History Main / MentalFusion

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. The Vulcan Mind Meld provides a useful plot device to communicate with aliens who are too alien for the universal translator. Examples include "Is There in Truth No Beauty," where Spock mind-melds with a [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Medusan]] to save the Enterprise, "The Devil in the Dark" to find out why a rock monster is attacking humans, and "The Changeling" with the robotic probe NOMAD ([[FridgeLogic how that works is not explained]], but Spock has trouble breaking the connection).

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. Captain Janeway and Tech Lieutenant [=TuV'k=] use the Martian ''melding-of-minds'' to communicate with Nee'Lix [[UniversalTranslator as they lack a common language]]. By sharing memories they also create a shared sense of empathy, avoiding the instinctive UncannyValley [[FantasticRacism reaction that occurs]] when making FirstContact with an alien race. When the first humans landed on Mars, it created a psychic HatePlague that caused every Martian in the area to massacre them--demonstrating the danger of this trope, the creation of a [[HiveMind psychic gestalt]] can causing the individual to lose their sense of self in favor of the Overmind.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. Captain Janeway and Tech Lieutenant [=TuV'k=] use the Martian ''melding-of-minds'' to communicate with Nee'Lix [[UniversalTranslator as they lack a common language]]. By sharing memories they also create a shared sense of empathy, avoiding the instinctive UncannyValley [[FantasticRacism reaction that occurs]] when making FirstContact with an alien race. When the first humans landed on Mars, it created a psychic HatePlague that caused every Martian in the area to massacre them--demonstrating the danger of this trope, the creation of a [[HiveMind psychic gestalt]] can cause the individual to lose their sense of self in favor of the Overmind.

[[caption-width-right:318:[[SScrewballSquirrel Don't bother translating. It's Squirrel Squeak.]]]]

[[caption-width-right:318:Don't bother translating. It's Squirrel Squeak.]]

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. Captain Janeway and Tech Lieutenant [=TuV'k=] use the Martian ''melding-of-minds'' to communicate with Nee'Lix [[UniversalTranslator as they lack a common language]]. By sharing memories they also create a shared sense of empathy, avoiding the instinctive UncannyValley [[FantasticRacism reaction that occurs]] when making FirstContact with an alien race.

* ''Rocketship Voyager''. Captain Janeway and Tech Lieutenant [=TuV'k=] use the Martian ''melding-of-minds'' to communicate with Nee'Lix [[UniversalTranslator as they lack a common language]]. By sharing memories they also create a shared sense of empathy, avoiding the instinctive UncannyValley [[FantasticRacism reaction that occurs]] when making FirstContact with an alien race.

* Deconstructed in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' where the Emergency Medical Hologram is opposed to this technique on principle. Tuvok mind-melds with a murderer to establish his motives and starts to take on his violent urges.
** A group of ex-Borg could temporarily become a mini-collective to pool their mental power for various purposes.

* In ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'', [=TuMok=] performs a Martian Mind Mash with Buster Kincaid [[RuleOfFunny headbutting him in the face]].

* In ''Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space'', [=TuMok=] performs a Martian Mind Mash by [[RuleOfFunny headbutting someone in the face]].

* Shown in squicky detail in the action-comedy ''Series/{{Danger 5}}. When Tucker forms a PsychicLink with a female shaman, a tentacle shoots into his forehead, his eyes roll up and white fluid spurts from his mouth.

* Shown in squickly detail in the action-comedy ''Series/Danger 5}}. When Tucker forms a PsychicLink with a shaman, a tentacle shoots into his forehead, his eyes roll up and white fluid spurts from his mouth.

* In ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' we have the two psychic members of the [[BigDamnHeroes Freedom Phalanx]], [[RedOniBlueOni Sister Psyche and Aurora Borealis]], the former was dying from injuries and the later was an UnskilledButStrong young psychic who agreed to let Psyche possess her to cheat death. In this case, Psyche' going into a comma allowed doctors to stabilize and attempt evasive medical techniques to save her body, mean-while Psyche's continued to patrol the city in Aurora's body, she shifted the situation from GrandTheftMe to SharingABody. As a single being Psyche'/Aurora was/were able to do phenomenal things. Psyche' willingly returned to her body a few decades later, once medical technology advanced enough to reconstruct her tissue damage. She was willing to give up the fusion, so as not to impose on Aurora. The two are still able to coordinate remarkably well, with or without telepathy, just from previously existing on the same mental wave-length and completing each-others sentences is not uncommon when the two are in the same room.

* In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', fusions created by the fusion dance and Potara earrings combine the personalities of the fusees. The Namekian fusion method also combines the two fusee's personalities somewhat (with one fusee dominant, as Piccolo was in both his fusions), and Buu's absorption also gives him personality traits of the people he absorbs.

* In ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', the cloned Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth is able to do this with vast swaths of the crewers of the Imperial Fleet, picking things out of each mind in the process. He can control them like this, making for something like a thirty percent increase in efficiency and also making a ridiculous degree of synchronicity possible. Crewers released from his control are generally exhausted and somewhat horrified; unsurprising, since C'baoth is insane. At one point in a power-grab he does this to the ''entire Imperial fleet'' except for Thrawn and Pellaeon, who are in a [[PowerNullifier ysalamiri field]]. C'baoth, sent after that stunt to Wayland to be put under guard, does a one-person version where he basically [[MindRape destroys the mind]] of an officer, making him into a sort of puppet that dies not long after they are mentally separated.
** We don't find out if he's right, but Thrawn has a theory that the Emperor was doing this all along (it's why he seeks out C'baoth in the first place).
** The multi-person version is now called Battle Meditation. In the Literature/NewJediOrder it was shown that an all-Jedi group could make a Jedi Meld to act with reflexes and synchronicity that even they couldn't match normally.
** Literature/OutboundFlight's complement of Jedi are assigned to the weapons systems and trained to do the Meld. They are very good gunners, but unfortunately it doesn't work out.

** Fusions combined the minds of their components, but required immense concentration on their part to keep the combination up. Some involuntary merges, such as Takutanuva (the temporary fusion of the good Takanuva and evil Makuta Teridax) were different: when recalling the event, Takanuva considered his and Teridax's minds to have merely occupied a shared mental space rather than actually merging into one -- their minds ''chose'' to work together.