in real life, most basilisks are verbal, and won't kill you but instead drive you insane Lovecraft-style.

This reminds me of something Yvain said:

Sometimes I think about how much I take for granted my basic human mental safety mechanisms. One of my philosophy professors told a story about a student in her class who, upon studying radical Cartesian skepticism, went crazy doubting everything and had to be taken away to a hospital for a while for his own protection. I'm sure I've encountered philosophy stranger than that, and some of it I don't have an answer for, but I don't go insane for the simple reason that when I encounter a philosophical problem I can't solve I just shrug and say "Mmmm, that's interesting" and go back to my normal human life. And it's only been recently that I've realized some people can't do this - that I see people studying philosophy that's no longer even interesting to me, like determinism or reductionism[,] and having existential crises over it.