History Main / MyselfMyAvatar

* ''Id_Entity'' is the manhwa version of ''Franchise/DotHack'', except it comes with a mode where you can actually play as you sleep, through some kind of poorly explained science babble about the subconscious mind.

* ''Id_Entity'' is the manwha version of ''Franchise/DotHack'', except it comes with a mode where you can actually play as you sleep, through some kind of poorly explained science babble about the subconscious mind.

* ''Franchise/DotHack'' is normally about an MMO played with a head-mounted display, but players have their minds drawn into their avatars whenever the game's undocumented features kick in. That said, even when the game is operating normally, characters often act as if this trope were in effect, particularly in anime and manga stories. As the franchise progresses, [[SerialEscalation the effects of being trapped in the game escalate towards nearly supernatural heights]].
* The plot of ''Film/{{Surrogates}}'' has this happen on a global scale in everyday life- everyone uses the titular robot bodies to go around, while their real bodies are kept inside their homes.
* What [[spoiler:Yuki Nagato and the remote interfaces for the Data Thought Entity and their rival the Canopy Overmind]] are in ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya''.
* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': The titular avatars are Na'vi clone bodies that humans can remotely control to explore Pandora freely (something necessary since they can't breathe Pandora's atmosphere), as well as to earn the Na'vi people's trust and hopefully reach a diplomatic conclusion to their war. The protagonist agrees to controlling an avatar because he's paraplegic, and thus wants an avatar so he can walk again, temporary as it may be.
* Done via Astral Projection in ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'' .
* Happens a lot in Creator/PeterFHamilton's ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy''. Ione Saldana and a couple of other characters download their own personalities into bio-engineered SuperSoldiers to fight wars. Ione lives in a space station which she herself has never left, and the other characters are often [[spoiler: dead]]. Not to mention Edenists' downloading of personality into habitat 'multiplicities', preserving their memories for centuries after their bodies are dead, or the general effect of possession. Okay, fine. The entire yarn wouldn't exist without this trope.
* Tad Willaims ''Literature/{{Otherland}}'' books are set in an AI world, so most of the main characters are avatars of assorted real life people. Orlando Gardiner, in particular, has progeria, so sometimes considers his virtual life [[spoiler:more real than his home life. Eventually, his body dies, and he becomes a permenant inhabitant of the virtual world]].
* ''Id_Entity'' is the manwha version of ''.//Hack'', except it comes with a mode where you can actually play as you sleep, through some kind of poorly explained science babble about the subconscious mind.
* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'' series, Nimue Alban's fabulously wealthy father bought her a fabulously expensive PICA—a robotic body capable of temporarily hosting a human consciousness. Nimue mostly used it for extreme sports, but it was...[[Franchise/StarTrek fully functional]]...If You Know What I Mean. Merlin explores that aspect later, If You Know Wha—you get the idea.
* This is ubiquitous in ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell''; it's either remote interface or the person's actual brain in the avatar's body.
* TabletopGames that explores the theme of Transhumanism usually has this as an option (sometimes ''the only'' option)for PlayerCharacter, for example some ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' settings as well as ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase''.
* The heroes of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' encounter a good Replicator living on Earth. Although she helps them she is too dangerous to remain free, so they place her in a realistic virtual world where she may live as she pleases.
* This is somewhat of a plot point in the film version of ''Film/JohnCarter'': He wasn't actually teleported to Mars, just a carbon copy controlled by his consciousness.

* In the ''Literature/TheShipWho'' books, during ''Dramatic Mission'' a trade is made between advanced [[StarfishAliens jellyfish-like aliens]] who live on a methane-ammonia world and a [[TheFederation human-based interstellar federation]] - alien technology in exchange for [[KlingonsLoveShakespeare a staging of Romeo and Juliet]]. But it has to be one the aliens can fully appreciate, so they first give Central Worlds the technology to beam the actor's brains into alien "envelopes" that have been prepared for them
** In ''The Ship Who Searched'' [[WetwareCPU Tia]], despite being quite happy as a SapientShip, is unsatisfied by [[NonStandardKiss non-standard gestures of intimacy]] and wants to [[CantHaveSexEver be with Alex]]. She was paralyzed from the chin down as a child and [[ManInTheMachine can't be removed from her life support capsule]][[spoiler:, so instead she has a RidiculouslyHumanRobot RemoteBody commissioned. It's got a limited range and while it's active, it uses so much of her processing power that the ship that makes her "real" body is inert, but she's got plenty of time to spare for this while docked.]]
* The central conceit of ''{{Literature/Dinoverse}}'' is a form of IntangibleTimeTravel where characters' minds are converted into "thought-wave energy", sent back in time, and immediately possess the bodies of dinosaurs, able to communicate through weak PsychicPowers. In the first book, the first four are sent a message from the far future informing them that unless they find a way back themselves, their bodies remain comatose for decades - no one else can recover them.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': In ''The Ellimist Chronicles'', the Ellimist (who at that point is a HiveMind group of {{Sapient Ship}}s) downloads a copy of his personality into an Andalite body and lives among them for some time, even having a mate and children. It's implied that this may be the origins of their species' thought-speak, as they communicate with hand-signals.

* What [[spoiler:Yuki Nagato and the remote interfaces for the Data Thought Entity and their rival the Canopy Overmind]] are in ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': In ''The Ellimist Chronicles'', the Ellimist (who at that point is a HiveMind group of {{Sapient Ship}}s) downloads a copy of his personality into an Andalite body and lives among them for some time, even having a mate and children. It's implied that this may be the origins of their species' thought-speak.

* The plot of ''Film/{{Surrogates}}'' has this happen on a global scale in everyday life.

* The titular Avatars in that Creator/JamesCameron film [[Film/{{Avatar}} you may have seen]].

* The plot of ''{{Surrogates}}'' has this happen on a global scale in everyday life.

Regardless of why, this trope involves a person who can be (or who is) downloaded into a [[RemoteBody remote interface]] to interact with others or another world better (or at all). This other self is otherwise an empty shell that does nothing. Sometimes when the remote version of himself is damaged or killed, [[YourMindMakesItReal he is hurt/killed back at home or in 'reality']], but the idea is, while the main body 'sleeps', a different body acts and works remotely by his commands. This is used to play games, interact with computers, or interact with an alien world.

* This happens to Tsukasa in ''Anime/DotHackSign''. Most of the other characters treat their avatars as just normal gaming devices.

* TabletopGames that explores the theme of Transhumanism usually has this as an option (sometimes ''the only'' option)for PlayerCharacter, for example some ''{{GURPS}}'' settings as well as ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase''.

* TabletopGames that explores the theme of Transhumanism usually has this as an option (sometimes ''the only'' option)for PlayerCharacter, for example some ''{{GURPS}}'' settings as well as ''EclipsePhase''.