Hallucinations & Delusions – Page 5 – Trigger Warning Database

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Incest
Sexual abuse
Child abuse & neglect
Adultery
Depersonalisation & derealisation
Alcoholism
Schizophrenia
Agoraphobia
Claustrophobia
Panic attacks
Hallucinations & delusions
Suicide
Drug use
Hospitalisation
Hypothermia
Loss of limb
Death of a sibling
Death of an uncle
Death of a child
Murder
Grief depiction
Gun violence
Stalking
Graphic death of a dog

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. Yet Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live.

When Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexism
Slut-shaming
Fatmisia
Slavery
Rape
Sexual assault
Cheating
Child abuse
Hallucinations
Pregnancy mentioned
Blood depiction
Emesis
Death of a child
Murder & attempted murder
Genocide
Fire
Animal death

The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

The waking forest has secrets. To Rhea, it appears like a mirage, dark and dense, at the very edge of her backyard. But when she reaches out to touch it, the forest vanishes. She’s desperate to know more–until she finds a peculiar boy who offers to reveal its secrets. If she plays a game.

To the Witch, the forest is her home, where she sits on her throne of carved bone, waiting for dreaming children to beg her to grant their wishes. One night, a mysterious visitor arrives and asks her what she wishes for, but the Witch sends him away. And then the uninvited guest returns.

The strangers are just the beginning. Something is stirring in the forest, and when Rhea’s and the Witch’s paths collide, a truth more treacherous and deadly than either could ever imagine surfaces. But how much are they willing to risk to survive?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slavery
Anxiety
Hallucinations
Dead body
Blood & gore depiction
Branding

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovers this when she is nine years old. Lost in the woods.

Trisha has only veered a little way off the path. But in her panic to get back to her family, she takes a turning that leads into the tangled undergrowth, deeper into the woods.

At first it’s just the bugs, midges and mosquitoes. Then comes the hunger. For comfort she tunes her Walkman into broadcasts of the Red Sox baseball games and the performances of her hero Tom Gordon.

As darkness begins to fall and Trisha struggles for survival and a way out, she realizes that she is not alone. There’s something else in the woods – watching. Waiting…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Hallucinations
Pneumonia
Hospitalisation

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Jessie is trapped: during an ill-fated S&M game, she kicks her husband and induces a fatal coronary. She is handcuffed to the bed in a lakeside cabin in the middle of nowhere, with no means of escape. Voices in her head force her to confront a buried childhood trauma.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Fatmisia & body shaming
Attempted martial rape, on-page
Paedophilia & incestuous child sexual assault (father-daughter)
Hallucinations, delusions & intrusive thoughts
Dehydration
Blood & gore depiction
Physical injury
Death of a husband from a heart attack

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Suspected of murdering the crippled widow for whom she worked as a housekeeper and companion, Dolores Claiborne has a story to tell. But it isn’t the one the police are expecting to hear. It’s a little darker, a little stranger – and a lot more horrifying.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Domestic abuse & violence
Marital rape
Paedophilia & incestuous child sexual abuse (father-daughter)
Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
Hallucinations
Dementia
Stroke recounted
Death of a husband in a car accident
Murder
Death from a fall

Blaze by Richard Bachman

Blaze by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

He’s got a plan but he hasn’t a clue…

Clayton Blaisdell’s capers are strictly small time until he meets George Rackley. With Blaze’s brawn and George’s brains, they pull off a hundred successful cons. Then George plans the one big score every small timer dreams of: kidnapping the infant heir to a family fortune. The trouble is that by the time the deal goes down, the brains of the operation has died. Or has he?

Now Blaze is running into the white hell of the Maine woods with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time…

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Death of a friend
Kidnapping of a child (theme)

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work—in fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.

Goo d reads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape recounted
Delusions
Nightmares
Suicide & attempted suicide
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a pregnant wife from a brain aneurysm
Murder by gun violence in a drive-by shooting
Murder & attempted murder by drowning
Infanticide
Kidnapping of a child

Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin

Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin

When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren’t there, Della worries that it’s happening again—that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time.

With her daddy struggling to save the farm and her mama in denial about what’s happening, it’s up to Della to heal her mama for good. And she knows just how she’ll do it: with a jar of the Bee Lady’s magic honey, which has mended the wounds and woes of Maryville, North Carolina, for generations… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Parent with schizophrenia (theme)
Psychotic episode

A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she’s been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780’s to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries. Or so she thought.

But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Classism
Emotional child abuse
Parental abandonment
Hallucinations & delusions mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Nonconsensual drugging
Blood & gore depiction
Physical injury
Dead bodies
Human experimentation
Needles
Hospital
Decapitation
Emesis
Death of a mother
Death of a child
Death of a wife
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Stabbing
Explosions
Physical assault
Torture & sensory deprivation
Kidnapping & captivity
Car accident
Plane crash mentioned
Bullying