And those of us who strut and fret upon the stage of modern life? When the scene turns paranormal, our normal response tends to be unbelievable or incredible.
The words have become habitual, imbedded in our neurons and probably our DNA. In the list following, I offer several hundred alternatives to these weary utterances, yet I doubt if I’ll ever stop uttering them. Even when my corporeal self goes into nova and I transmigrate into a cosmic worm hole, I’ll probably sputter, “Incredible!”
I can’t stop myself from saying the words; but in writing I no longer call on them to describe or acclaim anything significant. They are exhausted, thinned to gossamer from overapplication. They have come to mean little more than “rather good,” or “irritating” (as in an unbelievable tax hike).
If I were writing about, say, an extraterrestrial at my front door, I’d want to underscore the degree and nature of its unbelievability, or at least convey my excitement about it. I would intensify the usual adjectives, go over the top: It was hold-everything unbelievable. An outtake from The Twilight Zone. To-the-back-of-beyond unreal. I’d want to distinguish the event from special but not necessarily unbelievable phenomena—things like a dreamlike evening at the Ritz or a surreal feathered gown on a reality dance show.
Even in speech, I labor to use the occasional alternative if it doesn’t sound too labored. Perhaps uncanny or something akin to beggars belief or defies reality, but more forceful. After all, there are so many ways to test or topple belief and its partners: reality, credibility, logic, and reason. A few examples from the list: blindsides belief, lampoons belief, clobbers credibility, derails logic, annihilates all reason, hijacks reason. It gets brutal, but we are upending stubborn convictions.
In challenges to beliefs, the believing mind (or brain) might also be knocked around. The most common assault: boggles the mind or mind-boggling. Boggle in the sense of “startle” or “overwhelm” is thought to derive from Scottish terms meaning “ghost” or “goblin.” The etymology is apt but there are scores of fresh alternatives to the overworked boggle, among them mind-fritzing, mind-blitzing, and both-barrels mind-blasting . (Substitute brain for mind if you prefer.) As I write these very words, in fact, the New York Stock Exchange is suffering a 20-minute, thousand-point decline of brain-bludgeoning unbelievability, as defenestrating investors might acclaim it on their way down.
TERMS
all agogging
all-bets-off unbelievable
annihilates all reason
annuls reason
apparitional
as if
assaults belief/reason
astonishing
atomizes reason
aurora of unreality, an
banishes reason
bankrupts belief
beanballs belief
beggars belief/expression
begrudges belief
beheads belief
belief-battering
belief-buffeting
belief-twitting
belies reason
belies the apparent
belittles belief
bereft of words, one is
beseeches belief
bewildering
beyond boggling
beyond fanciful
beyond imaginary
beyond language
beyond nomenclature
beyond Ultima Thule (L.: ref., farthest point reachable)
beyond utterance
bizarre
blackballs reason
blindsides belief
blitzes reality
body-checks belief
body-slams belief
bollixing (confusing)
bonce-banger, a (UK, bonce = head)
bonks the mind
both-barrels mind-blasting
bounces your brain on the ceiling
brain-addling
brain-bludgeoning
brain-boffing
brain-bollixing
brain-buggering
brain-curdling
brain-on-a-bender bizarre
brain-pulverizing
brain-rupturingly unreal
brain-scrambling
brain-spinning
brain-straining
brain-throttling
breaches logic
breaches reality
bucks belief
bucks credibility
buggers belief
bumfoozling
burdens belief/expression
busts belief’s bullocks
butts up against reason
certified unreal
chew’s reality’s butt
chimerical (perceived, but improbable in reality)
circumvents reason
clear-the-decks, batten-down-the-hatches brain-blowing
cleaves credibility
clobbers credibility
cold-cocking (knocking out)
contra-credible
contra-cognitive
court-martials your convictions
crazy unreal
credibility-gapping
crushes reality
damns logic
decapitates reason
defenestrates all premises (throws out the window)
defies belief
defies credence
defies expression
defies perception
defies speech
deflates reason
demolishes perception
denounces logic
derails logic
derides reason
disassembles reality
disgorges conviction
disorienting
divorced from reality
dreamlike
dumbfounding
drubs reality
estranged from reality
eviscerates reason
expels belief/reason
explodes all precepts
fable, not fact, a
fantasyland
fingers reality
flabbergasting
flat-out unbelievable
flattens belief
flays credibility
fleeces logic
flooey-making
flooring
flouts reason
foils reason
furloughs reality
gear-grindingly illogical
gives reality the Bronx cheer (mocking, sputtering mouth noise)
grinds the gears of ratiocination (process of reasoning)
hallucinatory
head-bangingly unreal
hello, the impossible
hijacks reason
hold-everything unbelievable
hoovers away words (vacuums)
horsewhips reason
illusory
impales logic
implores belief
in a manner of speaking, unbloodybelievable
incarnation of amazing, the
incomprehensible
incredible uncaged, the
“[T]he temperature rose into the forties, and suddenly the air was charged with an ineffable sweetness, a perfume as of invisible flowers.”
—E. Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes, 1996
gives reason the raspberry (mocking mouth noise)
gobsmacking (rendering speechless)
ineffable (inexpressible)
inenarrable (indescribable)
inexpressible
invalidates words
“Their [the Human Eye Band’s] second full-length release continues their musical mission with more mind-derailing time changes, … hallucinatory overdriven echoplex, and a generally brutal assemblage of disparate elements…. By the second or third listen, you’ll (hopefully) be too disoriented to think, analyze, etc.”
jams the brain
jettison-all-reason incredible
kayos cognition
kicks belief in the butt
kicks credibility in the crotch
kicks reality in the rear
knocks logic for a loop
knocks reality off its pins
lampoons belief
liquidates reality
logic meltdown, a
Magic-Kingdom unreal
mauls reality
maybe in an alternate reality
maybe in another dimension
maybe in the anti-universe
migraine-making
mind-bending
mind-blitzing
Mind-Boggling Boulevard
mind-bonking
mind-cleaving
mind-clobbering
mind-crumping
mind-cudgeling
mind-derailing
mind-diddling
mind-disintegrating
mind-dismantling
mind-fracturing
mind-frazzling
mind-fritzing
mind-gobbling
mind-gutting
mind-hemorrhaging
mind-incinerating
mind-jarring
mind-joggling
mind-macerating (softening by soaking)
mind-maiming
mind-mangling
mind-marmalizing (thrashing into marmalade)
mind-mashing
mind-mugging
mind-mushing
mind-mutilating
mind-muzzling
mind-pummeling
mind-razing
mind-riddling
mind-shattering
mind-splitting
mind-stopping
mocks credibility
mocks the apparent
moons logic
mouth-stopping
mugs belief
muting
never-neverish
nimbus of unreal, a (cloudlike aura)
nimiety of unreal, a (overflowing excess)
nonplussing (confusing)
nubilation of unreal, a (cloud formation)
off the map
“… I have nothing to say. It is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a bird before a snake, hoping it will not swallow us.”
—J. M. Coetzee, Foe, 1986
mind-thwacking
mind-truncheoning
mind-vaporizing
mind-walloping
mind-zapping
mirage, a
off the reality grid
Og, Gog, and Magog brainboggling
ontologically out there (beyond or at the fringes of theories of existence)
out of human range
out-of-body unreal
outtake from The Twilight Zone, an
otherworldly
overmuch
overthrows reality
overwhelming
Oz-unreal
pauperizes reason
pauperizes language/words
phantasmagoric (illusory, as in shifting, dreamlike illusions)
phantasmal
pillages belief
pillories belief (locks up for ridicule)
pinch-yourself unreal
pistol-whips reason
prostrates belief/certainty (throws flat to the ground)
pummels understanding
punctures logic
quarantines logic
rakes belief over the coals
reality belly-up
reality fading out now!
reality on a fast
reality on a toot
reality on recess
reality-rending
redonkulous
renders words useless
rift in reality, a
rules out perception
sabotages belief
salt my hide if I’m seeing this
sanctions disbelief
sandbags logic
saps belief
science-fictional
scorns logic
scorns reality
scuttles belief
sends reality packing
sheer astonishment, a
shoots logic in the foot
shreds belief to the bone
skewers words/expression
skews reality
skull-spinning
slaughters belief
so unreal it’s illusory
so unreal it’s null and nonexistent
so unreal it’s unactual
sound-the-alarm unreal
spectral
speech-shattering
speech-stopping
splinters credibility
spoofs reason
spurns reality
squashes belief
staggers belief
stares down reality
startling
stills the voice
strains expression
stymies speech
trammels logic (shackles, restrains)
tramples logical thought
transmundane (beyond this world)
trashes reality
trim-sail-and-batten-the-hatches mind-blowing
turbulence of unreality, a
tweaks reason’s nose
“Words, with their weight, have a tendency to fall like birds of prey on delicate ideas, carrying them away before they have a chance to reach fruition.”
—Lyall Watson, Lifetide, 1979
stymies the senses
subpoenas belief
surreal
swindles reality
taunts belief
taxes credibility
tears the cover off logic
tests the senses
tips the scales of credibility
tongue-bindingly indescribable
tongue-stilling
to-the-back-of-beyond unreal
Twilight-Zone unreal
twits belief
uncanny
undercuts reality
undermines all credos (statements of belief)
ungluing
unreportable
unrool (AUSTRAL, unreal)
untenable (cannot be defended or maintained)
unutterable
unzips reality
uproots all faith
validates disbelief
validates doubt
vertiginously boggling (dizzyingly)
vetoes reason
voids reality
walks-on-water incredible
wig-walloping
will blow your circuit board
will blow your circuitry
will blow your mainframe
will crash your hard drive
will-o’-the-wisp, a (elusive glow, or anything that misleads one on)
wilts belief
withers credibility
words betray me
words collapse
words desert me
words forsake me
zeroes out belief
VINTAGE GOLD YOU ARE KIDDING ME!
One of our most habitual belief-challenging outcries is “You have got to be kidding!” It makes the point; but demonstrative doubters will find many of our suggestions also suitable for exclamation, while a few vintage ejaculations (below) are worth mentioning for their color or vitality. Some oldies endure through association with a popular figure. John McEnroe’s patented challenge to tennis umpires, “You cannot be serious!” became his acclamatory cry decades later in auto-rental commercials.
Come off it!
Did you ever!
Go on!
Heavens to Betsy!
In a pig’s eye!
Like fun!
My foot!
No kiddin’!
Tell it to the marines!
Tell me another!
That cock won’t fight!
Well, shut my mouth!
Your Aunt Mitty!
Unbelievable 
