What are your favorite stories that messed with your head?

[Christos]

For me Dark Matter by Blake Crouch gave me an Existential crisis. It made me question my life decisions more than I ever did before (which is saying something).

[Louie]

I had my first existential crisis when I read Raft by Stephen Baxter, and thus learning about the eventual heat death of the universe.

[Paul]

For me, it's usually books that really make me question reality:

Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski


Then there are the bits of gut-wrenching horror that I can't shake. There's a scene in Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane that, years later, just keeps popping into my head. The reveal of Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons is so utterly shocking, and so well done, it left me breathless.

[Ian (RebelGeek)]

I'm going to read Use of Weapons soon!
The movie Blair Witch 2 messed with my head at the end.
That hit me right in the anxiety center of my brain!

[Phil]

I don't know about "messed with my head" but there are certainly some that have influenced my beliefs and morals.
Every year I reread a different novel by Robert Heinlein, most of which I first read 40-50 years ago, and I almost always have a "so that's where I got that from" moment. They taught me to "question everything".
The books What Is the Name of This Book? and This Book Needs No Title: A Budget of Living Paradoxes by Raymond Smullyan introduced me to logic and philosophy.
The short stories "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke and "The Cheese Stands Alone" by Harlan Ellison made me think about fate and religion.

[R.S.]

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "I'm going to read Use of Weapons soon!
The movie Blair Witch 2 messed with my head at the end.
That hit me right in the anxiety center of my brain!"

Blair Witch was cool. The first place it was shown was by the film students from UCF here in Orlando at a boutique kind of theater. Messed with my head was probably Night of the Living Dead (The original) Just got me thinking about Death at an early age. The fragility of life.

[Rick]

Use of Weapons is brilliant. From its structure (two interleaved stories, one moving forward, the other back) to the writing to the emotional gutpunch at the end.

[Randy]

I bought an rode a motorcycle exclusively for years when I was in my 20's. Not that I am in my 60's I am riding a motorcycle, again. This is largely because of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Does riding a clearly dangerous vehicle count as "messed with your head"?

[Jennifer]

The Handmaid's Tale . I read it when I was 16/17. and Regan was President. I decided right then and there what my voting points were going to be and that NO ONE was going to have control over me. That shit is terrifying.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

The Fall by Albert Camus

[Ian (RebelGeek)]

R.S. wrote: "Blair Witch was cool. The first place it was shown was by the film students from UCF here in Orlando at a boutique kind of theater..."

I was actually talking about the 2nd Blair Witch movie Book of Shadows. The 1st one only messed with my head because I wasn't 100% sure it wasn't real.

[John (Taloni)]

Omega Man. Saw it at the age of 10 and the years referenced were coming up. I was convinced it was going to happen.

On the book side, Tau Zero is probably the most awesomely cosmic book I have ever read. One full cycle of the Universe on a desperate mission for survival riding a runaway Bussard ramjet.

[Louie]

I just watched The Blair Witch Project for the first time today, thanks to it being added to HBO Max. It does not hit as hard after 23 years of other found footage movies, with varying levels of success, even Romero did one with Diary of the Dead (2007).

[Ian (RebelGeek)]

We can't recapture the magic of seeing something for the 1st time. Like Jurassic Park. I'll never get to watch The Sixth Sense without knowing the big reveal (it was spoiled for me).

[John (Taloni)]

^ I had Yoda spoiled for me by a frickin' Time Magazine review. As for the Sixth Sense, I figured out the reveal in the opening moments. As soon as the kid said "I see dead people" I thought "he's letting him down easy."

[Ian (RebelGeek)]

I think I'm going to put a card in my wallet that says, "If I ever lose my memory, have me watch the movie The Sixth Sense as soon as possible.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

Hee, I’ll join you at the amnesiac viewing, for I, too, was spoiled!

I can’t really think of anything I’ve read, or watched for that matter, that has ‘messed with my head’ but I think it’s because I’ve been in a fairly drifting and undriven state for a really long time now, so it’s a little hard for me to recall having much of a reaction to anything.

I think, for me, at least, the things that have meaning or ‘shake me up’ or whatever have meaning because of something in me, rather than something in them. Like, I remember years ago being moved to tears and inspired by a series of Masterchef when I was desperately trying to get into University to study Japanese as a mature student because maybe if some American fellow with a fondness for Japanese fusion food can win Masterchef UK, then maybe, just maybe, I could get a place on the course I wanted to study. But that isn’t really something changing me.