Delirium is one of The Endless, fictional characters from Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman.

Delirium, known to some cultures within the mythos as Mania, is the youngest of the Endless. She is usually quite short, and thin. Her hair changes style and colour constantly, as do her clothes. Her shadow never reflects her shape, and is tangible, like velvet. She is said to smell of sweat, late nights, sour wine, and old leather. Her sigil in the galleries of the other characters is a multicoloured, abstract swirl. Her realm is a chaotic, constantly changing mass of colours and strange objects and shapes, and contains a sundial with the inscription "Tempus Frangit" ("time breaks," a Latin pun on the phrase "Tempus Fugit", "time flies".) Delirium travels with a "guardian" of sorts, a German Shepherd dog named Barnabas, on indefinite loan from her brother Destruction.

Born Delight, she transformed into Delirium long before the advent of humanity, as seen in Endless Nights, a collection of stories about the Endless. Most of the time, she is scatterbrained; she often forgets the thread of her conversations, and comes out with offbeat and seemingly inconsequential observations. Todd Klein, the series' letterer, draws her speech as letters which do not quite match in height or line up neatly, against a multi-coloured background. Very occasionally she is able, with an effort, to become more controlled in thought and speech, at which point her speech is drawn more neatly and the background fades to white.

The other Endless all seem to be fond of Delirium, to varying degrees, and protective of her. She in turn is affectionate towards them, particularly Destruction.

Delirium features in many of the most inventive sequences of the series, particularly in the seventh collection, Brief Lives, in which she and Morpheus attempt to track down Destruction. One of the most striking frames of the whole series features Delirium lying on a hotel bed with a bottle of bubble-blowing liquid, blowing bubbles in a variety of impossible shapes—diamonds, crosses, cats, and what appears to be Totoro from the Japanese animated feature My Neighbor Totoro (this is probably a visual joke on the side of artist Jill Thompson). Also, in a very important moment in the story, Destiny imparts upon Dream the information and the means by which he may find Destruction. Due to Dream's distress at this revelation, Delirium is forced to collect herself so much that her usual mis-matched appearance disappears, and she becomes a very symmetrical creature, reflecting perhaps that in delirium, delight still exists, no matter how painful.

It may be noted that Delirium once exhibited a very deep form of order. Towards the end of Brief Lives, as she recounts to Destruction the steps she and Dream undertook to find him, her appearance - hairstyle, clothing, et cetera - recapitulates in almost the exact order it had originally appeared.

Delirium also seems to know many things none of the other Endless know. She says so when she is teased by Desire during the family meeting in Season of Mists. At the end of Brief Lives, Destruction describes a situation in which Death told him that everybody knows everything and they just pretend they don't, but neither him nor Dream really understand or believe this. Delirium, however, says, "She is. um. Right. Kind of. Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay, sometimes."

Delirium makes a brief cameo appearance in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods.

Tale of how Delight became Delirium

(There's nothing that specifically spells it out, although Neil has said that if he writes any serious Sandman stories again, it will be to tell the story of how Delight became Delirium)

''Delirium is the youngest of the endless. She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, old leather.'' Her realm is close and can be visited; however human minds were not made to conprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting back more than the tiniest fragments.

The poet Coleridge claimed to have known her intimately, but the man was an inveterate liar and in this, as in so much, we must doubt his word.

Her appearance is the most variable of all the Endless, who, at best, are ideas cloaked in the semblace of flesh. her shadow's shape and outline has no relationship to that of any body she wears, and it is tangible like old velvet.

Some say the tragedy of Delirium is her knowlede that, despite being older than suns, older than gods, she is forever the youngest of the Endless, who do not measure time as we measure time, or see the worlds through mortal eyes.

Others deny this, and say that Delirium has no tragedy, but here they speak without reflection. For Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched: one eye is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move. The other eye is vein blue.

Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes? - Neil Gaiman's Seasons of Mist

See also

• The Endless
• Characters of The Sandman

Sandman characters