy is the ultimate propaganda upgrade, allowing you to convert almost anyone on the planet to your religion.
  • Akira during the "Near Future" chapter of Live A Live has this as an overworld ability by pressing Y next to an NPC, which either gives funny dialogue or advances the plot. This is also how Matsu near the verge of death confesses to Akira that he was the one who killed his father.

    Visual Novels 
  • Kotori Shirakawa in the Da Capo Dating Sim / anime. It stems from a childhood wish to be able to understand the people around her after her sudden adoption. She is devastated when depowered near the end and retreats back into the Stepford Smiler mask she wore before she got her powers.
  • In the Murder Mystery Visual Novel Jisei, a voice that only the protagonist can hear tries to help the main character with his investigation. She is able to transmit her thoughts into his mind and read his thoughts.
  • In the Muv-Luv franchise, the Alternative timeline developed human psychics as one of numerous failed attempts to communicate with the BETA. The psychics can, at best, get brief images out of other people's memories, and interpret emotions as colors. Yashiro (one of the strongest telepaths ever born) cautions Takeru during Alternative that he should never assume that telepathy is any easier than just talking to someone else: it can help, sure, but a lot of what a telepath senses lacks context and it is very easy to draw false conclusions from it.

    Webcomics 
  • In Project 0, Ciro uses telepathy to broadcast a Badass Boast to an entire enemy battleship just before it explodes.
  • In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, the 'cubi have thought hearing as an innate ability, which starts to manifest in their twenties, along with empathy, etc. Actual mind reading and dream entering are advanced techniques which have to be learned.
  • Blue destiny is the empath of the M9 Girls!, but she can stablish basic telepathy links with the people she is close to, in particular, the other M9 Girls.
  • In Sluggy Freelance all the Lysinda circle vampires have this ability, though Sam rarely seems to use it. For example, when Valerie threatens to kill Zoe after the latter is made a vampire(since Valerie hates Zoe), Zoe thinks that Valerie has "vampire PMS," and Valerie reminds her that vampires can read thoughts. Zoe has a lowkey mental Oh, Crap! reaction, and Valerie agrees with her.
  • The FreakAngels make heavy use of their telepathic abilities, both to communicate quickly and easily, and to absorb knowledge on their areas of specialty.
  • In Juathuur, sometimes juathuurs communicate with each other this way. Both participants must be willing.
  • In Sarilho, reading the thoughts/memories of everyone next to it is thing the Foreigner does when it awakes.
  • The Loroi of Outsider have a variety of psychic abilities, mind talking being among them.
  • In Think Before You Think, Brian has the ability to read minds.
  • A technological equivalent appears as a plot point in Freefall. All of the robots on the planet share information via that planet's equivalent of the internet using built-in radios. This is functionally a type of telepathy as it's virtually instantaneous. Overlaps somewhat with Hive Mind although each robot is actually an independent entity.
  • Asia and Malloy from morphE are Mastigoes mages with mind reading and telepathic abilities.
  • Magick Chicks: This is one, among many, of Faith's abilities as an esper. Which she's used to relay orders to other members of the student council, or to mind-sext Tiffany.
  • Monsters in Pebble and Wren can communicate telepathically with people they know well. Humans can also learn to communicate telepathically with monsters.
  • In El Goonish Shive, the "whale" communicates entirely telepathically at a highly accelerated rate compared to speech which gives those it talks to a nasty headache or worse depending on the length of the conversation.
  • What If I Know Too Many Reasons I Can Be Strong?: The final chapter reveals that Tanjiro's demonic transformation has given him the ability to read not only the minds but also the forgotten memories of demons. This explains why he could taunt his enemies about their former human lives.
  • Mob Psycho 100: Daichi and Kaito share telepathic abilities. At first, they just have Twin Telepathy, but thanks to Teruki they learn how to mind-read others as well. That said, they can't really send their thoughts to anyone else, as it just sounds like an annoying ringing in their ears.
  • Sleepless Domain: Vedika's power as the Magical Girl Mindful Eye grants her a weak form of telepathy, allowing her to form a Psychic Link with others that lets them transmit simple thoughts back and forth over long distances. If she makes physical contact with another girl while transformed, they can temporarily experience each other's thoughts directly, though Vedika tries to avoid this when possible. She is rather self-concious about her powers — they're effectively useless for combat, and her ability to read minds can put some people off, in spite of her being among the least likely people to abuse it. Still, her powers do turn out to have uses, such as volunteering at a nearby hospital and mediating conflicts between her friends.

    Web Original 
  • Ketrin features telepathic lupinoids, resembling big wolves with stripes, that communicate telepathically. Humans can also gain telepathy, either by suckling lupinoid milk in infancy as Wild Children, or by a telepath mingling blood from a cut with a non-telepath. In theory it would be possible for a human to gain telepathy directly from a lupinoid's blood, but needless to say they're reluctant to part with it.
  • In New Vindicators, two characters have the power of mental duplication, to be able to copy another's mind. One is a criminal mastermind called Bookworm, the other is a Nephilim teacher at the European school.
  • Everyone in Mind Hall from Raising Angels are some form of telepath, empath or weirder.
  • SCP Foundation:
    • SCP-041 ("Thought Broadcasting Patient"). SCP-041 is a man who can read the mind of anyone within ten meters of him. He can also transmit thoughts (his or those of a person he reads) to anyone within that range.
    • SCP-071 ("Degenerative Metamorphic Entity"). SCP-071 can read the mind of any person watching it to find out the person's sexual preference.
    • SCP-157 ("Mimetic Predator"). SCP-157 uses telepathy to project an illusion that it is something the target would want to eat, wear, or apply to its body.
    • SCP-395 ("The Bottle Baby"). Any human female within 5 meters of SCP-395 is put under its telepathic control. She will begin to lactate, remove SCP-395 from its People Jar and allow it to suckle from her.
    • SCP-405 ("Telepathy Virus"). A person affected by SCP-405 will be able to hear the thoughts of any other human within a specific radius, ranging from 200 meters to several kilometers away.
    • SCP-523 ("The Most Unhelpful Object On Earth"). SCP-523 continuously gives off a low-frequency telepathic signal that is heard as a "a dull ringing sound" by anyone capable of perceiving telepathic communications.
    • SCP-507 ("The Reluctant Dimension Hopper"). Document 507-3B is a list of the Alternate Universes SCP-507 has been to while in Foundation custody. In universe 9E2-66V-7HG5 he encountered plants that gave off a "telepathic scream" when eaten.
    • SCP-600 ("That Guy"). The illusions that SCP-600 creates are sent telepathically into the minds of the people observing it. It can also read the memories of anyone talking to it and use the information while communicating with them.
    • SCP-699 ("Mystery Box"). The Foundation has concluded that the contents of SCP-699 are telepathic because it can apparently influence the minds of observers and have them see the contents of the box differently. Some see the contents as Your Heart's Desire, some see it as something dangerous, and two Doctors can see nothing at all in it.
    • SCP-953 ("Polymorphic Humanoid"). SCP-953 uses its telepathic ability to find out what its opponents' loved ones look like. It then uses its Voluntary Shapeshifting ability to take the form of one of the loved ones.
    • SCP-1293 ("Squeedle Deedle Dee!"). Every 45 days, SCP-1293-B gather together and perform a dance routine. The Foundation believes that the precise coordination they display is achieved due to them being telepathic.
    • SCP-1421 ("The Unreliable Oracle"). SCP-1421 can mentally communicate with and read the minds (and memories) of people nearby.
    • SCP-1457 ("Mourning Cloak"). SCP-1457 can read a person's memories and transfer them to another person.
    • SCP-1514 ("Star Wars"). SCP-1514-1A broadcasts a daily telepathic signal to the nearest SCP-1514-2 (laser Kill Sat).
    • SCP-1527 ("Our Bellmaker, Our Radiant Skies"). The large crustaceans summoned by the Bell have a kind of telepathy that can be disrupted by radio jamming. They can use it to telepathically attack human beings at a range of up to 50 meters and cause effects such as confusion, inducing suggestibility, implanting compulsions and leaving messages in their minds.
    • SCP-1547 ("A Mother's Love"). Whenever a living creature comes within 5 meters of SCP-1547-B, SCP-1547-B will transmit a telepathic message to it. The message is the story of how the deity Chioll became determined to stop humans from polluting the Earth.
    • SCP-1867 ("A Gentleman"). Lord Blackwood is a sea slug that can communicate telepathically with anyone within 5 meters of it.
    • SCP-2018 ("Museum of You"). The spirit of the Museum can read the thoughts and memories of anyone who enters it.
    • SCP-2051 ("Stromatolite Habitat"). After being transformed into Body Horrors by SCP-2051, people gain the ability to broadcast their thoughts telepathically up to 4 meters away. The transmissions indicate extreme distress from sensory deprivation, then depression and catatonia.
    • SCP-2422 ("A Friendly Family"). Each member of SCP-2422 can use telepathy to read a person's mind and find out specific information when the person makes eye contact with them.
      • SCP-2422-A can determine how intelligent the person is on a scale of 0-35, with 22 being the average. This corresponds to the standard IQ scale.
      • SCP-2422-B can learn what the person has been doing for the last 22 hours, including where they've been.
      • SCP-2422-C will share the person's emotional state. If the contact continues, it will experience the person's emotional states (up to the last 22 hours) in reverse chronological order.
      • After having a long conversation with a person on a specific subject, SCP-2422-D will know how the person really feels about the subject.
    • SCP-2525 ("Extraterrestrial Broadcaster"). The original SCP-2525 (currently SCP-2525-N) was an alien creature that could communicate with human beings using telepathy.
    • SCP-2592 ("Milk and Bananas"). SCP-2592 can use telepathy in the following ways.
      • Detect the presence of human beings within 5 meters.
      • Transmit hallucinations of the beach near its old home and the sound of ocean surf to all humans within ten meters.
      • When frightened or startled, induce intense fear or pain in nearby human beings. Prolonged exposure can cause neurological trauma.
    • SCP-2606 ("Verminous Vessel"). SCP-2606 is a drinking glass made from polished amber. If any body part of a creature generally considered to be "vermin" is put in SCP-2606 and a human being consumes the body part, the person gains the ability to read the mind of all examples of that creature within ten meters.
    • SCP-2610 ("Procreation"). SCP-2610-A (Simeon Avakian) has the ability to mentally reach out and see the images and impulses in other people's minds.
    • SCP-2663 ("Dionysus"). SCP-2663 can use telepathy to communicate with anyone within 10 meters.
    • SCP-2750 ("Navajo Skinwalkers"). According to the Navajo, an SCP-2750 knows whatever a man is pondering (i.e. reads his thoughts).
    • SCP-2757 ("Dr. Wondertainment's Projector Fantasticoâ„¢"). When the SCP-2757 projector is used with the film SCP-2757-1e The Valiant Crusaders, one of the powers gained by the experimental subjects is telepathy.
    • SCP-2764 ("The Eldritch Antarctic"). SCP-2764 is a gigantic Eldritch Abomination found in the Antarctic. It can use telepathy to send messages to other creatures up to tens of kilometers away, but apparently cannot receive replies. It communicates in the native language of the creature it's speaking to.
    • SCP-2777 ("He Who Would Be King"). SCP-2777-1 is an alien entity that looks like a human child. It exists inside SCP-2777, a 36 kilometer long spaceship. It is capable of communicating telepathically with anyone inside SCP-2777, and in at least one case, people who were outside it.
    • SCP-2791 ("Fauste Bank plc"). SCP-2791 is specifically not allowed to grant the power of telepathy as part of their Deal with the Devil.
    • SCP-2870 ("General Malaise"). SCP-2870 is an anomalous version of the common cold virus that causes nasal mucus to become sapient and telepathic. The mucus can mentally communicate only with its host body.
    • SCP-2922 ("Notes From the Under"). SCP-2922 is a memetic procedure that can be implanted in a human being's mind. It allows them to telepathically call a specific phone number.
  • Lilly from These days, gains this ability, although it's unreliable and seems to activate on its own, much to her chagrin.
  • This is common enough in the Whateley Universe that Whateley Academy has an entire Psychic Arts Department. Telepaths are required to learn the ethics of telepathy and pass the ethics test afterward. Some telepaths, like Don Sebastiano, don't follow the rules.

    Western Animation 
  • Big City Greens: Tilly and Andromeda try to develop this power in "Sleepover Sisters".
  • Delta State: This is Martin's signature ability amongst his other psychic friends.
  • In one episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter uses one of his machines to give himself telepathy, but instead the machine causes everybody to hear his thoughts instead. Soon, he has to endure the ire of the people he's irritated thanks to thoughts spilling out.
  • The Fairly OddParents!: In "Mind Over Magic", Timmy wishes for this power so he can hear what's on his friends' minds. Mr. Crocker takes advantage of his power and forces him to hear the thoughts of so many children it gives him a headache.
  • Jamie's Got Tentacles!: Jamie first reads a mind in "Girls Are From Mars and Boys Belong on the Moon". It seems that he reads minds with little to no effort. He can also send messages with his mind, as shown first in "Artificial Intelligence".
  • Justice League: Amazo develops this power during the time he spends traveling through the universe and uses as such when he arrives back on Earth to hunt for Luthor in "The Return".
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends:
    • In "The Golden Horseshoes, Part 2", one of the magic horseshoes allows its wielders to hear the thoughts of other beings as if they were spoken aloud. The goblins use it to find where the ponies are hiding by listening to their thinking, but also get in constant fights when they overhear each other's mental comments.
    • Ribbon is telepathic, and can also send dream messages.
  • The Owl House: Odalia Blight can use the jewel in the necklace she wears to send mental messages to the jewel in Amity's necklace and tell her what she wants her to do.
  • Phantom Investigators: Kira has telepathy as her power, as did Daemona's grandmother.
  • Ready Jet Go!:
  • The Simpsons: A common fan theory is that Bart has this ability, going off his attempt to contact Homer this way in "Brother From the Same Planet" (which only succeeds in reaching Milhouse), the gag in "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" in which he apparently reads Skinner's and Homer's thoughts, and several memorable incidents of Imagine Spotting (and a similar joke involving his sons in a Flash Forward episode). Notably, he plays the role of Danny Torrance in "Treehouse of Horror V"'s Whole-Plot Reference to The Shining.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks: The Anabaj can read other people's thoughts.
  • Steven Universe: Steven is revealed to have this as a unique power even his mother Rose Quartz didn't have. He can project his consciousness into the Watermelon Stevens, enter the dreams of others, detect the emotions of others, and even project into other's minds as he uses in the end to stop the Cluster from destroying the Earth.
  • Teen Titans (2003): Aqualad claims to have telepathy, but he has yet to use it on anyone who isn't a sea creature.
  • Todd McFarlane's Spawn: When Clown transforms into his true demonic form Violator, he communicates with Spawn through telepathy (with a different voice actor to boot). This leads to a disturbing contrast between the drooling and gurgling noises he's making physically and his almost eloquent Softspoken Sadist telepathic speech.
  • Transformers: Prime: Unicron to a limited degree. In Predacons Rising, he reads an unconscious Predaking's mind to find the location of a mass grave filled with dead Predacons.
  • W.I.T.C.H.: Taranee Cook can read the minds of her fellow guardians and talk to them through their minds.

    Real Life 
  • Language — speech and writing, in particular. (Note that this form is much less reliable than most of the fictional ones.)
  • Early psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung believed that telepathy was an atropied sense in humans, based on the seeming mind-reading abilities of animals and what they thought were personal experience of telepathic dreams.
  • Rodent Mind Meld. Scientists have successfully found a way to link one lab rat's mind to another. What is basically an electronic form of telepathy, experiments found that one rat's mind can communicate with another rat from halfway across the world when both of them are hooked up to the same electronic device. One rat is provided with a problem, and the other knows the solution and tells it to the other. Both of them usually act in tandem, both flipping a switch at the same time or what-have-you.


Okay, that should do it. Hmm, why do I have that feeling that I'm Being Watched?


Alternative Title(s): Mind Reading, Telepath

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Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary can communicate with those she has sired.

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