Salem

This is what happened: madness=0, dead man in tree, me cutting down tree, no reward, no evil things happening, me going to leafy bed (and to work in real life), 9 hours later home and login, harvest a few fields: BAM, madness=1.
Any clues? According to wiki sleeping 8 hours should reset insanity...

You gained insanity for seeing a guy hung in the tree. You didn't check his body before cutting him down, thus not getting anything. Sleeping lowers a madness level if you sleep with a teddybear. Otherwise, it does not help.

It is a subtle difference between insanity and madness. Insanity accumulates over time and through various activities. Accumulating enough insanity results in gaining a level of madness. They are not the same thing, though I think when the mechanic was introduced this was lost on many, myself included.

Is it possible that you accumulated enough insanity prior to sleeping, and then after waking and tending fields you accumulated the remaining amount necessary to gain a madness level? How long were you tending fields before you gained a level of madness?

I know seing a hung man gives insanity. But there were no game message about this accumulating into 1 madness level. Thus after sleeping 10 hours immediately afterwards, and according to wiki, insanity should reset to "lowest possible". I tended fields for perhaps 10 mins.

So this examply suggest either (i) I did indeed gain enough insanity to 1 madness level, but the game will not tell me (some update issue), or (ii) wiki is not correct (any longer) sleeping does not remove insanity (leafy bed).

Any other similar experiences?

PS Of course I didnt loot the corpse. What do you take me for. Im a pilgrim, not a criminal.

I don't know if it changed recently, but the only reference I find to sleeping as it pertains to insanity/madness is that sleeping for 8 hours with a teddybear will remove 1 madness level.

http://salemwiki.info/index.php/Insanity

Can you share your source?

As discussed the wiki is incorrect if it tells you it reduces insanity. Sleeping only has a chance to reduce madness with a teddy bear. not insanity.

Not trying to derail, but:
Here's another noob-question from the noob; after the hung man is looted, is he also cut down from that tree ?
And after looted will the tree persist in the game as a graphic at that location (without the body attached to it), or will the tree quickly disappear from the landscape by default ?
...I've seen one of those trees, and think it would look pretty cool inside of a homestead.

The trees persist.

JohnCarver wrote:You gained insanity for seeing a guy hung in the tree. You didn't check his body before cutting him down, thus not getting anything. Sleeping lowers a madness level if you sleep with a teddybear. Otherwise, it does not help.

Btw, why does sleeping without a teddy does not lower insanity (not madness lvl) anymore?

Thanks John, that explains things. I knew my insanity level was quite high, but didnt pick any flowers, as I hit the bed. Falsely thinking it'd solve the problem.
Related: does anyone have an idea about how many flowers to pick, in order to remove all insanity (like you're almost going to hit madness 1, but not there yet, how many flowers to pick to remove all accumulated insanity). My guess would be 40...