History Main / ManySpiritsInsideOfOne

** ''DIscworld/TheTruth'' has Altogether Andrews, a man with about eight personalities, of whom none are named Andrews. It's theorized that he was a medium who was too accommodating to lost spirits, and ended up getting pushed out of his body. Subverted in that most of his personalities are nice. Except for Burke, who [[NoodleIncident was only seen once and nobody wants to see him again.]]
** There's also Tiffany Aching in ''Discworld/AHatFullOfSky'' who is possessed by a Hiver, which in turn gives her flashes of personality from its previous victims.

** A brief gag in ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'' involving a man who had seven personalities, four male and three female. They used to fight for control when he had a drink and they all wanted to taste it, but mostly one was left in charge and the other six were at the back of his mind ... pairing up. He resented this.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': In "Demonicism", Tom thinks that getting one of his "inner demons" removed will help with his anger issues, while Star thinks it's a bad idea as one of Ponyhead's exes had previously had this done and become an EmptyShell [[StepfordSmiler who is always cheerful about everything]]. He goes through with it anyway, only to find that it removed one of ''thousands''. This ends up becoming useful in a later episode where the characters face a threat that can [[YourSoulIsMine steal souls]] and leave people in a death-like state, but he avoids this fate because he has so many of them.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)]]. A person with this condition may have just one other personality ... or several.

* In the LoisMcmasterBujold book ''The Hallowed Hunt, one of the ''Literature/Chalion'' books, this turns out to be the situation of the BigBad [[spoiler: Wencel. ]] Hundreds of years ago when their country was in the process of being conquered, the last Hallowed King underwent a sacred ritual to ensure that if he were to die, his consciousness would pass to the next male heir in his line to continue the fight. [[GoneHorriblyRight And the next, and the next, and the next...]] The consciousness that originally inhabited these bodies is swallowed up and added to the amalgamation. By the time the story reaches the present day, he's given up all ambitions beyond ending the cycle and dying once and for all. When we get a look at him through spirit vision, he's a monstrous abomination of hundreds of twitching faces vying for control.

''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': In "Demonicism", Tom thinks that getting one of his "inner demons" removed will help with his anger issues, while Star thinks it's a bad idea as one of Ponyhead's exes had previously had this done and become an EmptyShell [[StepfordSmiler who is always cheerful about everything]]. He goes through with it anyway, only to find that it removed one of ''thousands''. This ends up becoming useful in a later episode where the characters face a threat that can [[YourSoulIsMine steal souls]] and leave people in a death-like state, but he avoids this fate because he has so many of them.

Somebody doesn't have just JekyllAndHyde inside his head--it's Jekyll, Hyde, Steve and Edmund. AndZoidberg.

-->-- ''[[Literature/TheBible Mark 5:9]]''

Some people are victims of DemonicPossession or GrandTheftMe. Others have to struggle with the EnemyWithin, or even an outright SuperpoweredEvilSide. All those things are terrible in their own way, but don't worry, it can always go FromBadToWorse. It's one thing when your body is taken by the [[{{Satan}} lord of all evil himself]], but when he invites his twelve best drinking buddies to join the ride, that's something else entirely.

This trope is what you get if you take DemonicPossession or EnemyWithin UpToEleven. Instead of having one evil/antagonistic being taking over somebody, it's ''multiple'' ones. Somebody doesn't have just JekyllAndHyde inside his head--it's Jekyll, Hyde, Steve and Edmund. AndZoidberg.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' Ichigo Kurosaki shares his body with the spirit of his weapon, Zangetsu, and his SuperpoweredEvilSide, Hollow Ichigo. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that Hollow Ichigo is the true Zangetsu whose name was stolen, and the other spirit is a piece of someone else's soul trying to take Zangetsu's power for itself.]]

* Sora from ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' habitually invites other people in, although he usually isn't consciously aware of doing so. At this point he's renting out space to [[spoiler: Ventus, Xion, Roxas, and probably Vanitas]], and [[spoiler: Kairi]] was also in there for most of the first game. Most of his tenants are fairly nice people, but all but two of 'em ''were'' trying to kill or suppress him at one point or another, intentionally or not.

* Modern neuroscience backs this up. As an experimental treatment for severe epilepsy, some people have had their corpus callosum severed, to prevent seizures from swamping the entire brain. This leaves the two halves of the brain, left and right, intact but unable to "talk" to each other. Result: the patients exhibit some fascinating behaviors that almost seem to indicate two different people living in their heads. (It is, however, limited to two.) There have been a fascinating case study of a man with severed corpus callosum trying to beat his wife with one hand and protect her (from himself) with the other. The implication is that we ''all'' have two people in our heads, but they work in such close tandem that we rarely notice... See Julian Jaynes' book ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind''. Creator/CGPGrey has an interesting video where he—or rather, ''they'' given these "two people" circumstances—[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 describes it.]]

* Modern neuroscience backs this up. As an experimental treatment for severe epilepsy, some people have had their corpus callosum severed, to prevent seizures from swamping the entire brain. This leaves the two halves of the brain, left and right, intact but unable to "talk" to each other. Result: the patients exhibit some fascinating behaviors that almost seem to indicate two different people living in their heads. (It is, however, limited to two.) There have been a fascinating case study of a man with severed corpus callosum trying to beat his wife with one hand and protect her (from himself) with the other. The implication is that we ''all'' have two people in our heads, but they work in such close tandem that we rarely notice... See Julian Jaynes' book ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind''. Creator/CPGGrey has an interesting video where he—or rather, ''they'' given these "two people" circumstances—[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 describes it.]]

* Modern neuroscience backs this up. As an experimental treatment for severe epilepsy, some people have had their corpus callosum severed, to prevent seizures from swamping the entire brain. This leaves the two halves of the brain, left and right, intact but unable to "talk" to each other. Result: the patients exhibit some fascinating behaviors that almost seem to indicate two different people living in their heads. (It is, however, limited to two.) There have been a fascinating case study of a man with severed corpus callosum trying to beat his wife with one hand and protect her (from himself) with the other. The implication is that we ''all'' have two people in our heads, but they work in such close tandem that we rarely notice... See Julian Jaynes' book ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind''.

** Jesus encounters a violent demon-possessed man who identifies himself as "Legion, for we are many." If taken at face value as a reference to [[AncientRome a Roman legion]], that would indicate about a ''thousand'' demons inside one individual. Jesus exorcizes the demons and sends them into a herd of pigs, which they destroy.

* Legion from ''Franchise/MassEffect'' is a single body inhabited by numerous operating systems. Despite seeming very similar, they were split evenly when [[spoiler: you must decide whether to kill or convert the Geth heretics.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', the Avatar is normally just one reincarnated person with the ability to use all four elements. If that person accesses the Avatar State, usually through an UnstoppableRage, he contacts the spirits of every single Avatar before, channeling thousands of spirits through one mortal body. It's a little bit scary. (The catch is, if an Avatar dies in that state, he or she is KilledOffForReal.)

* A seemingly more benign version occurs in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia''. We learn that the wills of the previous users of Midoriya's Quirk, "One For All", continue to exist and can be witnessed by its current user. When Midoriya sees them, they briefly take control of his finger and injure it to snap him out of his opponent's brainwashing. After the fight, Midoriya's mentor and predecessor All-Might denies this is the case, but it's implied he's not being entirely honest about it.

->''My name is Legion, for we are many.''

* Modern neuroscience backs this up. As an experimental treatment for severe epilepsy, some people have had their corpus callosum severed, to prevent seizures from swamping the entire brain. This leaves the two halves of the brain, left and right, intact but unable to "talk" to each other. Result: the patients exhibit some fascinating behaviors that almost seem to indicate two different people living in their heads. (It is, however, limited to two.) There have been a fascinating case study of a man with severed corpus callosum trying to beat his wife with one hand and protect her (from himself) with the other. The implication is that we ''all'' have two people in our heads, but they work in such close tandem that we rarely notice...

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock}}'' this is a side effect of using plasmids. The ADAM samples the genetic memory so using too much or too often leads to one "Seeing ghosts" (Aka memories of the past users) [[spoiler: In Bioshock 2, the BigBad , Sophia Lamb, decides to intentionally invoke this on her daughter. She plans on filling Eleanor with all the ADAM in Rapture so Eleanor will cease to exist and instead be the perfect Utopian who only works for the common good and with every skill and talent ever in Rapture at her command.]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

->''"e pluribus unum."''

* [[DarkMessiah The Doctor]] in ''Series/DoctorWho'' is something between this and MindHive, being an amalgamation of [[AntiVillain themself]], [[{{Precursor}} the Other]], and [[EldritchAbomination Zagreus]].

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Father, the Homunculi, and [[spoiler:Hohenheim]] all contain many human souls within their bodies, which act as [[PoweredByAForsakenChild fuel]] for their powers. In most of these examples, it's an inversion of the trope--the host is the evil one, possessing a lot of tortured souls within them.
** [[spoiler:Hoenheim]] in particular plays with the trope even further when he reveals that over his long life he's reached an accord with each and every individual soul housed within him.

** ''DIscworld/TheTruth'' has Altogether Andrews, a man with about eight personalities, of whom none are named Andrews. It's theorized that he was a medium who was too accommodating to lost spirits, and ended up getting pushed out of his body.
** Subverted in that most of his personalities are nice. Except for Burke, who [[NoodleIncident was only seen once and nobody wants to see him again.]]