Writers and Insanity

Philip K. Dick was plagued or graced by visions and paranoias for much of his life. An early recurring dream, in which he was searching for a story in a stack of Astounding magazines, echoed through his work.

T.S. Eliot had a nervous breakdown in 1921, following which he produced The Waste Land.

Friederick Nietzsche developed serious mental illness in 1889, perhaps precipitated by syphilis.

Ezra Pound suffered a nervous breakdown after being confined in an open cage in Italy by the US Army.