History Main / TraumaInducedAmnesia

* Gakusha from ''LightNovel/TheTailorOfEnbizaka'' woke up one day covered with severe burns, and no memory of what had happened, his previous life, or even his own name.

* At the beginning of ''Fanfic/TheSeaShadow'', Vivian is found near death with zero memory of who did it to her or anything outside of her name. Bobbery basically namedrops the trope.

* ''Manga/ChainsawMan'': Denji repressed all memory of the moment when [[spoiler:he killed his alcoholic father in self-defense]], but elements of the trauma still linger in his mind, like [[NeverHurtAnInnocent his terror at the idea of becoming a murderer]]. It's implied that he even misremembers other memories related to the moment; a flashback to his first meeting with Pochita has [[spoiler:the Yakuza boss saying that Denji's father hung himself, even though when we see the moment of his death, his corpse is lying on the floor, and there's no way the young Denji could have set up his body to look like a suicide]].

* ''Manga/ChainsawMan'': Denji repressed all memory of the moment when [[spoiler:he killed his alcoholic father in self-defense]], but elements of the trauma still linger in his mind, like [[WouldNotHurtAnInnocent his terror at the idea of becoming a murderer]]. It's implied that he even misremembers other memories related to the moment; a flashback to his first meeting with Pochita has [[spoiler:the Yakuza boss saying that Denji's father hung himself, even though when we see the moment of his death, his corpse is lying on the floor, and there's no way the young Denji could have set up his body to look like a suicide]].

* If you have an older sibling, you owe your very existence to this. Childbirth is ''extremely'' traumatic, both physically and mentally. Many mothers do come away from it forgetting some of the more traumatic parts of it, ready to have more children.

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'''s "Class A Amnesiacs" [[LooseCanon may or may not]] involve torturing the witness until they forget whatever it was the foundation was trying to keep secret.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': Late in season 4, Sheridan is set up for capture by [[Michael Garibaldi, his former security chief.]] When he comes leading a party to extract Sheridan, who's been subjected to a long "processing" routine designed to break his spirit, the captain looks at him and says "I was going to kick your butt for something, but I don't remember what."

* In ''VisualNovel/ShallWeDateNinjaShadow'', one of the PlayerCharacter's prospect boyfriends has this. [[spoiler: It's Eduard, the Dutch DarkSkinnedBlond, who lost all of his memories of being a TykeBomb for an assassin group when they turned on him and almost killed him.]]

** [[SarcasmMode As their reward]], the two of them get nabbed up by the military's local MadScientist and [[JerkAss experimented on]]. Zack doesn't break through the sedatives for ''years'', and after he breaks both of them out, Cloud is horribly poisoned by the experimentation and comatose. Zack spends days if not weeks or months carrying Cloud around, telling him about himself, his past, and his goals, trying to get his companion and best friend to revive. When the two of them are finally cornered by the army, who have been told that [[LeaveNoSurvivors they're]] [[ShootEverythingThatMoves dangerous]], Zack walks away after hiding Cloud, so as to confront the military head-on. Alone. [[SarcasmMode A brilliant plan.]] Not that he had [[TrapIsTheOnlyOption much of a choice]]. Cloud's first movement on his own is weakly reaching one hand for Zack, unseen, as Zack walks away. By nightfall, Cloud's managed to get to his feet... and finds Zack where he was left alone to bleed to death, in time for Zack to [[LastRequest give him his sword]].

* ''The Dead Man'' focuses on a man who had been [[ManOnFire burnt to a crip]] and ''[[MadeOfIron survived]]''. Once healed up sufficiently, he heads out on a QuestForIdentity, getting small flashbacks of what happened to him until he reaches a burnt out town and finds a wrecked bike, a ruined gun, and a badge. Upon reading the name on the badge, his memory returns. He's [[spoiler: ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''.]]

* ''The Dead Man'' focuses on a man who had been [[ManOnFire burnt to a crip]] and ''[[MadeOfIron survived]]''. Once healed up sufficiently, he heads out on a QuestForIdentity, getting small flashbacks of what happened to him until he reaches a burnt out town and finds a wrecked bike, a ruined gun, and a badge. Upon reading the name on the badge, his memory returns. He's [[spoiler ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''.]]

-->-- ''[[{{Theatre/Leopoldstadt}} Leopoldstadt]]''

* ''Film/TheLongKissGoodnight'': The main character has no memories prior to waking up, badly injured, on a beach seven years ago. After a car accident, she discovers that she's [[KnifeNut VERY]] good with knives, and other pieces of her past begin to [[AmnesiacDissonance come back]]. She gets all her memories back after she's [[spoiler: tortured and almost drowned]].

* ''Manga/FairyTail'': Jellal shows up having lost most of his memories during the Nirvana Arc, though it's unclear if the "trauma" involves his previous BrainwashedAndCrazy state during the Tower of Heaven Arc, Natsu [[BeatTheCurseOutOfHim punching him through the same-named magical tower]], or fusing himself with said magical tower to contain a FantasticNuke explosion and shoot it back into the sky, the last of which was believed to have atomized his body given they NeverFoundTheBody at the time, or some combination thereof. Considering it took the HealingHands MysticalWaif to even heal and wake his recovered body from its comatose state
* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', this is the reason why Al can't remember [[spoiler:the GateOfTruth]].

* Played for laughs in ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'', which has [[ChewToy luakel]] undergo [[GenderBender a traumatic]] [[{{Squick}} event]] and this erases the memory of itself, except when other crew members bring it up and he has a fit. Notably the same thing happened to his mirror universe [[EvilCounterpart counterpart]], who is now permanently AxCrazy.

* One of the most complicated (and saddest) episodes of ''Series/ColdCase'' had a woman emerge from a two-year coma suffering from this in regards to her lost memories of her daughter's unsolved murder. Through a series of flashbacks and other evidence, it was eventually pieced together that [[spoiler: she had killed her daughter in a failed attempt at a double suicide.]] To wit, she was physically and sexually abused by [[ParentalIncest her father]] as a child, the [[DepartmentOfChildDisservices corrupt social worker who fudged the records about the "bad" parents so he could sexually abuse the clients' little girls]] [[KarmaHoudini and use his clout not only to get away with the abuse but to make the mothers look crazy/unfit to care for the children and lose the children permanently to the system.]] He had even declared her unfit and said that he would be knocking on her door and coming to take her away at any moment. Horrified of this happening, she [[spoiler: thought a pizza delivery boy who was a friend of hers knocking on the door to give her pizza was the social worker and [[MurderSuicide she ended up jumping out of the window with her daughter in her arms.]]]]

Related to HeroicBSOD. Subtrope of LaserGuidedAmnesia. Frequently occurs as a result of a HeroicSacrifice. Can be ended with a InjuryBookend. Also see RepressedMemories.

** Eren himself has a case of this: [[spoiler:The gaps in his childhood memories were due the trauma of him [[SelfMadeOrphan eating his father Grischa]] in Titan form ([[ThanatosGambit which was Grischa's intention]]), and coming to next to what little was left over.]]

* Happens to [[spoiler: Ran Mouri]] in one of the ''Manga/CaseClosed'' {{Non serial movie}}s, ''Captured in her Eyes'', after [[spoiler: she not only catches a clear view of the murderer, but is almost shot to death by him and the other local ActionGirl Satou [[TakingTheBullet takes FOUR bullets for her]].]] The victim spends a good part of the movie in an HeroicBSOD, barely able to take care of herself and others, and the trope is lampshaded as her doctor says she might be afraid to recover her memories due to the events that made her go amnesiac. [[spoiler: She doesn't recover until the BigBad tries to kill both her and Conan ''in exactly the same way''; she reacts by [[BadassBoast loudly declaring her martial arts expertise]] and curbstomping her rival.]]
** Also happens to a teenager named Touma Tachihara in the fifteenth movie (''Quarter of Silence''). He wakes up after an eight-year-long coma, without any memories of the certain incident that caused it in the first place; the key to solve the mystery relies on him getting his memories back. [[spoiler: It turns out that Touma witnessed a hit-and-run, was kidnapped by the culprit (a friend of his mom), and while trying to escape he fell off a cliff...]]
** And in one of the specials, this happens [[spoiler: to ''Conan Edogawa himself'' after he hits his head during an outing to a bath house. Then he's kidnapped by a bunch of criminals who believe {{he knows too much}}...]]

* ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'': This is what happened to Ganta, where [[spoiler: Hagire (as part of his {{Body Surf}}ing plot) hooked him onto a machine and forced him to witness himself as a child watching his child-hood friend Shiro brutally massacre a room full of science staff when they forced her to use her blood powers on a baby lamb. She lets the lamb live, an obvious PetTheDog Moment... before her transformation into the monstrous Red Man, who went on a rampage and killed Ganta's school friends years later which him sent to the titular sadistic prison in the first place.]]
* ''Manga/{{Diece}}'' has Naoto, who turns out to have repressed his entire sad backstory. He misremembers/flat-out forgets being shunned by his classmates, abandoned by his father and abused by his mother. He also forgets that his mother attempted suicide and is comatose in the hospital; rather, he seems to have deluded himself into thinking she's recovering. He's shown talking to her on the phone, but in retrospect, [[FridgeHorror she can't have had much to say]].
* A particularly well-done example appears in ''Manga/ElfenLied'', in which Kohta has Trauma Induced Amnesia and an AngstComa [[spoiler:about Lucy killing his father and sister in front of his eyes]].

* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugiGenbuKaiden'', [[spoiler: Tomite's AnIcePerson powers were too much for him to control, and [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening the first time they came to the surface]] he injured several of his clansmates, destroyed his village and [[HumanPopsicle accidentally froze his friend Aila]].]] This was so traumatizing for him that he developed this, [[spoiler: until Aila's brother Hikitsu ued his own MindProbe skills to make him remember, hoping that he will be able to de-freeze Ail and forgive himself.]]

* [[spoiler: Yogi]] from ''Manga/{{Karneval}}'' was the only survivor of a nationwide experiment which resulted in complete annihilation of his country and its citizens. The, by then, [[spoiler:10-year-old prince]] had to witness the decapitation of his caretakers at the hands of Varuga, was experimented on for an unknown amount of time and once gaining consciousness was strapped to his surgery table and {{forced to watch}} a video where his [[spoiler: little sister]] was literary torn to shreds, all while pleading for his help. The trauma caused him to not only [[spoiler: develop a SplitPersonality]] but made him forget that the event ever took place. When found and saved he had murdered all of the scientists and was brought to [[spoiler: Circus to ''once again'' be experimented on]]. [[spoiler: He still believes his family is alive, but was told that he couldn't meet them due to the danger of them being targeted]]

* Sabo of ''Manga/OnePiece'' is Luffy's second brother, long presumed-dead after offending a member of the World Nobility and getting blasted away as a result. He reappears during the Dressrosa arc, to Luffy's shock, and aids in the battling the conflict there. The reason he never appeared in front of either of his brothers before that point was because the same incident that made everyone think he was dead also caused him to be badly injured ''and'' lose his memory. The event that restored Sabo's memory was equally traumatic, as it resulted from learning about [[spoiler:Ace's death in the battles at Marineford]]. Specifically, it was reading about [[spoiler:Ace being killed by Admiral Akainu, a.k.a. Sakazuki, because it made him remember exchanging sake cups, or ''sakazuki'', with Ace and Luffy as children]]; as a result Sabo had a screaming HeroicBSOD, fell into a brief AngstComa, and when he woke up he had regained his lost memories... but he felt ''horrible'' for [[spoiler: not having been with Ace and Luffy when they needed him the most, even when it ''really'' wasn't his fault]].

* In ''Manga/PrivateActress'', [[spoiler: Shiho actually ''invokes'' the trope on CuteAndPsycho Satoka, traumatising her so badly in an incident involving fire and the setting of a movie that Satoka mentally reverts to a child-like state, unable to remember any recent events. This is seen as an alternative to ''killing'' her, actually: Shiho's last Private Actress "client" had told her to punish Satoka for causing the death of his girlfriend, which he had been trying to do until he was fataly wounded by Satoka herself, and Shiho felt that this was the best course of action against a SerialKiller EnfanteTerrible like her, to both punish her without going into outright murder '''and''' give her a chance to start from zero.]]

* In the manhwa ''Totally Captivated'', Ewon completely forgets a rather important childhood event because of the beating that immediately preceded it, and the hypothermia that immediately followed it - unfortunately for him the violent HairTriggerTemper mafia boss who this was also an important event for ''does'' remember, and gets fairly pissed off that he doesn't. He eventually remembers after a period of PoorCommunicationKills which finally leads to him again almost freezing to death.
* Anime/ZombieLandSaga: PlayedForLaughs. Franchouchou while their makeup is off scare a woman so bad that her memory of the past day dissapears. Said woman was the sponsor that Kotaro had been trying to net which means the idol group can't secure any fundings for their shows.

* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': For years, Bruce Banner thought his last encounter with his dad ended with the man attacking Bruce and running off into the night, to be killed by some random mugger. Actually, Bruce killed Brian, but was so horrified he blocked out the memories... until the Hulk has a run-in with a creepy gravedigger (who may or may not be a Devil, but definitely ''does'' look like Stan Lee) who shows him the truth.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Essence}}'', Bulbasaur was born with no memories from inside his egg and no basic instincts. This is due to trauma he received from his parents murders.

* In ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/8793565/chapters/20159878 How the Light Gets In]]'' Laurel comes BackFromTheDead with amnesia. Initially she's in a daze, and barely seems to recognize anyone, but seeing her daughter makes her "wake up". However most of her memories are still gone, and slowly get "triggered": seeing a necklace makes remember Tommy (and his death), kissing Dean makes her remember their wedding, and seeing Sara brings back ''all'' her memories all at once [[spoiler:giving her a seizure]].

* The titular hero of ''Film/RoboCop1987'', who was brutally murdered by a gang of criminals who finished him off with a single shot to the head. Despite suffering brain damage and being medically dead for a long time, he begins to regain his lost memories over time after being revived as as a law-enforcing cyborg. [[note]]This is, believe it or not, physiologically plausible: people can survive massive trauma to the brain such as a gunshot wound, and often suffer retrograde amnesia because of it; and the brain is capable of repairing itself over time thanks to a well-known property of it called neuroplasticity.[[/note]]

* PlayedWith in ''Literature/TheOutsiders:'' The main plot kicks off when the protagonist, Ponyboy, is being drowned by a Soc, forcing his friend Johnny to jump in and kill the guy. After [[spoiler:Johnny dies]], Ponyboy begins to insist that said spoilered thing did not happen, and also switches to claiming that ''he'' was the one who killed the Soc instead of Johnny. He eventually snaps out of it, and admits to the reader that he always remembered the truth on some level; he just hoped that he could dull the pain by pretending that things were different.
* In Literature/ThePerksOfBeingAWallflower, the protagonist doesn't remember [[spoiler:being raped by his aunt and wishing she was dead the night of her death by a car-accident]] untill the end of the book.

* If ever a character had an ironclad excuse for traumatic amnesia it's Sara, heroine of ''Literature/{{Restoree}}'', who is kidnapped by hideous, cannibalistic aliens and literally skinned alive along with the other captives. By the time she comes out of her fugue state she's been given a new skin, a new nose and some other "work" and is on an entirely different planet.
* In ''Literature/SeeJaneRun'', a psychological thriller by Joy Fielding, the very first thing we read is how main heroine Jane Whittaker forgets who she is on her way shopping. And what the hell are those blood stains on her clothes and this large sum of money in her pocket?!

* The ''Literature/TommyAndTuppence'' novel ''The Secret Adversary'' has Janet Vandemeyer, the niece of one member of a group of conspirators who lost her memory after being caught in the sinking of the Lusitania. All professional treatment had proven fruitless before she was pulled out of a nursing home for unknown reasons. [[spoiler: She's actually Jane Finn, kidnapping victim and the only person alive who knows the location of secret documents that could bring about down the downfall of Great Britain. The whole thing is subverted, though, because she'd been bluffing the entire time.]]

* The first season of ''Series/TwentyFour'' had this happen to Teri as blatantly obvious padding. After escaping the terrorists who held them hostage, Teri tells Kim to stay in the car while she figures out where they are. Car goes over the side of the embankment and explodes, Teri collapses, and wakes up with no memory of who she is.

*** And he does it ''[[WhyDontYouMarryIt again]]'' in the [[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures spinoff novels]], after he [[ShootTheDog destroys Gallifrey]] (the first time, not the time that the Ninth Doctor spends his tenure angsting about). Oddly, he never really gets his memory back.\\

* ''Series/MastersOfScienceFiction'': The main plot of "A Clean Escape", which revolves around a psychiatrist treating a patient with a severe case of retroactive amnesia, he can't seem to form new memories beyond leaving his house and being sent to her office, which occurred 24 years prior. [[spoiler: The "office" is inside a government bunker, and the patient is the former president of the United States. Having ordered a nuclear strike, the Kill Sat that was used had a much stronger effect than intended, and ended up causing a nuclear holocaust that wiped out humanity. Faced with this and his family's death in the retaliatory strike on Washington, the President's mind cracked and sealed away all memories of him ever having been President, with his last memory being of him still being a government weapons contractor.]]
* A second season episode of ''Series/TheMentalist'' involves the murder of a convicted serial child molester (recently released from prison) whom Lisbon put away years ago. When a fingerprint links her to the crime scene, she's asked where she was the night of the murder, only to find to her consternation that she can't remember that night at all. Eventually she asks her psychologist if it's possible that she committed the crime and then blanked it out -- the psychologist agrees that it is possible, though he doesn't seem completely sold on the idea. [[spoiler:Turns out the psychologist is the murderer himself, and drugged Lisbon's coffee that night when she came to see him, ensuring that she wouldn't remember her evening and add credence to the possibility of her guilt.]]

* In the season 9 premiere of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' Tony is shot and cannot remember what happened. A psychologist talks his through the preceding events until he can remember who shot him.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Glyphic", the six-year-old Cassie Boussard came into contact with an alien probe which protected her and her elder brother Louis from the brain cancer outbreak that later killed all of the other children of her hometown of Tolemy. However, Louis entering a coma and the death of every other child in town caused Cassie to block out her memories of the alien probe until Tom Young hypnotized her and brought them to the surface.

* ''[[{{Theatre/Leopoldstadt}} Leopoldstadt]]'': In 1955, Nathan reunites with his cousin Leo in their ancestral home in Vienna after 17 years. The last time they saw each other was in the very same apartment on ''Kristallnacht'' or the Night of Broken Glass where a Nazi soldier methodically and merciless terrorized their entire family. Nathan, being 14 at the time, remembers his childhood and family in Vienna before almost all but him were killed in the concentration camps - but Leo, who fled to England with his mother and English stepfather, does not remember his childhood before fleeing at all.

* In the DatingSim ''VideoGame/AlwaysRememberMe'', a car accident involving a drunk driver is the RelationshipResetButton that comes between the OfficialCouple. This jump starts the plot, driving the protagonist to either nurse her AmnesiacLover back to health, or to pursue other [[{{Bishonen}} eligible bachelors]].

* Some of the events of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' have been supressed in Ezio's memories, and only become available to Desmond in [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]] when he has achieved a greater level of sync. These memories include giving a VikingFuneral to his father and brothers after their execution, finding out his girlfriend Christina has left him for another man and delivering an IfYouEverDoAnythingToHurtHer speech to her new fiancé, getting snubbed after trying to reignite his love for Christina during the Venezia carnival, and Christina dying in his arms after being attacked during the bonfire of the vanities.
* In the ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' [=DLC=], ''Love, Guns, and Tentacles'', a private investigator named Burton Briggs is investigating the disappearance of a child. The problem is, he has a hard time remembering why he’s investigating her disappearance, and believes that it may be his curse, like how everyone else in Cursehaven is cursed. [[spoiler:Its revealed that his amnesia is not because of the curse, it’s because the missing child was his daughter, Iris, and she was used as a host for Vincent. When he shot Vincent, he accidentally killed Iris, which caused him to forget the whole ordeal.]]

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', Ninian briefly suffers of amnesia after [[spoiler: she and her little brother Nils escape from the Black Fang with the help of Eliwood's father Elbert, but during their escape Nils falls into the sea and goes missing. The already emotionally unstable Ninian gets hit with this and becomes TheOphelia when she believes her brother is dead, and doesn't recover until Nils returns and snaps her out of a BrainwashedAndCrazy state.]]

* The PC of ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}} 5'' has this, from what information the player is able to gather. Many significant NPC's from throughout the series claim to vaguely recognize you, and new characters describe your past behavior from senseless rage to SuperPowerMeltdown. Though [[WildMassGuessing speculation is rampant]], the true identity is only answered by the ShrugOfGod. Maybe it's just a device to justify re-explaining everything previous players should know, but new players wouldn't, and explain why the PC wouldn't have any defined relationship to previously famous [=NPCs=].

* Ventus of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep''. [[spoiler:You'd forget stuff too if someone you thought you could trust caused you to get beaten into unconciousness, then quite literally cut your heart in half.]]

* Happens to Chris Redfield in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'' where his entire squad was killed in a horrific bioterrorist attack by [[spoiler:Fake!]]Ada Wong[[spoiler:/Carla Radames]] and he couldn't do anything but watch them get wrapped up in a flesh like cocoon before one of them hatches and becomes a horrific monster. Chris then spends the next several months [[DrowningMySorrows drinking to forget what happened]] and it isn't until Piers forces Chris to remember what went down months ago while the two of them engage in a mission similar to the one that traumatized him that Chris painfully remembers what happened and vows to get revenge on Ada[[spoiler:'s clone]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza 1}}''; near the end of the game, it's revealed that Yumi suffered from amnesia after the trauma of nearly getting raped and seeing her childhood friend Nishiki kill a man in front of her. Kazama was content to leave her like this in the hope she'd build a new life free of the yakuza, but a failed assassination from her ex-lover led her to regaining her memory, or better or worse.

* ''[[VisualNovel/AmnesiaMemories Amnesia: Later]]'' shows in Ukyo's After Story, that the heroine ended up repressing the memories of what occured on August 25th from the previous game. Ukyo tries to keep her from worrying about it, since such knowledge would include his split-personality, and its attempt in killing her. He does eventually explain what happened.

* Komari from ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' [[spoiler:went through this after her brother died due to him convincing her that it was all a dream. As a result she repressed the memories of him, though they still affect her dreams. The memories can be triggered into returning when she sees blood or death, but this causes her to HeroicBSOD all over again and then, after a day or two, attempt to recover by pretending someone else is her brother and repressing everything all over again. In the end, Riki is able to break the cycle, forcing Komari to accept the reality of his death and allowing her to grieve over it naturally.]]

* It turns out that ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'''s [[spoiler:''entire plot'' revolves around this trope, since the entire series is essentially Battler remembering his past through testimonies and theories in the future.]]

* This is implied in ''Literature/StoneBurners'', when the protagonist meets a metahuman capable of experiencing his foes' pasts.

* Duke of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoe'' suffer a traumatic experience when he was captured by Kobra and was turned into a slave. After escaping and was rescued, Duke could't remember anything that happen during his time as a prisoner, expect that he met [[AmnesiaMissedaSpot someone]] that helped him escaped. However, Duke recovered those memories thanks to the Doc.
* Helga Pataki of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' suffers from this in the episode "Beaned" when she's struck by a baseball hit by old 'Dangerous Lumber' himself, Arnold. After waking up fully recovered the next morning, Helga continues faking her amnesia to guilt-trip Arnold into taking care of her, but begins to feel sorry for forcing him to pay attention to her. She fakes another head injury which 'cures' her amnesia and uses her usual [[{{Tsundere}} crabby bluster]] to try and put some distance between them, but is pleasantly surprised that he still wants to make sure she's okay.

* TruthInTelevision, at least as far as ''physical'' trauma (especially to the head) is concerned. Global amnesia is a very real phenomenon that affects people who have been in car accidents and similar traumatic incidents. On the end of emotional or psychological trauma, there is vigorous debate to what extent it occurs, but dissociative disorders - particularly dissociative amnesia - are what this trope is based off of.

** Dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue disorder[[note]]a condition characterized by long-term departure from one's home and the psychological creation of a new identity.[[/note]], and dissociative identity disorder [[note]]a condition characterized by the presence of multiple, independent identities and one that is the subject of a great deal of debate among psychologists.[[/note]] are the most extreme cases. Of course debate rages on as to how many true or planted examples there have been, but theoretically the brain is malleable enough when young so that if you experience emotional trauma as a very small child, your mind can protect itself by "pushing away" the memories, believing it didn't happen or it happened to someone else. But even if you don't remember it, it's still there. The brain can protect itself from immediate damage by blocking out the harmful memories themselves, but the trauma will always find some other way to manifest itself until it's dealt with.

* On the ''LetsPlay/DreamSMP'', Ghostbur (the spectral form of Wilbur) [[GhostAmnesia only recalls positive memories of his life]], and only forms new memories when he's happy. His memory loss seems to be semi-selective, though, as he sometimes refers to events he claims not to remember later, and told Tommy about how one day he tried really hard to recall what he did and then forgot the entire rest of that day. This indicates that his memory loss is likely not (entirely) caused by him being a ghost, but more due to the trauma he'd endured, which his brain responded to by blocking out negative or traumatic memories. To be fair, Wilbur ''did'' go through a pretty nasty TraumaCongaLine prior to his third canon death.

** Played realistically in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', where the kidnap victims you rescue from the TV world typically have hazy memories of the ordeal, mostly due to stress and exhaustion[[note]]Shadows aren't the only dangerous thing about The TV world; The fog that constantly hangs over the place can actually make a person ill after a while (least till they build up a resistance)[[/note]].
*** In ''P4 Golden'' [[spoiler: the good ending reveals that Nanako (the protagonists younger cousin\surrogate little sister) remembers almost nothing from either her kidnapping or her time in the TV world, only that Big Bro and his friends had saved her from something.]] Naoto voices the opinion that this is probably for the best.

->'''Nathan:''' When the Federal government destroyed your home, Nellie took you to live with your Grandma Eva. After the ''[[WorldWarII/PreludeToWar Anschluss]]'', their building was Aryanised, and you all had to cram into here. But you don't remember anything! ''Kannst du das glauben?//

->'''Nathan:''' When the Federal government destroyed your home, Nellie took you to live with your Grandma Eva. After the ''[[WorldWarII/PreludeToWar Anschluss]]'', their building was Aryanised, and you all had to cram into here. But you don't remember anything! ''Kannst du das glauben?[[note]]Can you believe it?''[[/note]]
'''Rosa:''' Do I believe in suppressed memory? In ''Austria?''