History Main / AmnesiaLoop

** In an in-game short story told by Morte, an amnesiac man is sitting by the side of the road when an old hag appears and asks him for his third ([[ThreeWishes and final]]) wish. Confused, he asks how he can make a third wish when he hasn't even made a first or second wish yet, and she explains that he already did, but he can't remember them because he used his second wish to undo his first wish. The man is clearly skeptical of the hag's claims, but nevertheless wishes to remember who he is. The hag grants his wish and disappears, cackling. "Funny... that was your ''first'' wish."

** The Silence (being creatures that you immediately forget the second you're not looking at them) induce this in their victims, with the very fact of their existence being the constantly forgotten revelation in their first episode. The problem of forgetting them cannot easily be solved; even pictures of them get forgotten instantly and spoken information about them fades fairly quickly (though not instantly), but people can leave themselves messages and warnings about them, and thus make themselves aware of their existence even when they can't actually remember them.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]]: One of the warning signs that [[spoiler: Amy Pond]] is losing her mind is that the Doctor tells her that he's already explained what's happening to her several times.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E8TheZygonInversion "The Zygon Inversion"]]: The Doctor reveals that [[spoiler:the Osgood Box is a fake]], and also that there's a reason it's kept in the Undergallery with its LaserGuidedAmnesia device. Before sonicking the memory wipers to do their thing, he suggests they've all already been through this fifteen times.

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!!Examples

* ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Endless Eight]]'': Everyone except Yuki has their memories of the GroundhogDayLoop erased at the end of said loop. This is a problem as they are trying to figure out how to end it.

* ''[[{{Comicbook/Sleeper}} Point Blank]]'': This is what becomes of Grifter's attempt to investigate Lynch's shooting, due in no small part to his drinking problem.

[[folder:Film]]

* In the science fiction novel ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky'' by Creator/VernorVinge, one of the characters is in a relationship with a man who she thinks is really nice but he's really a sadistic monster. There's a scene where she finally discovers the truth, only to be detained by his guards and dragged off to have her [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memories selectively erased]], with the guards' dialogue making it clear this isn't the first time this has happened.
* In Creator/VernorVinge's short story "The Cookie Monster", the characters figure out halfway through their investigation that they're [[BrainUploading uploads]] in a computer simulation, and that they get reset and forget everything at the end of their work cycle. They do know that the current cycle is different, as they have an email that gives them hints on where to go, but they have to race to the goal before they're detected or the cycle ends. [[spoiler:When they reach the end of the line, they find out that they've repeated the cycle of following the email to the programmers' lair over 1000 times already.]] The characters even make the AmnesiaLoop work to their advantage: [[spoiler:by tipping off the programmers at the beginning of ''their'' cycle, they have a whole subjective year to get closer to escaping, sabotage the controlling scientist's attempts to keep them from noticing discrepancies, and pass on everything they've learned to the next cycle.]]

* ''Series/BlackMirror''[='s=] "[[Recap/BlackMirrorWhiteBear White Bear]]" is all about the punishment of a woman who watched (and recorded) her boyfriend burning a kidnapped child to death. Her punishment is to have her mind wiped and then chased around for a day by armed maniacs while hundreds of people stop to record her on their phones. Then when the day is complete they wipe her memory and do the same thing again, [[FateWorseThanDeath and again, and again]].

-->'''Spike:''' ''(laughs sarcastically)'' Oh, I get it. That's very crafty. Glory's worked the kind of mojo where anyone who sees her little presto-change-o instantly forgets. And yours truly, being somewhat other than human ... stands immune.\\
'''Willow:''' ''(frowning)'' So ... [[spoiler:Ben and Glory ... are-are the same person]]?\\
'''Xander:''' ''(slowly, like a revelation)'' Glory can [[spoiler:turn into Ben, and Ben turns back into Glory]].\\

'''Spike:''' Kewpie doll for the lady. ''(He puts one finger on his nose and points the other hand at Anya.)''\\
'''Giles:''' Excellent. ''(looks around at them)'' Now. Do we suspect [[spoiler:there may be some kind of connection between Ben and Glory]]?\\
'''Spike''': ''*Sigh*''

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]], there's a secret at the heart of the kingdom, and Liz X is determined to uncover the truth. Part of the truth she uncovers is that she's uncovered the truth many times before, but always agreed to undergo LaserGuidedAmnesia to allow it to remain secret. When the Doctor and Amy get involved in her latest investigation, Amy finds a way to TakeAThirdOption, and the loop is broken.
** The Silents (being creatures that you immediately forget the second you're not looking at them) induce this in their victims, with the very fact of their existence being the constantly forgotten revelation in their first episode. The problem of forgetting them cannot easily be solved; even pictures of them get forgotten instantly and spoken information about them fades fairly quickly (though not instantly), but people can leave themselves messages and warnings about them, and thus make themselves aware of their existence even when they can't actually remember them.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]], one of the warning signs that [[spoiler: Amy Pond]] is losing her mind is that the Doctor tells her that he's already explained what's happening to her several times.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33ShortTheInforarium "The Inforarium"]], the Doctor gets a guard at the titular LibraryOfBabel stuck in one because he's left a memory-proof recording, so the guard forgets about it every time he looks away. It's not permanent, though.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E8TheZygonInversion The Zygon Inversion]]", the Doctor reveals that [[spoiler: the Osgood Box is a fake]], and also that there's a reason it's kept in the Undergallery with its LaserGuidedAmnesia device. Before sonicking the memory wipers to do their thing, he suggests they've all already been through this fifteen times.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent "Heaven Sent"]], the Doctor is teleported into a mysterious and sinister MobileMaze. As he explores, he finds evidence that he's not the first person to have been imprisoned there. Eventually he figures out the secret of the maze and realises that all the previous occupants of the maze were also him, and that [[spoiler:when each had got as far as he could toward escaping, he used his death to power the teleporter and create a fresh copy of himself from the teleporter's pattern buffer, who would then start exploring all over again]]. This is followed by a montage showing that in each loop the Doctor gets a bit closer to escaping, until finally he wins free and the episode ends.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/CaseyAndAndy'': The title characters watch a movie, then decide that they want to be able to enjoy the twists again, so they erase their memories of watching it and watch it again. It later turns out that they had done this around 60 times for that particular movie.
* Defied in ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' -- when Florence gets kidnapped onto a top-secret military base, the commander uses direct orders to forbid her from talking about it, instead of a memory wipe, ''specifically'' because he knows that anyone with missing memories would try to find out what happened to them.
%% The Maze of Many in ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}''.
* In ''Webcomic/MixedMyth'', the sphynx Tamit is actually [[spoiler:the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Enigma]], which means she's destined to always be a mystery to herself. Any time she learns her true identity, she then forgets everything.
* Done humorously in a ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'': A man wakes up in a field, trying to figure out how he got there ("I was running from...something...") at which point a big monster whacks him over the head. [[HereWeGoAgain The last panel is identical to the first.]]
[[/folder]]

** Implied in an in-game short story. An amnesiac man meets a hag who asked him for his ''third'' wish. Since he doesn't remember the other two, she explains that he was granted three wishes, and had used the second wish to undo the effects of the first. So for his final wish, the amnesiac asks to know who he is. The hag laughs and says that ''that was his first wish''.

* The Maze of Many in ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}''.

* The second season of ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' opens during one of these. Every time the four main humans work out that [[spoiler: they're actually in the Bad Place being tortured]] Michael wipes their memories forcing them to start from scratch and work out the truth again. They have to go through ''802'' cycles of this before Michael finally stops wiping their memories.

* Implied to have happened several times with Leonard Shelby in ''Film/{{Memento}}''. Leonard is implied to have killed several people who he thought killed his wife, than destroyed the evidence of "success" after the killings, then was driven to find a killer all over again. [[spoiler: If Eddie is to be believed, they killed the person who broke into Leonard's house a long time ago and on top of that, its actually Leonard himself who accidentally killed her, though she's as much to blame. ]]

* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', [[spoiler:Marlize [=DeVoe=]]] tries to leave a NoteToSelf warning herself that [[spoiler:her husband]] has resorted to drugging and [[MindRape Mind Raping]] her to get her to go along with their criminal activities. Unfortunately, the innocuous file name she chose for her warning has already been taken, and [[spoiler:Clifford [=DeVoe=]]] is waiting for her with a syringe when she tries to leave.

* In ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'' episode "[[Recap/TheFlash2014S4E17NullAndAnnoyed Null and Annoyed", Marlize [=DeVoe=] realizes that [[BigBad her husband]] has been drugging her in order to keep her on his side. Fearful, she records a video message to herself with the truth and tries to save it under an innocuous name, only for the computer to notify her that a file with that name already exists. She is shocked to see a message similar to the one she has just recorded telling her to run. Then [=DeVoe=] appears and tells her that she always names the video the same way, implying that this trope has happened multiple times and he had to wipe her memory every time. He then proceeds to do it again.

* In the science fiction novel ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky'' by Creator/VernorVinge, one of the characters is in a relationship with a man who she thinks is really nice but he's really a sadistic monster. There's a scene where she finally discovers the truth about him, only to have him zap her with LaserGuidedAmnesia -- again.

* In Creator/VernorVinge's short story "The Cookie Monster", the characters figure out halfway through their investigation that they're [[BrainUploading uploads]] in a computer simulation, and that they get reset and forget everything at the end of their work cycle. They do know that the current cycle is different, as they have an email that gives them hints on where to go, but they have to race to the goal before they're detected or the cycle ends. [[spoiler:When they reach the end of the line, they find out that they've repeated the cycle of following the email to the programmers' lair over 1000 times already.]] The characters even make the AmnesiaLoop work to their advantage: [[spoiler:by tipping off the programmers at the beginning of ''their'' cycle, they have a whole subjective year to get closer to escaping, sabotage the controlling scientist's attempts to keep them from noticing discrepancies, and pass on everything they've learned to the next cycle.]]

* In ''Series/{{Westworld}}'', [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Maeve]] keeps having what she thinks are dreams featuring a Westworld staff member in a hazmat suit. When she suspects her memories are being tampered with [[spoiler:after Dolores triggers her self-awareness]], she quickly sketches the figure of the staff member and hides it under a loose floorboard, only to discover that she's already done this several times.

* ''Series/BlackMirror''[='s=] "White Bear" is all about the punishment of a woman who watched (and recorded) her boyfriend burning a kidnapped child to death. Her punishment is to have her mind wiped and then chased around for a day by armed maniacs while hundreds of people stop to record her on their phones. Then when the day is complete they wipe her memory and do the same thing again, [[FateWorseThanDeath and again, and again]].

* Beautie in the ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' story "Her Dark Plastic Roots" is a life-size "Beautie Doll" (an {{Expy}} for {{Franchise/Barbie}}) who is unsatisfied with her life because she doesn't know her own history. She investigates and discovers she was created by a super-villain's then-eight-year-old daughter. When she confronts her creator, who is now in her forties, her creator resets her memory so that she doesn't remember her investigation, as she has done every few years as Beautie repeats her investigation. Beautie's friend and teammate MPH tells her to think about it next time, because Beautie deserves better.

** The Silence (being creatures that you immediately forget the second you're not looking at them) induce this in their victims, with the very fact of their existence being the constantly forgotten revelation in their first episode. The problem of forgetting them cannot easily be solved; even pictures of them get forgotten instantly and spoken information about them fades fairly quickly (though not instantly), but people can leave themselves messages and warnings about them, and thus make themselves aware of the Silence's existence even when they can't actually remember them.

-->Hank: It's kind of a... "Wednesday" color?

* [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Endless Eight.]] Everyone except Yuki has their memories of the GroundhogDayLoop erased at the end of said loop. This is a problem as they are trying to figure out how to end it.

* [[{{Comicbook/Sleeper}} Point Blank]]: This is what becomes of Grifter's attempt to investigate Lynch's shooting, due in no small part to his drinking problem.

* In Vernor Vinge's short story "The Cookie Monster", the characters figure out halfway through their investigation that they're [[BrainUploading uploads]] in a computer simulation, and that they get reset and forget everything at the end of their work cycle. They do know that the current cycle is different, as they have an email that gives them hints on where to go, but they have to race to the goal before they're detected or the cycle ends. [[spoiler:When they reach the end of the line, they find out that they've repeated the cycle of following the email to the programmers' lair over 1000 times already.]] The characters even make the AmnesiaLoop work to their advantage: [[spoiler:by tipping off the programmers at the beginning of ''their'' cycle, they have a whole subjective year to get closer to escaping, sabotage the controlling scientist's attempts to keep them from noticing discrepancies, and pass on everything they've learned to the next cycle.]]

* [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Endless Eight.]] Everyone except Yuki has their memories of the GroundhogDayLoop erased at the end of said loop. This is a problem as they are trying to figure out how to end it.

* In ''Film/EternalSunshineOfTheSpotlessMind'', where technology exists to erase unhappy memories, people keep getting into the same bad relationships over and over, then having their memories of them removed.

* In Creator/EvanHunter's novel ''Buddwing'', a man awakens with amnesia and starts to piece things together. In the end he remembers that [[spoiler:because he was a perpetual dick his wife committed suicide, and the shock and guilt gives him amnesia again. The book ends at the same place and situation at which it started]].
* The children [[spoiler:who are {{Amnesiac God}}s]] in Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'' get this repeatedly, until they escape the school.

** In "The Beast Below", there's a secret at the heart of the kingdom, and Liz X is determined to uncover the truth. Part of the truth she uncovers is that she's uncovered the truth many times before, but always agreed to undergo LaserGuidedAmnesia to allow it to remain secret. When the Doctor and Amy get involved in her latest investigation, Amy finds a way to TakeAThirdOption, and the loop is broken.

** In "Asylum of the Daleks" one of the warning signs that [[spoiler: Amy Pond]] is losing her mind is that the Doctor tells her that he's already explained what's happening to her several times.
** In "Heaven Sent", the Doctor is teleported into a mysterious and sinister MobileMaze. As he explores, he finds evidence that he's not the first person to have been imprisoned there. Eventually he figures out the secret of the maze and realises that all the previous occupants of the maze were also him, and that [[spoiler:when each had got as far as he could toward escaping, he used his death to power the teleporter and create a fresh copy of himself from the teleporter's pattern buffer, who would then start exploring all over again]]. This is followed by a montage showing that in each loop the Doctor gets a bit closer to escaping, until finally he wins free and the episode ends.

* ''Series/BlackMirror's'' ''White Bear'' is all about the punishment of a woman who watched (and recorded) her boyfriend burning a kidnapped child to death. Her punishment is to have her mind wiped and then chased around for a day by armed manics while 100's of people stop to record her on her phone. Then when the day is complete they wipe her memory and do the same thing again, [[FateWorseThanDeath and again, and again]].
* In an episode of ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'', Houka was hit with a spell that caused her to lose her memory every hour, on the hour.
* In an episode of ''Series/GetSmart'', Max gets knocked out in an injury after discovering a big KAOS scheme and a KAOS agent plays a doctor treating him who 'prescribes' instant amnesia pills. Time after time, just as Max is about to remember the scheme, it's time to take a pill, and it's back to square one.
* Series/ArrestedDevelopment: GOB spends most of 2007-2012 in a "Roofie Circle".

* In ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', [[spoiler:Komari's memories of her older brother do this - whenever she finally finds out the truth that he died, she falls into a HeroicBSOD so bad that the only way to get out again is to repress the memories...leaving her once more a happy girl curious about dreams of a brother she doesn't know. Riki manages to break her out of the loop by forcing her to accept reality, but Komari's grandmother had a similar thing happen to her and never recovered.]]

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens2013'' involved the monsters seeing something so horrific and disgusting ([[spoiler:Coverton in his chrysalis state]]) that they purposely erase their memories of it. Then they all wonder why they are mysteriously missing an hour of time and investigate, ending up subjecting themselves to the same sight and erasing their memories again. ''Then'' they wonder why they are mysteriously missing ''two'' hours of time and investigate ''again''... and again... and again. However, B.O.B. is immune to the memory erasing because he has no brain, and throughout the episode he tries to stop the rest of the monsters from investigating and re-scarring themselves. Eventually he gets so sick of the loop that he destroys the memory erasing device, telling the rest of the monsters that if ''he'' has to suffer with the memory of what they saw, then so do the rest of them.
[[/folder]]

* In ''Series/Westworld'', [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Maeve]] keeps having what she thinks are dreams featuring a Westworld staff member in a hazmat suit. When she suspects her memories are being tampered with [[spoiler:after Dolores triggers her self-awareness]], she quickly sketches the figure of the staff member and hides it under a loose floorboard, only to discover that she's already done this several times.

* The children [[spoiler:who are {{Amnesiac God}}s]] in JohnCWright's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'' get this repeatedly, until they escape the school.