History Main / IdentityAmnesia

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'', special character Brakar the Avenger was found alone and near death in an isolated Underhive tunnel with no memory of who he was or how he got there. The Ratskin natives who rescued Brakar adopted him into their tribe but, although his physical wounds healed, he never regained the memories of his previous life.

* ''Film/PrimalFear'': Lawyer Martin Vail is defending an altar boy named Aaron Stampler, who has killed someone at in response to the Father at his church taping Norton being forced to rape some girl he knew. At Aaron's criminal hearing, Vail calls out Aaron's psychotic side with belittling taunts, to prove that Aaron has no memory of the attack.

** The ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'' Magneto was deliberately given this by Professor X, turned into a mild-mannered social worker until Charles could figure out how to permanently de-evil his main personality. He never got the chance.
** Jimmy Hudson jumped from the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel to the prime earth, but forgot everything when he did so. He was rescued by the time-displaced X-Men, who already knew him because they had a crossover before this. His memories returned in time.

-->'''Impulse:''' ''"Great Scott! I'm moving at superspeed! Oh, yeah; I'm Impulse."''

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/45984871/chapters/115749064 Waters of Lethe]]'', a ''Franchise/MyHeroAcademia'' fic has Aizawa hit with an amnesia-inducing quirk from a villain known as Oblivion when he's captured by quirk-traffickers. Since Oblivion dosed himself with Trigger and Aizawa was in one of the cells that was hardest hit, he remains unable to remember anything about himself or his life long after the other rescued captives have recovered. It takes three and a half days for anything to even start to come back and even then it's bits and pieces before the final dam break when the quirk wears off. The part that's borderline for this trope is that Aizawa is convinced he's a criminal because the only thing he can remember is being chained to the ground in a prison cell.

* ''Anime/OneStormyNight'': [[spoiler:When Gabu gets caught up in an avalanche, he forgets all about his experiences with Mei. When they meet, he knocks him out and drags him away to eat him, just like any other wolf would. He only remembers when Mei repeats the phrase [[TitleDrop 'one stormy night']] to him.]]

* In ''Film/TheAddamsFamily'' film, [[spoiler:"Gordon", the son of the film's BigBad, who was posing as Fester, is revealed to actually be an amnesiac Fester]].

* In ''Film/{{Blackout|1985}}'', Creator/KeithCarradine's character is in a car accident that leaves him an amnesiac and the other man who was in the car dead. As only one of the men's identities is known, Keith takes on that one and becomes a sweet guy who marries his nurse, adopts her kids, and has a baby with her. Everything is going swimmingly until [[spoiler:everyone, including Keith, suddenly realizes he's actually the other guy -- a crazed serial killer.]] Oops.
* The whole plot of ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries The Bourne Identity]]'' revolves around Jason Bourne who lost all memory of his previous life (although he has some flashbacks).
* In ''Film/TheBrightonStrangler'' an actor playing the title role suffered a head injury when the theater was bombed and believed that was his real identity as a result.

* In the Creator/LaurelAndHardy film ''Film/AChumpAtOxford'', it is revealed that Stan's regular foolish self is the product of amnesia -- originally he was one "Lord Paddington", a prestigious Oxford University scholar who had lost his memory and wandered off after getting hit on the head by a closing window. Eventually Stan gets hit on the head in the same manner and regains this original intelligent, snobby personality, while accordingly losing all memory of his life as "Stan Laurel", essentially making this trope apply both ways. Naturally he later gets hit on the head again and returns to the "Stan" persona in the film's conclusion.

* Film/{{Hancock}} was attacked when he was with his wife and had his skull fractured, which erased any memory of who he was.

* The premise of ''Film/{{Hook}}'' is that Franchise/PeterPan chose to finally leave Neverland and grow up, and eventually loses his memory...until Captain Hook shows up and kidnaps his children.
* In ''Film/TheMajestic'': Blacklisted screenwriter Peter Appleton gets drunk and crashes his car and wakes up with amnesia. He wanders into a nearby town and adopts the identity of Luke Trimble when he is mistaken for a local boy who died in WWII. He later regains his memory after watching one of his own movies. [[note]]A big part of the movie is him escaping from a [=McCarthyist=] persecution because someone ([[spoiler:an old crush of his]]) named him to the commission. His amnesia could have been his mind trying to escape the reality of his life and career in ruins over a witch hunt.[[/note]]
* The hero of ''Film/{{Mirage 1965}}'' suffers from amnesia brought on by a traumatic event that he cannot remember and hence tries to uncover. He even hires a PrivateDetective to help him find out who he is really is.
* A key plot point in ''Film/TheMuppetsTakeManhattan;'' just as Kermit has succeeded in getting someone to produce his musical on Broadway, he gets hit by a taxi and loses his memory. He comes to believe he's an advertising executive named Phil until opening night when [[spoiler:he laughs a little too loudly at the thought of being in love with Miss Piggy and gets karate-chopped by her, recovering his true identity and memory moments later.]]

* In ''Film/PrimalFear'', Richard Gere plays a lawyer investigating Edward Norton and the Father at his church, Norton has killed someone in response to the Father at his church taping Norton being forced to rape some girl he knew. At Norton's criminal hearing, Gere calls out Norton's psychotic side with belittling taunts, to prove that Norton had no memory of the attack.

* In the [[SoBadItsGood laughably bad]] ''Film/SantaWithMuscles'', Wrestling/HulkHogan plays a greedy health guru who suffers a blow to the head while disguised as a department-store Santa and starts thinking he really is SantaClaus.
* In ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'', souls processed through the Styx are subject to having their memories erased, leaving them without any knowledge of who they are. Orpheus's memories of his parents are selectively erased, and when it's done he has no idea who they are, and they have no idea who he is.
* The protagonist of ''Film/SomewhereInTheNight (1946)'' lost his memory after being hit by a grenade in WWII.

* In ''Film/{{Unknown 2006}}'', the entire cast awakens in a warehouse with no memory after they were exposed to a toxic gas. Figuring out who's who becomes a pressing matter when they discover that A) they're all locked inside, B) some of them are kidnappers who'd abducted the others, and C) the kidnappers' armed and ruthless accomplices will be arriving in a few hours.
* In ''Film/{{Unknown 2011}}'', Liam Neeson's character awakens from a coma after a car accident only to find that no one, not even his wife, recognizes him. He then starts to question his true identity, yet as it turns out, [[spoiler:he's actually an assassin, and the person that he thinks he is is actually only [[FakeMemories the cover identity given to him for this particular mission]].]]

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/PebbleInTheSky'': When Joseph Schwartz realizes he's in a strange land, his first conclusion is that he has forgotten who he is and several years. He even questions if his memories of his wife and children are accurate. However, it isn't memory loss; he's been [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent flung into the far future]].
* In ''Literature/{{Allegiant}}'', [[spoiler:Peter willingly rids himself of all his memories of who he was and what he's done, because [[ThePenance he doesn't want to be that person anymore]], but he knows he [[DirtyCoward won't do the work to become a better person on his own]]. Tobias notes that Peter even needs to be reminded of his own name after he wipes his mind clean]].
* Creator/MargeryAllingham's ''Literature/AlbertCampion'': During ''Traitor's Purse'', Albert comes round from concussion not knowing who he is, dares not admit that he can't recognise his associates, but knows he must continue an investigation of which he remembers only odd details. In the course of this, he gets [[EasyAmnesia another bang on the head]], comes around remembering everything that happened before the first one, and eventually manages to merge the two sets of memories.
* Creator/RobertArthur's "Literature/ObstinateUncleOtis": The title character got amnesia not once but ''twice'', and both times believed himself to be a farm machinery salesman named Eustace Lingham.

* Creator/DesmondBagley's ''Literature/TheTightropeMen'': The protagonist wakes up in a strange hotel room in Norway, remembering only his name, which isn't the one on his passport. Even more horrifying, he looks in the mirror and finds he has a completely different face. [[spoiler:Turns out he's been abducted, brainwashed and altered through plastic surgery, then put in the place of a KidnappedScientist in order to create a few days confusion so the kidnappers can get away with their prize.]]

* ''Literature/TheDevilsArithmetic'': When she's first transported into 1942, the protagonist retains her memories of being Hannah, a late-20th century girl from New Rochelle, even though she's living the life of Chaya from Lublin. But as time goes on, she begins to forget Hannah's memories, until she can only remember small, out-of-context flashes that she can't place. It's not until she's [[spoiler:facing death]] that she remembers Hannah again.

* ''[[Literature/KingdomsDisdain The Kingdom's Disdain]]'': The main character, Cardinal, is Isekaied from our world into a land of magic and monsters. He can't remember his own name or much about his life, but he remembers details about 2019 America.

* ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'': In this [[UsefulNotes/IndianLanguages Sanskrit]] epic, ''The Recognition of Shakuntala'' is probably the [[UrExample oldest example]]. It's a [[BoyMeetsGirl Girl Meets Boy]] story about a woman named Shakuntala who meets Dushyanta and marries him, only for him to get cursed with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia amnesia]] and completely forget her. The only way to lift the curse is to show him the ring that he gave her, but she loses the ring in a river. She eventually finds the ring by the end of the story, makes him remember, and then they live HappilyEverAfter.

* In ''Literature/WithinRuin'' Descarta doesn't remember anything from two years before the start of the novel. Virgil attempts to restore her memories each night through extensive casting except [[spoiler:he is actually casting to bind her artificial soul with real souls so she can go on living. In truth he wiped her memories to keep her from realizing she is the Galatea to his PygmalionPlot]]. Despite her memory loss she still [[spoiler:hates Virgil. She doesn't know why, and assumes she loved him before her amnesia]].

* Creator/SparkyLyle's ''Literature/TheYearIOwnedTheYankees'' had a player named Felipe Suarez who, after breaking a bat over his head, began to think he was Don Mattingly.

* One episode of ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' involved Gomez becoming an ordinary '50s-style breadwinner whenever he took a blow to the head.
* A blow to the head in an ''Series/AllThat'' sketch makes Josh think he's "Lord Swaynesboro".
* In ''Series/BabylonFive'' this is the Earth Alliance's version of the death penalty for civilians, the "Death of Personality". A machine suppresses all knowledge of one's past life, and the resulting blank shell is programmed to love serving others, so no one feels conflicted about keeping them in unwitting community service via a menial job for life. In contrast to many fictional cases of EasyAmnesia, it can't be instantly, completely reversed, but it's relatively easy for a telepath to unblock ''some'' of the memories.
* One of the foes from the ''Series/Batman1966'' TV show was King Tut, a meek and mild-mannered Egyptology professor who became a [[CriminalAmnesiac criminally inclined]] Pharaoh whenever he got hit on the head.

* ''Series/{{Blindspot}}'': The show's central concept. Drugs were used to try and completely wipe out the narrative memory of a woman (temporarily named Jane Doe), leaving her with no idea who she is and where she comes from. Her procedural memory, on the other hand, is fully intact, meaning that she can function like most other adults while demonstrating new skills (including marksmanship, martial arts, and fluent Chinese) as the plot requires.
* ''Series/CharlesInCharge''. In one episode, a tap turns Charles into Chaz, a slimy-smooth ladies' man with a personality nothing like Charles's. Chaz gets married before he reverts to Charles. Everyone is worried that he won't be able to get an annulment, but it turns out the marriage isn't valid: Chaz didn't fill in [[NoNameGiven his last name]] on the certificate.
* In an episode of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'', Rob Petrie was demonstrating a breakaway violin to Buddy and Sally, but accidentally smashed a real violin on his head. Later we discover that he was missing the whole evening because he was hanging out at some party with a girl under the name "[[LineOfSightName Stradivarius]]".

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood "The Family of Blood"]]: Some AppliedPhlebotinum causes the Doctor to forget that he is a Time Lord and for his DNA to be rewritten as human so as to hide from the Family.
*** This is the exact same reason why kindly old Professor Yana in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia "Utopia"]] has no idea he's [[spoiler:the Master]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor "The Next Doctor"]]: [[spoiler:The man thought to be a future reincarnation of the Doctor actually turns out to be an example of this. His wife was killed and his son was abducted by the Cybermen, and his mind blocked out all memory of them, at the same time being fed information on the Doctor by a piece of technology holding all information on said Time Lord. He ended up adopting the identity of the Doctor to kill the pain until the true Doctor explained exactly what had happened to him.]]
* ''Dr. Shrinker'': In the episode "Slowly I Turn" (one of the features of the Krofft Supershow, 1976-77), the fat loser character Gordie hits his head and is convinced by the bad guys that he is the mad scientist, Dr. Shrinker. Even numbered blows to the head revert him back to normal; additional odd-numbered blows turn him back into the Dr. Shrinker persona.
* On ''Series/FamilyMatters'', several episodes revolved around Steve Urkel's cool, sophisticated alter-ego, Stefan Urquelle. He was created via AppliedPhlebotinum, not accident, but the plot is the same. Eventually, a clone of Urkel was transformed into a permanent Stefan.
* ''Series/TheFBI'': In "An Elephant is Like a Rope", a young man staggers into F.B.I. headquarters suffering from a head wound and clutching almost half a million dollars in bloodstained notes. He collapses unconscious. After an operation to relieve pressure on his brain, and when he wakes up he has no memory of who he is. Erskine and Jim have to investigate to discover who he is, where he came from, and how he came to be in possession of all that cash.
* On the series finale of ''Series/FullHouse'', Michelle falls while riding a horse and forgets who she is. This amnesia plot climaxes with both Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen appearing on screen together in Michelle's psyche.
* ''Series/GhostWhisperer'': "Step-ins", ghosts who take over newly dead bodies for a second chance at life, usually go insane because A) the ghosts lose their memory of everything except for whatever they were obsessing with when they died (generally a loved one) as soon as they wake up and B) all the information they're given by the people around them about "themselves" (if any) is really for someone else's life. Interestingly the two step-ins we meet weren't fixed by a smack to the head; one could only get help after he talked to the title ghost whisperer, who only learned about all this an episode earlier, the other [[spoiler:had to have a near-death experience to recover the memories from his original life]].
** The generally accepted term for this experience is "walk-ins", and it's accepted in Spiritualism and some aspects of Hinduism. Most real walk-ins don't go insane; they may be confused for a while, but manage to work things out.
* On ''Series/GilligansIsland'', a bump on the head made Mary Ann think she was Ginger, meaning Ginger must be Mary Ann. This resulted in Mary Ann shortening all of Ginger's dresses and trying to put on a show.
* ''Series/GreenAcres'' plays with this; when Lisa gets the fateful bonk she's still rather scatterbrained, but with an interesting twist. Whereas before her cooking was at best biohazardous, now she's become a kitchen angel, cooking cakes so light they float across the kitchen. Alas, it doesn't last.

* An ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'' episode has Jeannie getting a bump on the head and forgetting she's a genie.
** Other episodes had Major Nelson getting the bump on the head and forgetting who Jeannie was.
* This was used in a skit on ''Series/InLivingColor'', with one of the CampGay "Men on Film" taking a blow to the head and becoming outrageously heterosexual.
* ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'' has it happen ''twice'' to the central protagonist, though in both cases memory-erasing alien magic was used instead of a bump on the head. The first time happened before the show began, and one of the show's early plotlines is Sento's attempts to figure out who he is. The second time brings Sento's former identity back, [[InsufferableGenius and nobody's happy to see him]]. Eventually he chooses to discard his old identity in favor of regaining the more heroic personality he gained after the first case of amnesia, with his old self becoming a SpiritAdvisor.

* Happened twice in ''Series/{{MASH}}'':
** In "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?", a wounded bomber pilot who arrives at the 4077th believes he's Jesus Christ.
** In "The Billfold Syndrome", a shell-shocked medic that [[spoiler:failed to save his little brother, who died in combat]] loses all sense of who he is. Both cases required Sydney Freeman's assistance to perform "meatball psychiatry".
* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode, ''[[Recap/MonkS4E11MrMonkBumpsHisHead Mr Monk Bumps His Head]]'', Monk gets amnesia from a blow to the head and ends up in a small town in Wyoming. A local woman claims he is her newlywed husband and a roofer. However, Monk's innate detective skills are still intact and he quickly notices, based on the bizarre behavior of a local man, that a murder has occurred and he solves the mystery just as his friends from San Francisco arrive to jog his memory.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': Season 3 première "Murdoch Identity" finds Canadian Detective Murdoch in England without knowing who he is and why he is being pursued by agents.
* At the start of the ''Werewolf'' episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Mike hits his head and thinks he's James Lipton from ''Inside the Actor's Studio'', and tries to interview Crow (whom he has mistaken for Ray Liotta). Crow and Tom eventually hit him with a "clown hammer" to get him back to normal.
* The ''entire town'' of Storybrooke in ''Series/OnceUponATime'' is under a curse that made them forget that they are characters from fairy tales. The Evil Queen / Mayor Regina Mills [[spoiler:remembers]], as does Rumplestiltskin / Mr. Gold [[spoiler:and Jefferson the Mad Hatter]]. Prince Charming / David Nolan gets a double whammy as he initially can't recall either his fairy tale identity or his Storybrooke one, due to having been in a coma in the Storybrooke Hospital for years.
* There was an interesting twist in ''Series/PadreCoraje'', a telenovela about a NonPoweredCostumedHero who moved into the village of La Cruz posing as the new priest Fr. Juan. He was not, the real priest was killed in the countryside and Coraje could not save him, and replaced him instead to have a SecretIdentity in the village. The problem was when he was shot and forgot everything. The people told him that he was the priest (because that was what they thought), and he believed that. The whereabouts of Coraje were unknown to everyone: he must have died, or left, or gave up, or whatever. And one day, after a conflict with the mayor, a union leader told him:
-->'''Man:''' The people need a leader, a hero. They need Coraje. \\
'''Juan:''' But Coraje is gone. Nobody knows what has happened to him, or heard about him in months.\\
'''Man:''' That is not important. The people do not know who is behind the cloak. If Coraje is gone, he won't mind for someone else to put on a similar cloak and be the new Coraje. \\
And so, the priest became a LegacyCharacter... of himself.
* In one episode of ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'', alien SpacePirate Divatox got hit on the head, and completely forgot that she wasn't from Earth, as well as forgetting all of her criminal tendencies.

* In the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' Season 48 sketch "Waking Up," Charlie (Creator/PedroPascal) experiences a comical version of this after getting hit by a Party City truck. He awakens from a coma as basically a delirious [[ValleyGirl Valley Boy]], mumbling such phrases as "Oh my gah!" and "Let's put a pin in that" with what his friend describes as an "LA Mushmouth thing." Even though Charlie remembers his first name, he can't recognize his wife or sister, and when the former plays a video of him before the accident, he simply swoons that the man in the video is the hottest guy he ever saw.
* Sergeant Dori Doreau in ''Series/SledgeHammer'' gets one of these. When the formerly liberal and gentle-minded policewoman wakes up, she has become a carbon copy of Sledge. Her impeccable dress sense goes and she starts to affect ill-fitting garish jackets and sunglasses and carrying an unfeasibly large gun. Captain Trunk is delighted.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': An alien species developed a weapon that caused this trope to happen. The Enterprise crew lost all knowledge of their identities and their mission, but not the skills necessary to operate the ship. The aliens who erased their memories tried to manipulate them into using their superior weaponry to destroy their longtime enemies.
* ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS2E04AmongTheLotusEaters Among the Lotus Eaters]]," the radiation on Rigel VII affects the brain by breaking down synaptic pathways, causing memories to fade away in about a day of being exposed. This is a result of an ancient collision of two moons that sent an asteroid to strike the planet, affecting the planet's climate and causing the native Kalar to be affected. The deep emotional memories and lifelong skills remain, but the rest is forgotten every night. [[spoiler:Yeoman Zac Nguyen ends up getting left behind on the planet during a mission and becomes king]] establishing a FantasticCasteSystem, according to which the Field Kalar (who do the manual labor) regularly lose their memories while the Palace Kalar don't, as [[spoiler:the palace walls and the guards' helmets shield their brains from the radiation]]. The Field Kalar have totems in their homes that tell the story of their people, as well as the legend that the Palace Kalar keep their memories because they're stored away in a casket at the palace ([[spoiler:Zac spread that myth intentionally]]). The effect of the radiation isn't permanent and can be counteracted by being away from the radiation or shielding from it. One elderly Kalar recovers all his memories after less than an hour [[spoiler:in the palace]]. When crewmembers aboard the ''Enterprise'' start being affected by the radiation, Spock has Ortegas take the ship into the debris field, assuming the asteroids might shield the ship, unaware that it was the asteroids themselves that are causing it. In no time at all, everyone aboard loses their memories, and Spock's band-aid measure of handing out [=PADDs=] with personal files fails to help (even Spock is unable to read his own PADD, especially since it's not written in his native language). Luckily, [[spoiler:the ship's computer lets Ortegas know that she's the ship's pilot, and she's able to use her deeply-ingrained skills to fly the ''Enterprise'' out of the AsteroidThicket. After returning, Pike has the fallen asteroid lifted into orbit to allow the Kalar to recover their memories, ignoring Spock's protests about it violating the Prime Directive.]]

* ''Series/WildBill'': In "Piano Man" Si has forgotten entirely who he is. He's soon accused of being the Boston Bandit, a notorious robber and murderer. [[spoiler:It's revealed he's innocent and was framed.]]

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[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* In the ''Series/FraggleRock'' episode "Boober Gorg", Boober loses his memory after being hit on the head by a radish and begins thinking he's a Gorg. The Gorgs are actually fooled too, but only because there were rumors of a sorcerer roaming the area, and Junior had coincidentally gone missing, leading the Gorgs to jump to the wrong conclusion...

* All player characters in ''TabletopGame/{{Anathema|2011}}'' start with almost no memories of what their life or identity were. The ones they do have are fractured and scrambled.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'' special character Brakar the Avenger was found alone and near death in an isolated Underhive tunnel with no memory of who he was or how he got there. The Ratskin natives who rescued Brakar adopted him into their tribe but, although his physical wounds healed, he never regained the memories of his previous life.

* As far as we can tell no roboman in ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'', be it Ancient Martian or otherwise, can remember their original job or time period. A JustifiedTrope, as robomen are usually millennia old.

* ''VideoGame/AfterArmageddonGaiden'': [[spoiler:All five main characters turn out to suffer from this. They believe they're just regular demons, but as they regain memories of their past lives they eventurally learn they were a group of human heroes who tried to stop the demons thousands of years ago, but failed and were captured. The main villain turned them into demons and had their memories rewritten in the hopes of making them work for him. It doesn't work though, as even without their original memories they instantly take a dislike to the villain and refuse to do as he says.]]

** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'': a side effect of the Undead Curse is gradually losing one's memories, starting with the oldest. A group of retired Firekeepers are mildly surprised that the protagonist actually remembers his/her own name. As the game goes on, other Undead that you meet will slowly go through this, some more quickly than others, and even at the start, almost none can remember why exactly they came to Drangleic in the first place.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': In the Ringed City DLC, the player can come across another Undead by the name of Lapp, who has lost nearly all his memories and has no recollection of who he is (even the name "Lapp" is just an assumed one, he can't remember his real name). Ordinarily, a Purging Stone would offer some restoration, but Lapp claims that even those do nothing for him anymore. [[spoiler:If you lead him to the Purging Monument, he'll recover his memories... he is in fact Patches, having survived uncountable ages and lived all the way to the end of time.]]
* ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'': The second game features a character named Ein. He is a master of karate but he doesn't remember his true identity. [[spoiler:At the end of the second game, he is revealed to be Hayate, a ninja.]]

* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': {{Justified|Trope}} with Sebille, who is missing large chunks of who she was before she was enslaved with a magical RestrainingBolt, made into an assassin, and stored in a box between missions. If she's in the party, she rediscovers that she's [[spoiler:the Prime Scion, who will become a ruler over all elvendom.]]

* In the "bad" ending of ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'', Yuri loses his memories due to the curse and lives with Roger thereafter.

* ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}} 2'' has Daniel Lamb, a scientist in prison with no memories of his life. He's been given help by Leo Kasper, an inmate. [[spoiler:In the end, it is revealed that the latter is a SplitPersonality implanted by Danny himself. By the time Danny woke up in his battle with Leo, he has no memories again of who he is, so Dr. Whyte gave him a new name and address so that no one would come after him again]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Overlord}}'': [[spoiler:The Overlord himself is one of the heroes who defeated the previous Overlord, but lost his memory after taking a nosedive of the nobody-could-survive-that variety. In a subversion on par with the theme of the series, the Overlord makes no efforts to redeem himself or return to his old self after the reveal.]]
** [[spoiler:However, you ''can'' play as a '''nice''' Overlord by being nice to others, making good moral choices, etc., which ends up with a popular, merciful Overlord that's evil in name and appearance only, so going that route makes him almost like a good guy again.]]

* The protagonist in the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games. In the first games, the protagonist wakes up one day as a Pokemon with no memories besides their name and that they were once a human. [[spoiler:They were [[TheChosenOne chosen]] to restore balance to the Pokémon world, but they asked to have their memories removed because they weren't sure they were up to the task.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'': the protagonist is found in the Zone with no knowledge of anything about himself. The only clue about his past is a PDA he's carrying which contains the instruction to "Kill Strelok". He decides to pursue Strelok in order to find out who he is and why he would want to kill Strelok.
* Sophie in ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces''. [[spoiler:She loses her memories ''twice'' during the story, and regains them gradually.]]
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'': [[spoiler:Because he gets prematurely revived by Marta, Ratatosk wakes up as a blank slate and creates a new identity (Emil) by filling in the blanks as he goes along. His original personality is a ruthless BloodKnight; his new personality is a wussy but strong-hearted IdiotHero]].
* Averted by Luke fon Fabre in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss''. At first it seems like the most played-straight and hardcore example in the series, as Luke loses his memory at age 10 and has to relearn everything about himself from scratch. [[spoiler:It turns out he has no memories of himself before age 10 because he didn't even exist. He's a clone of the real Luke fon Fabre.]]

* In ''VideoGame/VirtualVillagers'', specifically in the second game, a random event can occur where a villager is hit on the head by a coconut and loses all their memories. The villager's name permanently becomes "?" unless changed, and what happens next depends on the player's input: the villager could even be hit on the head again and either become a genius or lose all their common sense.
* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', Blades are reverted to their Core Crystal state when their Driver dies, and, upon resonance with a new Driver, are born again with no memory of the events of their prior lives. They do retain their knowledge of their names and personal interests, however, and the fact [[spoiler:Fan la Norne, known to Mythra from [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2TornaTheGoldenCountry five hundred years prior]] as Haze,]] did not for her current instance is a plot point.
* A controlled form of this process is used as an alternative to capital punishment in the world of ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', erasing a killer's memories & personality & replacing it with a new one that will hopefully be less murderous. Needless to say, this doesn't always work.
* ''VideoGame/YummyBreakfast'' has a variant. Susan remembered her own name but forgot the fact that she [[spoiler:is a flesh-eating monster.]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Melonpool}}'', severe bonks to the head cause Mayberry to believe he is any number of characters from the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''.

* Fuzzy from ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy'' is eventually revealed to have amnesia. Three years before the comic started, he woke up in a dumpster with no idea who he was or why he's a three-foot tall bear thing in a bowtie, but with enough knowledge to get around in the world (though even that knowledge has a lot of holes in it). Fuzzy's lost memories is a very sore spot for him: He is extremely guarded about who he reveals this to and prefers filling in his backstory with outrageous lies when asked, when he begins encountering people who might have known him beforehand he becomes very focused on finding out what they know, and the mere mention of the main suspect to his memory erasure becomes a BerserkButton. [[spoiler:Fuzzy eventually teams up with Hazel and Brain again, on the slim hope that they ''might'' find a way to recover his memories in The Pit, only to learn that Brain was lying and any trace of his old life is gone.]]
** We later meet people suffering from the same problem as Fuzzy, [[spoiler:all of them victims of Brain's memory-eating power. By the end of the comic Hazel, [[KarmicDeath who had been one of the prime beneficiaries of having Brain eat all those memories and consented to having him do it to Eric]], [[DeathOfPersonality suffers the same fate]].]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'':

* ''Webcomic/StrangeSchool'': As of [[https://strangeschoolnotsogreat.tumblr.com/post/117980521212/check-out-everything-on-top-of-the-drawer-do the second post]], the protagonist has forgotten her name.

* In ''Webcomic/TheSplatCrew'' comic "Rise of Darkness", Darkness, an [[Franchise/{{Splatoon}} Inkling]] who is the SoleSurvivor of a beach raid caused by Octolings, completely forgets who she is after the event and decides to call herself Darkness after another Inkling says he likes how she has a kind of "darkness" to her.
* The first story in the ''Webcomic/{{Unity}}'' 'verse follows Officer Juni Melrose, who remembers quite a lot of its technical knowledge ... but not its name or how it ended up in the hospital room it woke in.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* ''Literature/EntirelyPresentingYou'': After surviving a shot to the head, Alexis loses certain memories and emotional connections to her old friends and family. [[spoiler:A new personality, V, and then Wendy, are born out of this mental scramble.]]
* [[JustifiedTrope Justifed]] in ''Roleplay/SaveTheEarth''. The protagonists are reincarnated from their original canons on a new world. Their original hometowns, countries, planets, ''universes'' ceased to exist a long time ago. Once aliens start a slow invasion, their memories start to return whenever they run into something similar to their original experiences.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' had Scratch losing his memory and thinking he was TV superhero Edgar Eagle.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "The Boring Identity", Stan gets amnesia, and Francine, who had become sick of his self-centered and psychotic behavior, convinces him that he's a caring and sensitive husband who works at a futon shop.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'' has this example when after being saved by Jake's wish, Rose has no memories of what has happened in her entire life of meeting him.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' fourth season premiere had the titular character suffering from one of these, believing himself to be a man named [[WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers Bob]]. One character even mentions he's in a fugue state as they try to figure out a plan to recover his memories.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}}'' episode "Toon for a Day" had Sergeant Grating get hit on the head and think he was the cartoon character Bucky Buzzsaw.

* A ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'' episode has Dog getting amnesia while chasing a garbage truck. Cat takes advantage of the situation and convinces Dog that he's like him. Dog later takes a second blow to the head and Winslow does the same thing to make Dog act like him. A third blow to the head makes Dog think he's Lube, though only after hearing him talk. The end has Cat, Dog, and a bunch of other characters getting hit on the head and thinking they're Mr. Sunshine, much to his dismay.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'' episode "Lord of the Bungle", during a mission in Africa Penfold takes a blow to the head and briefly believes himself to be a Tarzan-style "king of the jungle".

* In the WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoon ''WesternAnimation/DonaldsDilemma'' (1947), Donald is hit on the head by a flowerpot knocked off a high windowsill and instantly becomes a [[TheFifties 50's-era]] crooner, and goes on to become famous. But he forgets about and ignores poor Daisy, who eventually goes to a psychologist and explains the whole thing in flashback. He tells her to choose between the two Donalds, and she chooses to drop another flowerpot -- complete with the flower from the original blow -- on his head while he's onstage singing to cure him.
* Related to the above: An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' involved Uncle Scrooge coming down with IdentityAmnesia after tripping over a skateboard and believing himself to be an unemployed blue-collar worker (even going so far as to lose his [[JustAStupidAccent accent]]); he goes on to get a low-paying job at his own factory and begins a crusade to improve working conditions.
* After being carried off by shadow demons to an uncertain fate in the previous season finale, in the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "The Ballad of Duke Baloney", Flintheart Glomgold resurfaces as an ordinary fisherman named Duke Baloney [[spoiler: which is Glomgold's actual birth name; "Flintheart Glomgold" is a fake identity]]. Though hints of his old personality occasionally surface, such as a love of AwesomeButImpractical schemes, for the most part, he's a pretty decent fellow [[spoiler: until he regains his memory toward the end of the episode]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': "I Dream of Cosmo" has Cosmo getting knocked on the ground after hiding in a genie lamp, and Timmy's dad makes him think that he is a "magic weenie" (which the latter says is "part-witch, part-genie") named Grant who is supposed to grant wishes for him. HilarityEnsues, with Cosmo and Mr. Turner's wishes causing shenanigans such as [[IncredibleShrinkingMan Timmy, Wanda, and Poof being shrunken to the size of ants]], the Turner's house becoming the city dump, the Sun becoming closer to the Earth, and to top it all off, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Mr. Turner getting fired]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' often had Fred switch to an alternate persona as a result of a bowling ball to the head. Years later, an episode of ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw'' ("The Dabba Don") would reference this, as Harvey uses the Bowling Ball To The Head defense to explain Fred's apparent Mob connections.
* Happens to Bender in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. He's hiding out in a flock of penguins and gets knocked out. When he reboots, his initialization routines apparently set his personality according to his surroundings, so he starts acting like a penguin. Later on, he gets knocked out again and reboots with Fry and Leela standing over him, which switches him back to the Bender we all know and love.

* The 1960 ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' cartoon "I Yam Wot I Yamnesia" takes this to absurd psycho-semantic extremes. Popeye, Olive, Wimpy, and Swee'Pea are enjoying a day in each's company, and while Popeye is playing "bullfight" with Swee'Pea, he conks his head and in the process conks Swee'Pea in the head. The two suddenly exchange personalities and voices with each other. In attempting to cure them with a mallet, Wimpy hits himself and Olive in the head, causing ''them'' to switch personalities and voices.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' episode "Los Dos Mojos", Bubbles gets knocked on the head and thinks she is Mojo Jojo.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' featured a trio of sirens hypnotizing Jack into thinking he was a waiter named Brent Worthington and spoke with a Creator/KeanuReeves accent.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheScoobyDooAndScrappyDooShow'' episode "Super Teen Shaggy" had Shaggy get a blow to the head that caused him to think he was the comic book superhero Super Teen whenever he heard a bell ring.
** A similar incident to the above occurred in the ''WesternAnimation/APupNamedScoobyDoo'' episode "The Return of Commander Cool", where Shaggy loses his memory and believes that he's Commander Cool.
* A ''Pith Possum'' segment of ''WesternAnimation/TheShnookumsAndMeatFunnyCartoonShow'' was based around this.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Cow Days", Cartman hits his head after being thrown from a bull and believes himself to be a Vietnamese prostitute.

** "Squid Baby" has Squidward getting hit on the head (causing it to swell really big) and thinking he's a baby, who [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick need to take care of.
** [=SpongeBob=] himself gets a similar bonk in "Whatever Happened to [=SpongeBob=]?" and somehow ends up as the mayor of New Kelp City (the undersea {{Expy}} of New York City). This is not necessarily a good thing.
** "Mimic Madness" features [=SpongeBob=] doing imitations of everyone in Bikini Bottom so much that he develops "Mocking Mimicry Madness" and forgets who he really is.
** This happens in "Squilliam Returns" where, while going along with Squidward's charade of owning a restaurant, [=SpongeBob=] forgets his name. Because he can't remember his name, he has a FreakOut, making the whole charade collapse.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': Shredder lost his memory, but not his ninja skills or his villainous nature. Despite having forgotten that he was a villain, he devised an evil scheme almost immediately.
--> '''Shredder''': Don't ask me why I feel compelled to do this, it just seems like a good idea.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' had a blow to the head cause Tom to think he was really a mouse.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'' episode "I Am Ice Bear", a blow to the head causes Ice Bear to go from from his usual personality of a ThirdPersonPerson and TerseTalker who loves his brothers to that of a chatty, egotistical {{hipster}} who thinks Grizzly and Panda are losers.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/ZigAndSharko'' had Zig the hyena get struck by lightning causing him to think he was a baby and Sharko who always beats him up was his mother.

* ''VisualNovel/FamicomDetectiveClubTheMissingHeir': The protagonist suffers this in the beginning while he was investigating the case regarding Ayashiro matriarch Kiku's death, only to get thrown off a cliff and by chance landed on the grass instead of in the ocean. For the players' convenience, this is done so that they can get a full understanding of what the case is about and who the key players are. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that the protagonist was actually attacked by Akira, who was attempting to kill you because you were getting too close to finding out that he was responsible for killing Kiku.]]

* ''VisualNovel/NoCaseShouldRemainUnsolved'': At the very end, it is revealed that [[spoiler:the protagonist isn't Jeon Gyeong. She is actually Song Minyeong, but due to her mental illness and addled memories, she keeps convinving herself that she is other people]].

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', [[PlayerCharacter Robin]] wakes up in a field, absent any memories save [[HelloInsertNameHere their name.]]

* Anastasia in ''Webcomic/BinaryStars'' has lost all her memory before the destruction of a colony, and at first believes it to just be bad dreams until the literal man of her dreams shows up in the flesh and recognizes her... as he's in the process of kidnapping her. It's still unknown why she has amnesia, whether it is because she was shot in the head, as first implied, or if the EnemyWithin that shows up now and again when she starts remembering too much is somehow involved, or if her post-amnesia mother is the culprit.
* Fuzzy from ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy'' is eventually revealed to have amnesia. Three years before the comic started, he woke up in a dumpster with no idea who he was or why he's a three-foot tall bear thing in a bowtie, but with enough knowledge to get around in the world (though even that knowledge has a lot of holes in it). Fuzzy is extremely guarded about who he reveals this to, and his lost memories are a very sore spot: Once he begins people who he suspects might have known him beforehand he becomes very focused on finding out what they know, and the mere mention of the main suspect to his memory erasure becomes a BerserkButton. [[spoiler:Fuzzy eventually teams up with Hazel and Brain again, on the slim hope that they ''might'' find a way to recover his memories in The Pit, only to learn that Brain was lying and any trace of his old life is gone.]]

* ''VisualNovel/FamicomDetectiveClub'': The protagonist suffers this in the beginning of ''The Missing Heir'' while he was investigating the case regarding Ayashiro matriarch Kiku's death, only to get thrown off a cliff and by chance landed on the grass instead of in the ocean. For the players' convenience, this is done so that they can get a full understanding of what the case is about and who the key players are. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that the protagonist was actually attacked by Akira, who was attempting to kill you because you were getting too close to finding out that he was responsible for killing Kiku.]]

* ''VideoGame/ShironeTheDragonGirl'': Inverted at the very start of the game. Shirone wakes up fully aware of who she is, but the ghosts she meets in the castle's hallway are all amnesiac, knowing nothing of who they are or what is their past. [[spoiler:As Shirone destroys the memory orbs]], the ghosts slowly get their memories back. [[spoiler:The ghosts are former employees and soldiers of the castle, who died in the war and got their memories absorbed by memory orbs, devices designed to absorb all the memories from the dead.]] The other creatures Shirone meets are not amnesiac either.