Total Perspective Vortex

The most horrifying form of torture/punishment in the known Universe. The Total Perspective Vortex (it's so mind bogglingly terrifying it even gets Capital Letters) is a small, featureless steel box, barely big enough for one man to stand in. The hopeless victims stand in the Vortex, and are suddenly shown, for the merest instant, the whole of the Universe: the whole infinity of creation, spanning over several trillion light years, and countless millennia, with an insignificant dot saying "You Are Here". The victims, totally demoralised by their experience, fall dead from the vortex, wherupon they become the burden of the Vortex' custodian, Pizpot Gargravarr. To date, Zaphod Beeeblebrox (former President of the Galaxy, and "The best bang since the Big one") is the only man to have survived the vortex, solely because he is a hoopy frood and the Vortex told him as much.