History NightmareFuel / Psychonauts

* The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example of nightmare fuel in this game, of course, would be the final mental level, the [[CircusOfFear Meat Circus]], perhaps one of the least comedic examples of LevelAte ever put on a video game. It's particularly jarring since of the game has been creepy at times, but not overtly horrifying, but then the final level is like a cartoon-y ''Franchise/SilentHill'' world of traumas come to life.

* Just being a Psychonaut is nightmare fuel in itself. A Psychonaut is a psychic soldier/secret agent tasked with infiltrating minds and experiencing the darkest aspects of the human subconscious. It's essentially a AMindIsATerribleThingToRead UpToEleven where the user must go into the minds of others to uncover secrets and risk being killed or destroyed in the process. Best emphasized by Oleander in the intro video:

* Remember Raz and his family's curse to die in water? How the water forms a hand that drags him down under if he gets in too deep? [[FridgeHorror Do you know what makes up most of a human being?]] Even though that amount clearly isn't enough to do any amount of harm to him, just the thought of ''most of your body wanting to kill you'' can un-nerve.
** This extends inside ''the minds of other people''. Even if they ''don't know'' that Raz is cursed to die should he go near water. Even if it's just a ''painting'' of water. What's more, this sort of curse seems to be rare enough that even a trained Psychonaut like Milla has no idea of how this is happening. Which is ''concerning'' to say the least.
** This crosses into FridgeHorror when Raz says that the Galochio that cursed his family was a psychic. So the curse was designed in such a way that even in the mental world, his family wouldn't be safe.

* The "secret room" in Milla's mind. Her backstory, on top of being a colossal TearJerker, is AdultFear to an absolutely nightmarish level, and that terrible, ''terrible'' place is the representation of it.

** ''[[TearJerker IT'S HOT, MILLA,]]'' '''''[[AdultFear IT'S BURNING]]'''''...

*** Which is AdultFear in and of itself. The only known witness was too little too late to save anyone because of a simple mistake at first glance.

** The Bunny Demons. Mangled, warped [[AnimalisticAbomination Animalistic Abominations]] coming out of meat grinders just randomly placed around the main tent. BodyHorror doesn't ''begin'' to describe these atrocities, whose eyes are on their ''hands'' and whose bodies are skinned thin and distorted so badly that they only ''barely'' look like rabbits anymore. It doesn't help that these things are ''fast'' for something so big, capable of ganging up on Raz or Lil' Oly for a load of damage in short time, making the escort mission at the main tent all the harder because of it.

** To add to this, Edgar's situation Mirrors Boyd's. The difference is while Byod has a new personality forced on him and is trying to get rid of it as it enflames his paranoia, Edgars split personality is natural Rage enflamed from repression of the truth for a lot of his life. It makes you wonder what would happen if Odio was destroyed by Dingo and be horrified that you just contributed to that in the first leg of the fight.

*** The level of [[PoorCommunicationKills misunderstanding]] between Raz and Augustus is... Not great. At one point, Raz outright states he has ''no idea'' if his own father wants to kill him or not.

*** Milla also states that she is the one warding the nightmares off, and says that otherwise they would [[FateWorseThanDeath take Raz to a "world full of pain" if she hadn't.]]

* There's something... fairly unnerving about ''Raz'' being one of the people that sneeze out their brains. Nearly every character eventually does, and for all of those times it's pretty scary too, (the blank stares, the stumbling and "TV...") but seeing Raz like this is... Turn-away-from-screen-able. It seems off.

** This extends inside ''the minds of other people.'' Even if they ''don't know'' that Raz is cursed to die should he go near water. Even if it's just a ''painting'' of water. What's more, this sort of curse seems to be rare enough that even a trained Psychonaut like Milla has no idea of how this is happening. Which is ''concerning'' to say the least.

''Psychonauts'' is mostly fun and humorous, but [[NightmareFuel some things in it are quite disturbing.]] Especially since it revolves around facing and defeating personal demons.

** And the boss of Black Velvetopia, [[ALoadofBull El Odio]], just makes things even worse. He's a giant, neon pink bull that is constantly rampaging through the streets of the city while you collect the four queen cards Edgar needs to complete his tower to the sun, and will drag you along with him if you're unfortunate enough to be in the main road when he shows up. And to add icing to the freaky-cake, El Odio is actually Edgar, transformed into a bull by his own rage and hatred towards Lana and Dean, his ex-girlfriend and the guy she dumped him for, who take the forms of Lampita Pasionado and Dingo Inflagrante in his mind. The effect is lessened slightly when El Odio is revealed to be a BaitAndSwitchBoss, but it's pretty jarring having to protect the thing from the real boss, Dingo. Who happens to be a matador. Yeah.

* If you try to take [[WhiteDwarfStarlet Gloria's]] award statue before you've finished her level, she'll yell ''"You're supposed to be DEAD!!"'' and lunge for Raz. It's implied this is because she's hallucinating you as her estranged mother who committed suicide, but you won't know that unless you've already been in her mind and unlocked her memories, so it makes it seem like Raz actually stumbled upon a genuinely dangerous mental patient.

** Just when it seems the two nightmarish fathers have been defeated for good, they rase from the grinder and clog it with more meat, now fused together into a creature that BodyHorror can only describe so much of. The "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Two-Headed Dad Monster]]" is a manifestation so horrifying, it ''actively opposes'' the idea of detangling Oleander and Raz' minds, laughing at the prospect of causing more misery to both. It also just looks so '''''wrong''''', its body so mismatched that it looks like a Cubist painting made flesh-and-blood in all the worst possible aspects, with only the fathers' heads relatively intact on its mutilated, sewn-together body.

* While it's one of the funniest levels in the game, The Milkman Conspiracy has its dark underbelly. It's not just the falsely bright and physics-defying overworld wearing on the nerves, the hinge-jawed watchers, sword-swallowing hedge trimmers, and getting pulled not once, but twice into a hellish underworld to fight with dark, horned Nightmares that vomit chunks of their former victims, then turn to glass and shatter. While silly at first, the paranoia permeating the level eventually warps the player's thoughts just a little bit towards Boyd's mindset. When you start looking over your shoulder for walking mailboxes, it's a good idea to turn off the console and have a little lie-down.
** This is how Boyd sees a regular neighborhood.

* Crysal and Clem, the two peppy "cheerleader" campers, casually discussing their [[DrivenToSuicide various suicide attempts]].

* The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example, of course, would be the Meat Circus level. MixAndMatchCritters coming out of meat grinders, freaky ghost-things appearing on the walls and wailing Raz's name, a race against rising water which, if you get anywhere near it, ''drags you in'', AdultFear galore in the form of ''two'' characters' crippling ParentalIssues, and, as a FinalBoss, a giant, evil, Frankensteinian abomination that comes out of a meat grinder after the already-upsetting manifestations of said ParentalIssues get thrown in. It's particularly jarring since of the game has been creepy at times, but not overtly horrifying, then the final level is like a cartoon-y ''Franchise/SilentHill'' world of traumas come to life.
** Holy crap, ''the Butcher''. Even pre-meat grinding, that creature was hair-raising...
** The Butcher is ''scary enough'', but when he hits the ground with his axe, look at the ground, ''it's bleeding''. It doesn't help that he sees you as a slab of meat if you use Clairvoyance.
** Though the face in the walls wailing Raz's name becomes somewhat less creepy once you find out who it is.

* While it's one of the funniest levels in the game, The Milkman Conspiracy has its dark underbelly. It's not just the falsely bright and physics-defying overworld wearing on the nerves, the hinge-jawed watchers, sword-swallowing hedge trimmers, and getting pulled not once, but twice into a nightmare world to fight with dark, gas-masked figures that vomit chunks of their former victims, then turn to glass and shatter. While silly at first, the paranoia permeating the level eventually warps the player's thoughts just a little bit towards Boyd's mindset. When you start looking over your shoulder for walking mailboxes, it's a good idea to turn off the console and have a little lie-down.
** You know what else is scary about that level? A GIRL SCOUT EXPLODES A SUICIDE BOMB. Seriously. She's only a thought, and is [[GirlScoutsAreEvil evil]], but still...
** The fact that this is how Boyd sees a regular neighborhood.
** Use Telekinesis on a girl scout and she'll say something to the effect of, "Put me down or I'll scream for the police!". And considering that this is Boyd's actual mind, which would include memories, it is possible that he actually heard that before.

* If you try to take [[WhiteDwarfStarlet Gloria's]] award statue before you've finished her level, she'll yell ''"You're supposed to be DEAD!!"'' and lunge for Raz. It's implied it's because she's hallucinating you as her estranged mother who committed suicide, but you won't know that unless you've already been in her mind and unlocked her memories, so it makes it seem like Raz actually stumbled upon a genuinely dangerous mental patient.

** ''Psychic'' dangerous wild animals. Imagine, you're just exploring the area, when you stumble across a bear for the first time. And it then proceeds to ''use Telekinesis on you''.
** Even worse: the bear can be found during the day (Mikhail even asks you to find it). The mountain lion on the other hand only appears at night. Depending on where you first meet it, you might not even see it, only to suddenly be set on fire.

* The Milkman subplot is surprisingly terrifying upon reflection. Boyd basically had an alternate personality forced into his head through Oleander's brainwashing, and his mind proceeded to tear itself apart with paranoia over this alien object in his psyche. When the Milkman is discovered and the censors come to remove this foreign object the Milkman instead destroys them and takes over, effectively overwriting Boyd's personality. We later learn that Boyd will recover once the Milkman completes his delivery, but when the mission is completed it looks very much like Boyd's mind has been destroyed and you were inadvertently the one to put the last nail in its coffin.
** Even worse: the Den Mother yells - upon you freeing the Milkman - that it's too early, that he wasn't ready yet. The game never explains what would have happened ''if'' the Milkman would have been ready. Would the Milkman just quickly done his purpose and leave instead of having Boyd being stuck in front of the Asylum until triggered? Or would he have permanently overwritten Boyd, destroying ''everything'' that isn't him?

* Crysal and Clem, the two peppy "cheerleader" campers, casually discussing their various suicide attempts.
* The entire ascent to Dr. Loboto's office, what with the kamikaze rats, gloomy atmosphere, and Sheegor constantly peeking out from corners and staring at you.

** That this is how Boyd sees a regular neighborhood.

* The Lungfish boss fight combines gamer-based fear with psychological terrors. It takes place at the bottom of a dark lake, in a bubble of air that the boss can contract from "almost comfortable" to "unbearably claustrophobic" in a matter of seconds. Since the main character and his family have all been cursed to die in water, a pair of glowing green hands hover at the edge of the bubble, following the player's movements and grabbing them the second they stumble across the barrier. At three or four intervals, the boss swims off, dragging the bubble with it and forcing the player to run through a series of harrowing obstacle courses before the water closes in. The Lungfish itself is a hulking mutant, but the truly troubling part regarding it comes after the fight, when it's revealed that she's actually a very kind, intelligent lady lungfish named Linda who was mutated and enslaved against her will, and you've been ''feeding her boxes of nails''. There are also crabs and sucker fish falling from the edges of the bubble constantly, but the latter are actually NightmareRetardant, as they'll latch onto the top of Raz's head and wobble back and forth with an expression that can only be described as "8B".
* Fairly subtle, compared to levels like the Meat Circus, but if you think too hard about two of Raz's throwaway lines from Black Velvetopia, a moment of "I wish I hadn't thought of that" can ensue. At one point, he remarks "I'm beginning to feel like I'm back in high school...which is weird, since I'm only ten..."; the 'Appropriate victory taunt' (to quote Psychopedia) to be used against Cobra is "I beat you just like I did in high school, loser! Wait...who am I?" Talk about an identity crisis... Earlier in the game, it's implied that Raz is telepathic, which sort of explains the phenomena, but thinking about what might have happened, were there any more inmates or if Edgar or Fred were any worse than they were already.

* The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example, of course, would be the Meat Circus level. MixAndMatchCritters coming out of meat grinders, freaky ghost-things appearing on the walls and wailing Raz's name, a race against rising water which, if you get anywhere near it, ''drags you in'', AdultFear galore in the form of ''two'' characters' crippling ParentalIssues, and, as a FinalBoss, a giant, evil, Frankensteinian abomination that comes out of a meat grinder after the already-upsetting manifestations of said ParentalIssues get thrown in.

** and wouldn't you know it? [[OhCrap THEY DO!!]] Later in the "Milk Man Conspiracy" Raz has to fight these literal nightmares not once, but twice!

** If you look at the sky near the top of the Asylum, you see some [[NightmareFace Nightmare Faces]] in the clouds.

* Just being a Psychonaut is nightmare fuel in itself. A Psychonaut is charged with being a psychic soldier/secret agent charged with infiltrating minds and experiencing the darkest aspects of the human subconscious. It's essentially a AMindIsATerribleThingToRead UpToEleven where the user must go into the minds of others to uncover secrets and risk being killed or destroyed in the process. Best emphasized by Oleander in the intro video:

* Just being a Psychonaut is nightmare fuel in itself. A Psychonaut is charged with being a psychic soldier/secret agent charged with infiltrating minds and experiencing the darkest aspects of the human subconscious. It's essentially a MindIsATerribleThingToRead UpToEleven where the user must go into the minds of others to uncover secrets and risk being killed or destroyed in the process. Best emphasized by Oleander in the intro video: