THOUGHT EATER

THOUGHT EATER

These monsters are basically unintelligent dwellers in the ether. Their senses, however, extend into the physical plane, and any psionic or psionic-related energy use in either area will attract their attention. The thought eater appears to be something like a sickly grey, skeletal-bodied, enormous headed platypus to those who are able to observe it. Its webbed paws allow it to swim through the ether. It can be attacked only by ethereal creatures. Its only desire is to feed on the mental energy of prey it is attracted to, and if it comes within 6" of any creature in the ethereal or physical planes it will be able to absorb any psionic or spell energy they attempt to use; at a range of 1" the thought eater is able to begin feeding on the actual thoughts of even non-psionic creatures. 
Gary Gygax & Brian Blume, Eldritch Wizardry

This guy is the kind of D&D monster that I absolutely love. The thought eater first appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement in 1976 but without an illustration. However, it shows up a year later, in Monster Manual I, with an illustration by D.A. Trampier.



 It's so absurd and bizarre that it's hard to draw any parallels to mythology or pop culture. That won't stop me though!

The closest I can get is courtesy of Bogleech which pointed out the connection to the Baku. In Japanese mythology the Baku is a magical tapir that devours people's nightmares (like a reverse Freddy Krueger). 

Baku sculpture at the Konnoh Hachimangu Shrine, Tokyo Japan

The history of psychic or energy vampires in popular culture goes back to the 1930s. Occultist Doin Fortune wrote about psychic parasitism in her book Psychic Self-Defense. This concept was picked up and popularized by Anton LaVey in his Satanic Bible in which he coined the term "psychic vampire".

Which leads us to film and television. The most notable being Tobe Hooper's ambitious but flawed sci-fi epic Lifeforce. Based on Colin Wilson's book unoriginally titled The Space Vampires and adapted for screen by Dan O'Bannon, it tells the story of....well basically it's Alien but with creatures that drain the lifeforce from humans. 

Here's a cover for The Space Vampires by illustrator Jerome "Jerry" Podwil alongside a still from Lifeforce.

This also leads to the character of Colin Robinson in the show What We Do In Shadows. He's an energy vampire that actually fits more with Doin Fortune's original concept...except with supernatural powers. 

The thought eater often shows up on lists of "worst D&D monsters" or "lamest D&D monsters" but the Bogleech post I cited before makes a really good case for non-traditional monsters from D&D lore. This is wildly imaginative and not "scary" in the popular sense of the word but it is fun and definitely memorable!