Mental Disorder
Cost: +5 to +25 BP
Your character suffers a mental illness of some sort, such as paranoia or schizophrenia. The value of the quality depends on the nature of the dementia and how often it affects game play. The gamemaster arbitrarily determines the value of this quality, and when this effect applies.
The following is a description of varios mental disorders a character could have. Some of these disorders have game effects noted in their description, while some do not. The gamemaster arbitrarily determines when this effect applies, and decides on what game effects other disorders may have. The gamemaster may also choose to alter the effects of disorders as noted here if he feels that the effect is not appropriate in his game. These disorders may also require roleplaying, and the gamematser should enforce it with karma loss if the player does not hold to it.
Note that no disorder has a fixed BP cost associated with it. The gamemaster is free to set the cost for this quality based on his own judgement of the severity of the disorder. A character suffering from kleptomania or nymphomania may recieve +5 BP, while someone suffering from anorexia nervosa may recieve +10 to +20 BP depending on how the charcaters attributes are affected, and someone suffering from panic attacks might recieve +15 BP.
Anxiety Disorders
Even a seasoned Shadowrunner feels anxious before a fight, and the wageslavs in the city might worry that they will be cut from the payroll. These fears are a normal, natural part of living in a danger-filled environment such as the Sixth World, but in some cases these anxieties overwhelm an individual, causing inactivity, distress, and even severe behavioral problems. When fear ana anxiety overwhelm a character for a prolonged period of time, the character suffers from an anxiety disorder. Most common forms of anxiety disorders are described here.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The character suffers from a variety of physical and emotional symptoms that can be grouped into certain categories.
Motor Tension: Jitteriness, aches, twitches, restless ness, easily startled, easily fatigued, and so on. The character suffers a -1 dice pool penalty to all Tests using Physical Attributes.
Autonomic Hyperactivity: Sweating, racing heart, dizziness, clammy palms, flushed or pallid face, rapid pulse and respiration even when at rest, and so on. The character suffers a -1 dice pool penalty to all Tests.
Expectations of Doom: Anxieties, worries, fears, and expecially anticipations of misfortune. The character suffers a -1 dice pool penalty to all Tests.
Vigilance: Distraction, inability to focus, insomnia, irritability, impatience. The character suffers a -1 dice pool penalty to all Tests using Mental Attributes.
Panic Disorder (Panic Attack): This illness is marked by a discrete period of fear in which symptoms develop rapidly. Within minutes palpitation, sweating, trembling, and difficulty in breathing develop, strong enough that the victim fears immediate death or insanity. Burdened with the recurrence of these episodes, she fears their return. This reaction often leads to agoraphobia (see the Phobia quality).
Obsessive-Cumpulsive Disorder: This illness manifests in one of two forms, obsessive thoughts or cumpulsive actions; some character exibit both.
Obsessions: The character cannot help thinking about an idea, image, or impulse incessantly, often involving violence and self-doubt. These ideas are frequently repugnant to the character, but they are so strong that during times of stress she may be unable to concentrate on anything else, even if doing so is necessary for her survival. Obsessive impulses can be very dangerous when combined with auditory hallucinations, since the "voices" may urge the character to take some dangerous or hostile course of action. Also see the Obsessive quality.
Compulsions: The character insists on performing ritual actions, such as touching a doorway at left, right, and top before passing through it. Though she may agree that the actions are senseless, the need to perform them is overwhelming and may last for 2d6 Combat Turns. Even in times of great stress, the character may ignore her survival in order to perform the actions.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: See the Flashbacks quality.
Phobia or Mania: A character afflicted by a phobia or a mania persistently fears a particular object or situation. She realizes that the fear is excessive and irrational, but the faear is disturbing enought that she avoids the stimulus.
Phobia: See the Phobia quality for more information.
Mania: Manias are rarer than phobias. A character afflicted by a mania is inordinately fond of a particular stimulu and takes great pains to be with it or near it. When the character's sexuality is involved, the mania may be termed a fetish. Thus, teratophobia would be an inordinate fear of monsters, while teratophalia would be an unhealthy (possibly sexual) attraction to them. See the list of phobias under the Phobia quality for ideas on what sorts of disorders could manifest as manias.
Flashbacks
Cost: +20 BP
The Flashbacks quality causes a character to experience vivid memory-based sensory hallucinations, know as flashbacks. These flashbacks are always triggered by specific stimuli. For example, a character who was tortured by the Universal Brotherhood might experience flashbacks of the torture whenever he or she sees an insect.
Any time a character with Flashbacks encounters a potential flashback trigger, he or she must make a Willpower (3) Test. If the test fails, a flashback occurs and incapacitates the character for 1d6 minutes. The character cannot take any useful action during that time. (One combat turn is 3 seconds, so every minute is 20 combat turns long.)
Characters with the Flashback quality shouls confer with their gamemaster to devise an appropriate flashback trigger before beginning play. The trigger caondition can be a particular sight, smell, sound, taste, ide, and so on. The condition should be something that the character will encounter a few times during a game. If the trigger is too common, the character may end up experiencing flashbacks all the time. If it is too rare, the character may never experience any. The gamemaster may decide to decrease the cost of this qualiy if he or she feels that the trigger is not common enough, or increase it if it is very common.
The gamemaster arbitrarily determines when this effect applies
Phobia
Cost: +10 to +20 BP
A character with a Phobia suffers from deep-seated fear activated by a specific triggering condition. The value of this quality depends on two factors, First, determine whether the trigger is Uncommon (2 BP) or Common (7 BP). Then determine the severity of the symptoms: Mild (3 BP), Moderate (8 BP), or Severe (13 BP). Add the appropriate point values to find the final value.
For example, the value of an Uncommon moderate Phobia is 10 (2 + 8) points. Note that Common Severe Phobias (a grace fear of going outside, for example) can seriously impede a character's actions.
The table below gives descriptions of conditions and severity.
Condition
Value
Uncommon
2
The triggering condition is relatively rare; for example, specific sounds, smells, or paranormal critters.
Common 7
The triggering condition is commonly encountered. Examples of such triggers include sunlight, magic, the outdoors and crowds.
Mild 3
The character experiences enough fright to distract him from the task at hand. Apply a –1 dice pool modifier to all Tests made while the character experiences the reaction.
Moderate 8
The character's reaction is seriously distracting. Apply a -2 dice pool modifier to all Tests made while the character experiences the reaction. Additionally, the character must try to avoid the triggering condition. Directly confronting the condition requires a successful Willpower (2) Test.
Severe 13
The character collapses in terror or runs away any time he encounters the triggering condition, unless he makes a successful Willpower (3) Test. if the Test succeeds, the character may act while experiencing the reaction, but he suffers a -2 dice pool modifier to all Tests.
An extensive list of possible Phobias is included below.
Acrophobia heights (formerly know as vertigo) Common
Aerophobia wind Common
Agoraphobia open places Common
Ailurophobia cats Uncommon
Arachnophobia spiders Common
Androphobia men (males) Common
Astrophobia stars Uncommon
Autophobia being alone Common
Bacteriophobia bacteria ("germs") Common
Ballistophobia bullets Common
Bathophobia deep submerged places Uncommon
Bibliophobia books Uncommon
Blennophobia slime Uncommon
Brontophobia thunder Uncommon
Cenophobia empty rooms Uncommon
Chionophobia snow Varies accoring to place of residence
Claustrophobia enclosed spaces Common
Demophobia crowds Common
Dendrophobia trees Varies according to place of residence
Entomophobia insects Uncommon
Equinophobia horses Uncommon
Gephyrdrophobia crossing bridges Uncommon
Gynephobia women (females) Common
Hamartophobia sinning or making an error Common
Haphephobia being touched Common
Heliophobia sunlight or the sun Common
Hematophobia blood or bleeding Common
Hydrophobia water Common
Hypnophobia sleep Common
Iatrophobia doctors (healers) Common
Ichthyophobia fish Uncommon
Maniaphobia going insane Uncommon
Monophobia being alone Common
Musophobia mice (and rats) Common
Necrophobia dead things Uncommon
Nyctophobia night or nightfall Common
Odontophobia teeth Common
Onomatophobia a certain name, word, or phrase Uncommon
Ophidiophobia snakes Uncommon
Ornithophobia birds Uncommon
Pediphobia children Common
Phagophobia eating Common
Phonophobia noice, including one's own voice Common
Pyrophobia fire Uncommon
Scotophobia darkness Common
Spectrophobia mirrors Common
Tephephobia being buried alive Uncommon
Teratophobia monsters Uncommon
Thalassophobia the sea Varies accoring to place of residence
Tomophobia surgery Uncommon
Uranophobia the heavens ("the horrible gaping sky!") Common
Vermiphobia worms Uncommon
Xenophobia foreigners or strangers Common
Zoophobia animals Uncommon
With some imagination and a little knowledge about how "phobia" terms are formed (most come from ancient Greek words), it's possible to come up with a list of phobias tailored to the Shadowrun setting. The following list is provided as a starting point.
Aberraphobia aberrations and creatures with tentacles Uncommon
Astralophobia astral plane Common
Draconophobia dragons Uncommon
Confodiophobia being stabbed Uncommon
Faephobia fey Uncommon
Incantophobia enchantment and mind control Uncommon
Iophobia poison Uncommon
Manaphobia magic Common
Materiophobia constructs (drones or rigged vehicles) Common
Naturaphobia nature and druids Uncommon
Planarphobia spirits and extraplanar creatures Common
Phantasmaphobia specters or ghosts Uncommon
Pneumatophobia incorporeal creatures Uncommon
Dissociative Disorders
Individuals suffering from dissociative disorders cannot maintain a complete awareness of themselves, their surroundings, or time. The disorder often involves seome great previous trauma that is too terrible to remember. Characters who have gone insane from an encounter with a powerful monster often suffer from some form of dissociative disorder.
Dissociative Amnesia (Psychogenic Amnesia): This is the inability to recall important personal information, brought on by a desire to avoid unpleasant memories. The character must make a Willpower (3) Test to recall such details or the cause of the amnesia. Treatment is required to permanently retrieve these memories.
Dissociative Fugue: The character flees from home or work and cannot recall her part. Once the flight halts, the character may assume an entirely new identity.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder): The character appears to harbor more than one personality, each of which is dominant at times and has its own distinct behavior, name, and even gender. The player needs to keep track of the character's different personalalities. (Each one has the same Attributes and abilities, but different goals, outlooks, and attitudes.)
Eating Disorder
These disorders can be increaibly debilitating and even lead to starvation. They are conditions that may continue for many years, sometimes continually endangering the patient.
Anorexia Nervosa: The chaarcater has an overpowering fear of becoming fat and consequently loses weight, as well as losing Body (at a rate of 1 point per week). Even when she is nor more than skin and bones, the character continues to see herself as overweight. Without intervention, she may literally starve herself to death.
Bulimia Nervosa: The character frequently eats large amounts of food during scret binges. An eating episode may continue until abdominal distress or self-induced vomiting occurs. Feelings of depression and guilt frequently follow such episodes.
Impulse Control Disorder
These disorders include compulsive gambling, pathological lying, kleptomania (compulsive stealing), and pyromania (the compulsion to set fires).
Intermittent Explosive Disorder: The character is recognizably impulsive and aggressive, and at times gives way to uncontrollable rages that result in assault or destruction of prpperty.
Mood Disorder
These disorders affect the victim's attitude and outlook. Mild mood disorders can be almost impossible to detect without prolonged contact with an individual, but severe disorders usually have noticable symptoms.
Depression: Symptoms of this illness include changes in appetite, weight gain or loss, too much or too little sleep, persistent feeling of tiredness or sluggishness, and feelings of wothlessness or guilt, leading in severe cases to hallucinations, delusions, stupor, or thoughts of suicide. The character suffers a -2 dice pool penalty to all Tests. A predisposition to use alcohol or otyher mood-altering substances in an attempt at self-medication exists. A character suffering from severe chronoc depression may give up virtually all effort from feelings of hopelessness - for example, deciding not to get out of bed for two years.
Mania: The character has a fairly constant euphoric or possible irritable mood. Symptoms include a general increase in activity, talkativeness, increased self-esteem to the point of delusion, decreased need for sleep, being easily distracted, willingness for dangerous or imprudent activities such as reckless driving, delusions, hallucinations, and bizarre behavior. The character suffers a -2 dice pool penalty to all Tests. A predisposition to use alcohol or other substances in an attempt at self-medication exists.
Bipolar Mood Disorder: The character oscillates between mood states, sometimes staying in one mood for weeks at a time, sometimes rapidly switching from one to another. Also know as manic depressive.
Personality Disorder
These long-term disorders have almost constant effects on a character's behavior, making it difficult for him to interact with others and often making him unpleasant to be around as well. This is an important point to keep in ming when roleplaying - few players want to spend time with another player character suffering from a personality disorder.
In game terms, the character takes a -2 dice pool penalty on all Social Tests. In addition, the attitudes of NPCs the character encounters are almost always negative.
Personality disorders are classified in the following categories.
Antisocial: Short-sighted and reckless behavior, habitual liar, confrontational, fails to meet obligations (job, bills, relationships), disregards rights and feelings of others.
Avoidant: Oversensitive to rejection, low sel-esteem, socially withdrawn.
Borderline: Rapid mood shifts, impulsive, unable to control temper, chronic boredom.
Compulsive: Perfectionist, authoritarian, indecisive from fear of making mistakes, difficulty expressing emotions.
Dependent: Lacks self-confidence; seeks another to look up to, follow, and subordinate herself to ("codependent").
Histrionic: Overly dramatic, craves attention and excitement, overreacts, displays temper tantrums, may threaten suicide if thwarted.
Narcissistic: Exaggerated sense of self-importance, craves attention and admiration, considers others' rights and feelings as of lesser importance.
Passive-Aggressive: Procrastinator, stubborn, intentionally forgetful, deliberately inefficient. Sabotages own performance on a regular basis.
Paranoid: Jealous, easily offended, suspicious, humorless, secretive, vigilant; eggagerates magnitude of offenses against oneself, refuses to accept blame.
Schizoid: Emotionally cold, aloof, has few friends; indifferent to praise or criticism.
The gamemaster should realize that, while these traits may work for an interesting NPC from whom the players must extract information or a favor, their antisocial nature makes them ill-suited for members of a team.
Psychosexual Disorder
Recognizable disorders of this type include transsexualism (a belief that one is actually a member of the opposite sex), impaired sexual desire or function, nymphomania and satyriasis (inordinate and uncontrollable sexual appetite in women and men, respectively), and paraphilia (requirement of an abnormal sexual stimulus, such as sadism, masochism, necrophilia, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, or bestiality).
Most of these disorders could make players of the afflicted characters uncomfortable and thus are not appropriate for most roleplaying groups, although they can make for striking (if unpleasant) NPCs.
Psychospecies Disorder
These disorders are specific to fantasy or science-fiction environments and involve the victim of one believing that she is a different type of creature. A victim might believe that she is an orc or any other creature type that she has encountered. When a victim has a psychospecies disorder associated with a creature that has a specific weakness (for example, a human thinking he's a vampire), then the victim's behavior changes to become more noticeable (such as a fear of holy symbols and sunlight).
Elf-Poser or similar qualities would be appropriate for characters suffering from psychospecies disorders.
Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders
A psychotic character experiences a break with reality. Symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, and cognitive impairment. In general, only alchemical substances or magic can treat these kinds of disorders. Note, however, that many psychotic characters suffer from the delusion that nothing is wrong with them, and hence they feel no need to take their medication.
Schizophrenia (Schizophreniform Disorder, Dementia Praecox): A schizophrenic character's attention span and ability to concentrate are greatly diminished; to reflect this, use only only-half the character's normal Skill Rating on any Skill Test requiring attentiveness (such as Computer, Perception, or Tehcnical Skills). Magicians also suffer a -3 penalty for each sustained spell instead of the normal -2. Symptoms include bizarre delusions, paranoia, auditory hallucinations ("hearing voices"), incoherent speech, emotional detachment, social withdrawal, bizarre behavior, and lack of the sense of self.
A schizophrenic character may fit into one of the following categories.
Undifferentiated: Impaired cognitive function, emotional detachment.
Disorganized: Inappropriate bahavior, shallow emotional responses, delusions, hallucinations.
Catatonic: Mutism (loss of ability to talk), extreme compliance, absense of all volontary movements, complete immobility ("statuism").
Paranoid: Delusions of persecution, illogical thinking, hallucinations.
Symproms from more than one type can occur in the same individual, along with mood disorders 8see above). For example, catatonic schizophrenics sometimes have manic episodes of extreme activity alternating with periods of complete withdrawal. Schizophrenia brought on by sudden stress is called acute schizophrenia; characters who go insane and babble of vast global conspiracies usually are diagnose as suffering from "acute paranoid schizophrenia."
Other Psychotic Disorders: By some definitions, all severe mental illnesses areclassified as psychoses, including mood disorders, dementia, and anxiety disorders. This section deals with some of the interesing behavioral syndromes that may turn up in your game.
Amok - "Running amok," an outburst of violence and aggressive or homicidal behavior directed at people and property. Amnesia, return to consciousness, and exhaustion occur following the episode. During a killing spree, the character utilizes whatever weapons are on hand.
Boufee Detirant - Sudden outbust of aggressive, agitated behavior and marked confusion, sometimes accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations or paranoia.
Brain Fag - Impaired concentration and feelings of fatigue, pains in the neck and head, a sense that worms are crawling inside one's head.
Ghost Sickness - Weakness, loss of appetite, feelings of suffocation, nightmares, and pervasive feeling of terror, attributed as a sending from witches or malign otherworldly powers. Note that this may be eniterly true in teh Shadowrun setting.
Piblokto - "Arctic madness," wherein the afflicted rips off clothing and runs howling like an animal through the snow.
Susto - A variety of somatic and psychological symptoms attreibuted to a traumatic incident so frightening that it disloged the victim's spirit from her body.
Taijin Kyofusho - "Face-to-face" phobia, an intense anxiety when in the presence of other people; fearfulness that one's appearance, odor, or behavior is offensive.
Voodoo Death - Belif that a hex or curse can bring about misfortune, disability, and death through some spiritual mechanism. Often the victim self-fulfills the hexer's prophecy by refusing to eat and drink, resulting in dehydration and starvation. In the Shadowrun setting, this disorder may have actual basis in realality.
Wacinko - Anger, withdrawal, mutism, and immobility, leading to illness and suicide.
Wendigo Syndrome - The afflicted believes she is a personification of the Wendigo, a cannibalistic creature with an icy heart. The fact that this creature actually exists in the Shadowun setting makes no difference.
Shared Paranoid Disorder (Shared Delusional Disorder, Folie a Deux): The character takes onthe delusional system of another paranoid individual from being in close contact with the person.
Sleep Disorder
These disorders include insomnia (character has difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep) and narcolepsy (character frequently falls asleep, almost anywhere and at inappropriate times). Characters performing demanding tasks such as engaging in combat or casting a spell may, when stressed, need to make a Willpower (1) Test to stay awake and not put themselves in a dangerous situation.
Night Terrors: A sleeping character wakes after a few hours of sleep, usually screaming in terror. Pulse and breathing are repid, pupils are dilated, and hair stands on end. The character is confised and hard to calm down. Night terrors are similar to ordinary nightmares, but much more intense and disruptive.
Somnambulism: Sleepwalking. As with night terrors, this behavior occurs in the first few hours of sleep. An episode may last up to 30 minutes. During the episode, the character's face is blank and staring, and she can be roused only with difficulty. Once awawke, she recalls nothing of the activity.
Somatoform Disorder
A somatoform disorder may be diagnosed when a character experiences physical symptoms that cannot be explained by an actual physical injury or disease.
Somatization Disorder: The character suffers from a physical ailment or disease effect, with symptoms ranging from dizziness and impotence to blindness and intense pain. The Medicine Skill cannot identify any physical cause for the symptoms, and magical healing has no effect. The victim does not believe that her symptoms represent a specific disease. All Combat Tests take a -1 dice pool penalty.
Conversion Disorder: The character reports dysfunctions that suggest a physical disorder but, though they are involuntary, the symptoms actually provide a way for the victim to acoid something undesirable or a way to garner attention and caring, a condition called Munchausenism. Symptoms range from painful headaches to paralysis or blindness. With the condition known as Reverse Munchausenism, a character projects ill health unto others and may even arrange injuries or illnesses for them so that she can thereafter take care of them. All Combat Tests take a -1 dice pool penalty.
Hypochondriasis: Charactr belives she suffers from a serious disease. No physical cause for reported symptoms can be found, but the character continues to believe that the disease or condition exists, often with serious consequences to her normal life.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Characters suffer from percieved flaws in appearance, usually of the face, or of the hips or legs. Behavior may alter in unexpected ways to cover up the flaws or to calm anxieties.
Substance Abuse Disorder
A character with a substance abuse disorder finds solace in using a drug, becomes addicted to it, and spends much time maintaining, concealing, and indulging the habit. Drugs include alchohol, bliss, BTLs, cram, nicotine, nitro, opium (especially morphine), sedatives, and stimulants.
A character under the sway of such substances should feel the personal struggle daily. Willpower is needed to cope with the cravings, especially just before periods of stress. Sanity loss could occur from binges or bad trips. Some characters find that drugs promote communication with alien entities and deities, and that dreams about them become ever more vivid and horrifying. Conversely, such substances might function as medications, deadening a character's fears and offering temporary defeses against sanity loss.
See the Addition quality for more information.
Other Disorder
Other disorders exist in common parlance, but most of these are actually symptoms or specific instances of disorders already mentioned above. These include quixotism (seeing the supernatural everywherem, even in the most mundane surroundings), panzaism (seeing the most extraordinary events as ordinary and rational), and megalomania 8delusions of power, wealth, fame, and ability). Use or ignore these as suits your campaign, or invent new categories of madness to reflect the chaos that lies just below the brittle surface of the 6th World.
Amnesia, Lesser
Cost: +10 BP
A character with Lesser Amnesia has lost some parts of his memory. Such memory loss can be caused by neurological damage, magic, drugs, or brainwashing. A character with this quality cannot recall who he or she is or anything about his or her past, but still retains the use of his or her skills and abilities.
This is entirely a roleplaying quality and the gamematser should enforce it with karma loss if the player does not hold to it.
Amnesia, Total
Cost: +25 BP
A character with Total Amnesia has lost all of his memory. Such memory loss can be caused by neurological damage, magic, drugs, or brainwashing. A character with this quality has no memory of his or her past, including the skills and abilities he or she has learned. Gamemeasters should create character sheets for characters with Total Amnesia, so that the player does not know his character's abilities, Attributes and so on, until he acts. The player should have a blank character sheet to fill in during play as he finds out more about his or her character.
A Psychiatric Glossary
The following words are defined in terms of real-world understanding of insanity; some of them (illusion, for example) have different meanings in a Shadowrun game context. As with all aspects of Mental Disorder quality, the gamemaster needs to determine how each metatype and culture within the campaign world views insanity and how capable each metatype is of treating disorders in order to know which of these words might come into play.
Affect: The external expression of a patient's mood (sadness, anger, joy, fear). May be inconsistent with patient's mood, depending on the disorder.
Anorexia: Loss or decrease of appetite.
Catatonia: Various strong motor anomalies, for instance catatonic stupor (slowed activity to the point of immobilization); caraflexibilitas (the victim can be molded into strange postures that are maintained), and catatonic excitement (agitated, puposeless movements).
Compulsion: The need to perform certain actions repetitively, including various personal rituals, dipsomania, kleptomania, nymphomania, satyriasis, trichotillomania (pulling out hair), and so on.
Delirium: A reversible syndrome of bewilderment, restlessness, confusion, and disorientation, associated with fear and hallucinations, all caused by some underlying medical condition.
Delusion: A firmly fixed false belief, one not based in reality. It can be bizarre, as in schizophrenia, or systematized, as in delusional disorders.
Dementia: A loss of cognitive function, often first manifesting in memory loss.
Depersonalization: A sbjective feeling of being unreal, or unfamiliar to self.
Derealization: A subjective feeling that the environment is strange or unreal; for instance, feeling the world to be a stage or a two-dimensional paintain.
Dissociation: Confusion over one's sense of self and identity.
Formication: The feeling that insects are crawling all over one's body, a tactile hallucination caused by certain drugs and delirium tremens.
Hallucination: A perception of a sensory stimulus in the absence of sensory stimuli; for instance, seeing or hearing someone who isn't there.
Illusion: The misperception of a sensory stimulus; for instance, seeing the sustling branches of a tree as tentacles.
Logorrhea: Copious, coherent, logical speech.
Mania: A mood characterized by elation and increased activity.
Mood: A pervasive feeling that is experienced internally.
Neurosis: Symptoms of depression, anxiety, or th like arising from stress. A neurosis is less severe than a psychosis. A neurotic character may still be able to function; a psychotic one generally cannot.
Obsession: An idea or thought that constantly intrudes into one's consciousness.
Paranoia: Persistent, consistent, plausible, and ingenious delusions of persecution or jealousy. New information always seems to support the increasing threat of some great conspiracy. Paranoia is more a symptom than a disorder, because it can appear in schizophrenia, mania, and so on.
Psychosis: Severe mental illness in which the character experiences thoughts and perceptions that are out of touch with reality. A psychosis is more severe than a neurosis.
Somnambulism: Sleepwalking.
Somnolence: Abnormal drowsiness.
Synthesia: Sensation caused by another sensatiuon; for instance, seeing sound.
Tic: Involuntary spasmodic motor movement.
Trailing Phenomenon: Perceptual abnormality associated with hallucinogens in which moving objects are seen in a series of discrete discontinuous images.
Trace: Focused attention and altered consciousness, usually seen in hypnosis, dissociative disorders, and ecstatic religious experiences.