Surviving in Don’t Starve Together requires a lot of effort, as you need to keep managing up to 3 attributes, one of which is sanity, an attribute that indicates if your character is insane or not.
In this guide, let’s learn how to increase sanity in Don’t Starve Together.
Recommended Read: Is Building Walls Worth It in DST?
The main ways to increase sanity in Don’t Starve Together are by sleeping, picking flowers, eating certain food, wearing clothes, prototyping and learning recipes, killing shadow creatures, repairing relics, and standing near objects with a sanity aura.
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How to Increase Sanity in Don’t Starve Together
Although sanity doesn’t directly harm your character like other attributes, low sanity worsens visuals. As your sanity goes down, your screen is distorted, and the color fades away.
You start to hear weird noises and see shadow creatures lurking more frequently. And if your sanity is too low, those creatures come to life and will hunt you down.
If you don’t want all of this to happen, here is how to increase sanity in Don’t Starve Together!
1. Sleeping (+1 per second)
Sleeping in the Tent or Siesta Lean-to is the most reliable way to increase sanity in DST.
The Tent allows your character to sleep during the dusk and night, while the Siesta Lean-to allows you to take a nap during the day. So, using a combination of the two can guarantee perfect sleep throughout all 3 phases of the day.
Sleeping regains your sanity by 1 per second and reduces your hunger by 1 (for Tents) or 0.33 (for Siesta Lean-tos) per second.
2. Picking Flowers (+5)
Each flower provides a direct +5 sanity when picked. However, you should only do so once in a while to preserve flowers, as they’re the main source of butterflies and bee pollination.
Keep in mind that picking flowers while playing as Wormwood reduces your sanity by 5 instead.
3. Eating (+5 to 50)
Eating is the most effective way to increase your sanity in DST, as you can consume unlimited food to regain your desired sanity.
The downsides of this method are the time to find the ingredients and the extra effort to learn the cooking recipes.
Many foods in DST can increase your sanity, but in our playthrough, the most used are:
- Cooked Green Cap: +15
- Cooked Cactus Flesh: +15
- Jerky: +15
- Spicy Vegetable Stinger: +33
- Gear (WX-78 only): +50
Among normal food, Grim Galette is the special one with the ability to swap your health and sanity when consumed. However, using it outside of combat is advisable to avoid sudden death.
4. Wearing Clothes (+1.33 to 10 per minute)
Clothes in Don’t Starve Together provide a sanity aura that increases your sanity attribute per minute.
In the game’s early days, try crafting a Garland to increase your sanity by 1.33 per minute temporarily.
When Winter comes, crafting a Winter Hat and Puffy Vest is advisable, as not only do they provide 3.33 sanity per minute, but they also keep you warm.
Later on in the game, you should consider getting the Tam o’ Shanter by killing MacTusks. This hat lasts 25 days and increases your sanity by 6.7 per minute.
Moreover, Hibearnation Vest, Top Hat, Dapper Vest, and Desert Goggles are popular clothes to gain sanity.
5. Killing Shadow Creatures (+15 to 33)
For pro players, killing shadow creatures is the best way to increase sanity.
Not only does each shadow creature provide a +15 (Crawling Horror) or +33 (Terrorbeak) sanity on death, but they also drop Nightmare Fuel, an essential resource for mid to end-game.
Remember that shadow creatures can only spawn if your sanity is below a certain point.
So, regaining sanity this way is only viable for a short amount of time because, by the time you’ve killed two to three shadow creatures, your sanity is high enough to prevent them from spawning.
6. Prototyping Recipes and Learning Blueprints (+15)
In Don’t Starve Together, you can only craft locked recipes by standing near crafting stations. This action is called “prototyping”, or what we’d like to call “unlocking the recipe”.
After prototyping an item, you can then craft it normally without the crafting stations and immediately gain +15 sanity.
Moreover, learning a new blueprint also gives you 15 sanity directly.
New blueprints can be found by picking tumbleweeds or defeating certain bosses in the game. For example, Dragonfly will drop a Scaled Furnace blueprint on death.
This sanity-gaining method is unsustainable because the game has limited locked recipes and blueprints.
7. Repairing Broken Relics (+5)
Not many players know about this feature, but you can repair broken relics in ruins underground to quickly gain 5 sanity.
Moreover, you can repair a relic multiple times, making this the most reliable way to increase sanity in DST while traveling underground.
Each repair costs 4 rocks, which is not cheap. But there are multiple sources to get rocks underground, especially from the earthquake.
8. Standing Near Objects/Entities with a Sanity Aura
First, most bosses and monsters in the game have a negative sanity aura, and you can use the Bee Queen Crown to invert half of that effect.
Gestalt and Celestial Champion are a bit different, as their attack and sanity aura gives you sanity instead of draining it.
Dwarf Star, Hutch, and Gloomer are the three most popular sources to gain sanity. Plus, their effect stacks.
If you’re on the main island, get a Gloomer, then lead it next to a Dwarf Star. Finally, stand near both of them to gain 31.25 sanity per minute.
If you’re underground, try to find the Hutch. Then create a Dwarf Star and stand near them like usual to gain 65 sanity per minute.
Alternatively, Pudgy Beefalo is a great mount to bring underground, providing 6.25 sanity per minute.
In addition, some characters have a special perk or structure that allows them to gain more sanity.
For example, Willows gain 11 sanity points per minute per fire if she stays near the fire, or Wendy can build a Sisturn to provide 25 sanity per minute to all players who stand next to it.
9. Others
Each time you revive your ghost friend using a Telltale Heart, you’ll immediately gain 80 sanity.
Although this is a considerable amount, crafting Telltale Hearts is a pain. Not to mention that you can’t just let your friends die all the time, right?
Moreover, the other four characters that have special abilities to gain sanity are:
- Wendy: gains 15 sanity points each time she summons her ghost sister.
- Wilson: gains 10 sanity points each time he shaves his beard.
- Webber: same as Wilson.
- Wormwood: gains 10 sanity points for each planting action. This includes seeds, grass tufts, saplings, spiky bushes, pine cones, and birchnuts.
That’s how to increase sanity in Don’t Starve Together!
Have any suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.
