Believe it or not, hunting ghosts in Phasmophobia will slowly drain you and your team of Sanity. Being a paranormal investigator doesn't merely mean trying to avoid becoming victim to the ghost during a hunting phase, but it means keeping an eye on your Sanity too. If you don't keep an eye out for it and let it drain slowly, there's an increased chance that the ghost is going to target you.
In this guide, we explain how to monitor your Sanity, what will drain you of it, and how to therefore keep sane or regain it.
Read More: Phasmophobia: What to Do During the Hunting Phase
How to Monitor Your Sanity
You can monitor the Sanity levels of yourself and your teammates from the van using the Team Sanity screen that is directly below the map. While it isn't worth having a player constantly watching these screens within the van, you may find it useful to take 'shifts' on higher difficulties. That way, players can take turns monitoring Sanity, Activity, and any cameras that have been set up. This will help to locate where the ghost is on larger maps and generally help to ensure the team is keeping their average Sanity level up.
With that being said, Sanity is primarily measured as an average amongst the entire team. If the average Sanity of your entire team falls below 50% overall, you'll likely experience more paranormal events and the ghost will be more likely to go into the hunting phase. The individual Sanity of each player will not affect their experiences, but it will make them more likely to be a target while the ghost is hunting.
If you're playing single-player, then you obviously don't need to worry about this. While playing solo, the rate at which your Sanity depletes is also decreased to account for the difficulty that can be involved while playing alone.
What Drains Your Sanity
As you'd perhaps expect, while you're trying to track down the ghost in Phasmophobia, there's a wealth of activities that will drain you of your Sanity. The first factor when it comes to draining Sanity is the difficulty that you're playing on: Amateur contracts state of Sanity depletion is 1x, for Intermediate it is 1.5x, and for Professional it is 2x. So, take caution on those trickier contracts!
Other activities that will drain your Sanity include:
- Witnessing ghost activity, such as seeing Ghost Writing happen or seeing the ghost run through the DOTS Projector.
- Physically seeing the ghost, regardless of whether or not it is in the hunting phase.
- Using the Ouija Board - if you anger the ghost while asking it questions, it'll drain you of 40% of your Sanity, so be careful.
- Being in the dark for too long.
- If a player dies, every other teammate has their Sanity drained by 15%.
How to Keep and Regain Sanity
Of course, when your Sanity is slowly (or quickly) depleting, there's a couple of ways in which you can keep it or regain it. The most obvious is that you avoid doing the activities listed above, but they're a significant part of gathering evidence (and the fun of Phasmophobia). Therefore, we recommend not going overboard with the above activities and only doing what you need to work out where the ghost is and which type you're dealing with.
It's also important to split tasks up between your team so that you're not all being depleted of Sanity at once. Failing this, however, if you're nearing that 0% Sanity zone, the best thing to do is return to the van and take some Sanity Pills. These won't completely boost your Sanity, but they will have you regain an extra 40%. So, if your hunt is not quite over and there's still more evidence to collect, take some of these and get back into the building!
Knowing how to monitor and have a level of control over your Sanity in Phasmophobia can prove extremely useful. You and your team can keep yourselves safe, or use your depleted Sanity to your advantage in an attempt to trigger ghost events and gather more evidence. Just be careful that the ghost doesn't get to you!
If you want to try and keep areas of the map safe or prevent a ghost from hunting for a short period of time so you and your team can collect yourselves, it's definitely worth bringing along a Crucifix or some Smudge Sticks with you.
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