Psychic Nosebleed: Difference between revisions

Exactly how much damage this implies varies from place to place. Exaggerated versions of this include blood from the eyes, or eyes and nose simultaneously. Within nodding distance of [[Truth in Television]], as rupture of the capillaries inside the nasal membranes ''is'' a recognized (albeit rare, and usually only seen in people already in poor health) symptom of dangerously high blood pressure, such as that caused by extreme emotional stress, physical strain, or—presumably—intense psychic effort. Sudden nosebleeds under stress have been known to precede strokes.

 

 

Bleeding from the eyes or ears instead of or alongside a nosebleed could be considered variations of this trope. Blood from the ears in particular is a more worrying sight than a nosebleed, because it's a highly recognisable sign of head trauma.

 

 

Sometimes overlaps with [[Deadly Nosebleed]] if the psychic battle is also doing real, physical damage to the character. Only occasionally related to [[Blood From the Mouth]].

* Manga example, In ''[[Gantz]]'', the psychics Sakata and Sakurai get a slight nosebleed when they use their psychic abilities. {{spoiler|This is explained as using these abilities pushes their bodies past limits that just shouldn't be pushed, resulted in wearing out their insides in a process that's exactly like aging: although they always appear to be the same age, their bodies are becoming that of old men by using these abilities. Of course, considering the Old Man character that's the Hero's Right Hand Man, this might not be a BAD thing, per se.}}

** Oh, but it gets better. Later on, when {{spoiler|Sakata holds back an enormous alien at the risk of his life to give Sakurai and Reita a chance to escape}}, he bleeds from the nose, mouth, eyes ''and'' ears. Ouch.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', after using his Amaterasu Sharingan technique, one of Itachi's eyes begins to bleed profusely and becomes extremely bloodshot. {{spoiler|After using Amaterasu and several other similar techniques repeatedly, Sasuke's eye bleed ''even more'' and are so bloodshot they look like they're about to '''explode'''.}}

** {{spoiler|While trying to trap the 9 tailed fox inside his Chibaku Tensei meteor, Pain gets a nosebleed from the strain of the technique.}}

* Anemone from ''[[Eureka Seven]]'' has these, but it's used as an indicator of the abuse her job puts on her mind and body rather than actual psychic powers.

* While not due to psychic efforts, near the end of ''[[Summer Wars]]'', Kenji's nose starts to bleed at the immense effort of mentally decrypting a two-thousand digit key, entirely in his head, with only a few seconds left until the satellite drops.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Jean Grey and Rachel Summers. Hardly surprising, since the second is the first's time-travelling daughter from an alternate future.

** Cable (Jean's Clone's time-traveling son from ''this'' reality) partially subverted this by bringing him''self'' back from the dead without any problems. Usually, though, he suffers psychic nosebleeds when doing things like inadvertently mind-controlling a continent's worth of people, saving airborne continents from crashing after gravity comes back into effect, or beating up the cosmically-powered Silver Surfer in an attempt to [[Explosive Overclocking|burn out his own powers]].

* Sophie, one of the Stepford Cuckoos from ''New X-Men'', suffered a psychic nosebleed before her death while using Cerebra (the upgraded version of Cerebro). This was a combination of several factors; she wasn't a strong enough psychic to control Cerebra, and was on the [[Deadly Upgrade|mutant-power-boosting drug]] "Kick" in order to do so. Combined with her inexperience with the machine, it's somewhat unsurprising that it led to her death.

* In an issue of [[Chuck Dixon]]'s ''Team 7'', a Russian telepath tries to use her [[Psychic Radar]] to track them through the Cambodian jungle. It doesn't work, due to a ''"greater power."'' She gets a Psychic Nosebleed for her trouble.

 

== Film ==

* The movie ''[[The Butterfly Effect]]'' has the main character start to get nosebleeds after he has several blackouts. Each blackout (i.e. each use of his power) cause worse and worse damage to the main character's brain.

* The 80s movie version of ''[[Dune]]'' involved a scene in which several Bene Gesserit (psychic witches) cried blood when Paul drank [[Psycho Serum|the Water of Life]].

* In ''[[The Ring]]'', characters experience a nosebleed whenever the Curse's influence grows particularly strong.

* Shown to happen to the three guys from ''[[Chronicle]]'' whenever they overuse their powers.

* Anna of the rebooted ''[[V-2009|V]]'' gets psychic eyebleeds when she uses her bliss on a human.

 

** Much of the fiction features serious psychic nosebleeds, taken to typical WH40K extremes. Dan Abnett's [[Ravenor]] trilogy, for example, has the loser of a high-level psyker duel [[Ludicrous Gibs|get turned inside out]], a [[Black Speech|language]] that causes [[Body Horror|considerable bodily harm]] and the speaker's mouth to shred, and a [[Anti-Magic|Blank]] whose nose bleeds continuously when a psyker keeps trying to get in his head.

** ''Cadian Blood'' has the Sanctioned Psyker Seth who is hit especially hard by this sort of thing; one devastating attack he was said to have launched and melted an enemy tank to slag, but shattered his teeth and left him in a coma for a week. When in a trance, he is only peripherally aware that his body is convulsing, bleeding, vomiting... This sort of thing is common for nearly all human psykers, save those of the Astartes and most of the Inquisition.

* Very popular trope with spellcasting characters in the Fantasy meets [[Cyberpunk]] [[Tabletop Game|roleplaying game]] ''[[Shadowrun]]'', especially common with hermetic mages. Or, more precisely, not ''popular'' at all with [[Player Character|player characters]] as such, but rather with their ''players''. Considering that the use of one's magical abilities, psychic battles with spirits or astral combat between astral bodies can result in fatigue and even physical injuries, a magically active character can easily overexert himself into unconsciousness or death.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

** This could also be explained that Dominic Deegan merely slammed his face onto the desk while battling in the mental plane.

* In ''[[Errant Story]]'', garden-variety telepathic communication may or may not cause a nosebleed—hard to tell from what we've seen of it—but {{spoiler|possession by a [http://www.errantstory.com/2010-05-19/4810 ghod]}}, and the communication that ensues, definitely will do the trick.

* Immense concentrations of evil can cause paladins to suffer from these in ''[[Goblins]]'', along with near-crippling headaches.

'''Vegeta''': Wh--... Nappa, what are you doing?

'''Nappa''': It's his turn, Vegeta. I have to wait for him.

'''Vegeta''': "WAAAARGHHHHHH!!!" }}

* ''Dangerous Lunatics'' has this happen when Tyler {{spoiler|gets electrocuted to the point of coma by Dr. Beatrix and Thurston, at the same time as he tries to use his power to leap out of his body}}. {{spoiler|He partially succeeds, though.}}

* ''[[SF Debris]]'' points out in his review of the [[Star Trek: Voyager]] episode, "Warlord," that massive mental powers often result in a nosebleed from either those using them or their victim. Most of the people on the receiving end of a possessed Kes' telepathic attack are [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]] with six nostrils going up their forehead, so they have ''even more'' noses to bleed from. Yuck.

* The [[Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society]]'s Stephen gets one of these when his psychic powers get activated in [[Psyren]].

 

 

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Bloody Tropes]]