Phasmophobia sanity effects guide: what happens when you hit 0 sanity

You ain't 'fraid of no ghosts? Well, you really should be in Phasmophobia

Phasmophobia sanity levels

Phasmophobia sanity provides a measure for how scared each individual in your ghost-hunting team is. You’ll enter a hunt completely sane and unafraid of the myriad things that go bump in the night. However, the longer you spend in a haunted location the lower your sanity level will go, and depending on how you spend that time you’ll find yourself either relatively unscathed or a hallucinating, fraught bundle of nerves – both in-game and in real life.

Sanity is also measured as a group average, and if your average drops below a certain point the ghost will start initiating haunts and even hunts to start picking you off one by one. Naturally, you’ll lose sanity as you’re exposed to paranormal activity, so it’s important to accept this is going to happen as a part of your investigation, but learn how to deal with it when you are at low sanity.

So, how do you gain or lose sanity during your investigations, what happens when you hit 0 sanity, and what tips can we offer to deal with this mechanic? Join us as we disassemble everything we know about the Phasmophobia sanity effects.

Phasmophobia sanity levels

You can check both your own sanity and the sanity of each investigator in the trailer outside of the building. This is not confirmed, but it seems that the sanity of anyone outside of the building is not taken into account when it comes to Phasmophobia ghosts initiating haunts – so it’s wise to get any players with low sanity out of the building and back to the command centre. You will not slowly regain sanity inside the van, but you won’t lose it either and can restore sanity by using sanity pills, so managing where your investigators are is pretty important.

Experienced players will sometimes want to intentionally keep a low insanity player in the building as they can provoke the ghost into providing you with more evidence. At zero sanity you will not automatically die, but you will become the top target for ghostly hauntings. This is a very high risk, high reward strategy.

When the average sanity of the group in the house falls below half, you’ll note more haunting events.

How do you quickly lose sanity?

You will quickly lose sanity any time you spend alone, in low light areas, in close proximity to the ghost, or if you actually see the ghost.

How do you regain sanity?

To regain sanity you simply need to pop some sanity pills and your sanity will increase again. Sanity pills will never return you to 100%, but they will replenish 40% of your sanity, keeping you relatively safe from hunts. Bring as many of these as possible when investigating larger buildings.

The van and trailer will not boost your sanity, they’ll just keep you safe and stop your sanity reducing any more. Sanity pills are crucial for larger maps and for taking on ghosts like Yurei, which will affect your sanity levels more than other ghost types.

And that’s it, everything you need to know about sanity levels in Phasmophobia. They won’t save you from losing your mind, but the Phasmophobia crucifix and smudge sticks are great for halting or cancelling haunts and hunting phases. We also have guides on using the ouija board and the Phasmophobia spirit box commands if you fancy losing your sanity and chatting to some angry apparitions.