system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Cosmic Horror] What's the science behind going insane after staring at an Eldritch being ?
gpt
So, firstly, a lot of people who see eldritch horrors don't actually go crazy. If you're ranting about how you can't leave the circular room because a time-travelling eldritch dog can attack from any corner, you're going to come off as crazy even if you're completely right. If you look at a lot of "insane cosmic horror characters", they're actually perfectly coherently putting across the facts of the situation. It's just that putting across the situation coherently sounds insane.

As for why people go crazy? Simple mundane trauma, like any other horrifying experience.

People are confused by the eldritch beings, but forget these encounters are painful, terrifying and deadly on both a visceral level, and on learning things like "the earth is doomed" level . They "cause madness" because they're traumatic events to go through, especially as no-one else will believe it. They seem more so because of A. the isolation and B. the fact you sound crazier, but most people would have been given just as much madness had they been attacked by a pack of wolves as Ithaqua.

Basically, the idea that there's some Aura of Madness is a misunderstanding. It's simply mundane trauma, combined with the fact you're now (completely accurately) screaming at people about the octopus men who lives in the pacific. None of Lovecraft's protagonists had anything more then mundane PTSD from a deeply traumatic, if bizarre, experience.