History Main / MySkullRunnethOver

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467262 Starting Over Again]]'': When Starlight accidentally traps herself in a time loop that erases her memory every 18 hours, Twilight creates a crown that stores her memories and gives them to her at the beginning of each new day. Many years later, Chrysalis is trying to conquer Equestria, gets into a magic showdown with Starlight. Astonished by the unicorn's power, she concludes that Starlight's crown must be the source of it, grabs it and puts it on her own head. Trying to absorb all of Starlight's memories at once destroys her brain and permanently reduces her intellect to the level of a newborn baby. Pinkie's only comment is, "''I'm'' not babysitting."

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467262 Starting Over Again]]'': When Starlight accidentally traps herself in a time loop that erases her memory every 18 hours, Twilight creates a crown that stores her memories and gives them to her at the beginning of each new day. Many years later, Chrysalis is trying to conquer Equestria, gets into a magic showdown with Starlight. Astonished by the unicorn's power, she concludes that Starlight's crown must be the source of it, grabs it and puts it on her own head. Trying to absorb all of Starlight's memories at once destroys her brain and permanently reduces her to the intellect of a newborn baby. Pinkie's only comment is, "''I'm'' not babysitting."

* In ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'', bratty young Katarina bumped into the prince, fell over, and hit her head on a rock, which cut open her forehead. The injury wasn't all that serious, as Katarina herself says, but it ''caused'' something important. Namely, it caused Katarina to awake to her PastLifeMemories, which caused her brain to completely overflow and then shut down for five entire days while she remained in a coma with a high fever. When she woke up, her personality became totally different, and she realized that the world she was living in was all part of a visual novel she had played in her past life...
* This is pretty much the plot of the first arc of ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. The titular character, [[MeaningfulName Index Librorum Prohibitorum]], is being used by the church as a library of every magic tome in the world, using her [[PhotographicMemory eidetic memory]]. However, because it uses up most of her brain, they periodically wipe her other memories (ie: her memories of her own life). [[spoiler:Later subverted when it turns out that this was all just an excuse to wipe her memories for the purpose of preventing her from developing too much independence and possibly becoming a threat.]]

* In ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'', use of powerful observation skills such as Appraisal and Detection bombards the brain with more information than it can process. Appraisal causes fierce migraines so most people rely on tools to use the skill instead, while a split second of Detection actually damages Kumoko's soul. The only way to avoid this is by [[RequiredSecondaryPowers acquiring skills to supplement the brain's processing ability and Heresy resistance to protect the soul]].

* In ''Anime/GhostSweeperMikami'', Dr. Chaos' brain really is completely full with information (due to him living for several hundred years). So what happens when he learns something new? Rather than expand and strain itself, his brain simply overwrites the earliest thing it can. So while he is an occult genius who can readily comprehend many mystic things, he can easily forget such basic things as what 2+2 results in (hint: not 5).

* Played for laughs in ''Manga/KOn'', where {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Yui forgets all the chords she learned after cramming for an exam.
** It's a recurring issue for Yui through both seasons.
-->'''Yui''' ''after being greeted by the others the morning before a final exam'': "Don't talk to me. Everything I memorized will fall out." (''[[OhCrap trips]]'')

* This is pretty much the plot of the first arc of ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. The titular character, [[MeaningfulName Index Librorum Prohibitorum]], is being used by the church as a library of every magic tome in the world, using her [[PhotographicMemory eidetic memory]]. However, because it uses up most of her brain, they periodically wipe her other memories (ie: her memories of her own life). [[spoiler:Later subverted when it turns out that this was all just an excuse to wipe her memories for the purpose of preventing her from developing too much independence and possibly becoming a threat.]]

* In ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'', the Old World internet still exists, and those who aren't careful while exploring ruins might have huge chunks of it directly downloaded into their heads, causing their brains to shut down from sheer SensoryOverload. Alpha protects Akira from this by acting as a filter for it go through, preventing him from suffering its effects while also hoarding the information to herself to reveal to Akira at her discretion.
** The above scenario happens to one of the characters, as revealed in the Web Novels. [[spoiler:In her OriginsEpisode, Carol discovered she was an old world connector in the Mihazono ruins when being overwhelmed like this, but some ghostly presence she encountered stopped the damage just in time.]]

* In ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'', bratty young Katarina bumped into the prince, fell over, and hit her head on a rock, which cut open her forehead. The injury wasn't all that serious, as Katarina herself says, but it ''caused'' something important. Namely, it caused Katarina to awake to her PastLifeMemories, which caused her brain to completely overflow and then shut down for five entire days while she remained in a coma with a high fever. When she woke up, her personality became totally different, and she realized that the world she was living in was all part of a visual novel she had played in her past life...

** This is noted as an issue when a computer seeks to download its personality into a WetwareBody in order to [[PinocchioSyndrome experience life as a human]]. The computer's mentor and confidant has to remind it that it won't have nearly the same processing power or capacity for information storage, and indeed once the feat is accomplished, the now-female human Minerva discusses the choices she made in terms of which memories to discard and which to keep in order to avoid this trope.

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[[caption-width-right:350:Talk about "blowing your mind"!]]

* In ''Anime/Gundam00AwakeningOfTheTrailblazer'', this happens to any developing Innovator who tries to psychically connect with the ELS. One describes what he hears from them as "nothing but an endless cry". It later turns out that [[spoiler:the ELS didn't realize the incredible volume of information they were broadcasting was harmful to human minds, which were too small to contain it all. Once they figure that out, it's implied that they learn to communicate with Innovators without overloading them.]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number Graham's number]] is an extremely large number, so large that it can't even be represented in the ''observable universe.''

* Cosmo from ''Manga/ChainsawMan'' can overload people's minds to the point they are [[DrivenToMadness unable to think of or say anything other than "Halloween" ad infinitum until they die]]. [[spoiler:"Santa Claus" is sure her HiveMind is too massive to be hurt by her, so Cosmo (AKA the Cosmos Fiend) specifies she inflicts total understanding of ''the universe'' on a person. Santa Claus' knowledge not taking up one ''page'' in Cosmo's mental GreatBigLibraryOfEverything, her mind is destroyed just like any other's.]] Appropriately, Cosmo [[RedRightHand can be identified as a Fiend]] by her brain spilling out of her head.

*** Until she starts using the exact same evidence to create different, contradictory theories.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation:

* Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian mnemotist (who did not, in fact, have an EideticMemory) had the ability to remember things so well that he became dislocated in time; he eventually became unable to tell whether the thing you just told him happened 5 minutes or 5 years ago. He had to literally learn to mentally remove facts from his memory (in other words, deliberately forget). It didn't help that he had fivefold synaesthesia, an extremely strong form of synaesthesia in which stimulating one sense meant a reaction from them ''all''. Wiki/ThatOtherWiki [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevskii has an article on him.]]

* In his first appearance, The Leader -- [[SuperIntelligence superintelligent]] enemy of the Comicbook/IncredibleHulk -- was after an Ultimate Machine containing all the knowledge in the Universe. When he obtained it and downloaded the information into his mind, this proved too much even for his super brain and killed him. [[OnlyMostlyDead Seemingly.]]

* In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'', Festus the Leechlord was once a doctor who was attempting to cure a plague ravaging a village and in a moment of desperation accepted an offer from Nurgle (God of Disease) for the information necessary to cure all diseases. What he got was knowledge of all disease in existence loaded into his brain all at once, which drove him mad and turned him from a well-meaning healer to a Champion of Nurgle seeking to spread disease across the world.

Compare DeadlyUpgrade and TooMuchForManToHandle. Also compare TheFogOfAges, where an immortal being has been collecting memories for so long that they're overwriting the oldest ones. Not to be confused with MyBrainIsBig, where the skull ''literally'' runneth over and the brain shows outside it. See also SuperIntelligence and AMindIsATerribleThingToRead.

* In the ComicBook/CaptainAtom / Wildstorm crossover, Cap does this to Voodoo when she tries to invade his mind. He uses his neural uplink to the Pentagon's computer net to basically KO her with the Internet.

* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', [[spoiler:the Devil Hunters defeat PsychoForHire "Santa Claus" this way. After she's subdued by Denji, Quanxi finishes her off by having her girlfriend the Cosmos Fiend inflict total understanding of the universe on her, leaving her and her entire HiveMind unable to think of or say anything other than "Halloween" ad infinitum until they die.]]

* Happens to ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' of all people, in the episode "Squilliam Returns". Squidward turns the Krusty Krab into a fine dining establishment to impress Squilliam, and Spongebob is to wait tables. After learning everything associated with fine dining, his skull runneth over '''[[UpToEleven hard]]''', to the point where he cannot even remember his own name any more! The only thing he can remember, except for fine dining, is breathing.

** Dr. Strange gets all the knowledge in the universe in return for helping [[spoiler:the Joining]]. When he receives it, he ends up comatose (though the ComicBook/MartianManhunter can still read his mind to get the information they need to defeat [[spoiler:the Joining]]).

* In an issue of ''Comicbook/TheSandman'', "Calliope", Dream punishes an author by giving him an overload of ideas, so much so that he starts writing them on the walls with his ''[[CouldntFindAPen bloody fingers]]''.