History Main / BodySurf

* Likewise, this was the premise behind the AdventureGame ''VideoGame/OmikronTheNomadSoul'', while the player character being a soul from "our" universe who is only able to interact with the alien world of Omikron by taking over the bodies of Omikron's citizens. He/she hops from body to body quite frequently; the process seems to displace the original soul, so that the body's left an empty shell when the player leaves it for another. The morality of this is never even superficially addressed, especially considering the bad guys are essentially doing the same thing, only on a much more massive scale. The player even evaluates potential hosts like new cars when you examine them, and towards the end the game even requires you to poison a guy who just saved your life so you can jack his body.

* In the {{Elseworld}}s book ''ComicBook/{{Justice League|OfAmerica}}: [[ComicBook/TheNail Another Nail]]'', [[Comicbook/NewGods Scott Free (Mr. Miracle)]] is killed by Desaad, but before dying he transfers his mind into Big Barda's Mother Box circuitry, allowing him to "possess" his wife long enough to use his escape-artist skills to release her from Darkseid's shackles. Barda then acquires a ComicBook/GreenLantern power ring, allowing Scott Free the ability to manifest himself as a green energy construct.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Flare}}'', the Tigress claims to have done this periodically over thousands of years. Her latest victim is prison psychiatrist Katherine Kaat.

* ''Literature/{{Quarters}}'': Gyhard is capable of moving from one body to another, expelling a person's soul and taking it over. He's done this for over a century, living six lives in different bodies.

* The premise of ''WesternAnimation/PennZeroPartTimeHero'' is that the characters travel to other dimensions and take over the bodies of specific inhabitants.

* The Agents in ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' do this to revive themselves when killed. Since every human still plugged into the Matrix is a potential Agent, the Resistance cannot afford to leave witnesses when they go about trying to free people. As shown repeatedly in the movies, any populated area in the city is extremely dangerous. In a matter of seconds, an agent can jump into anyone nearby and shoot you dead.
** [[Film/TheMatrix The first movie]] shows this in the finale when Neo runs through a market and an apartment complex. Agent Smith, Agent Brown and Agent Jones are constantly taking shots at Neo from behind or from the sides as they try to kill him.

** Happens to Tom Paris in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E18VisAVis Vis à Vis]]". A criminal steals his body and dumps Tom in his own, leaving him to avoid pissed-off previous body-swapped personalities, plus somehow get back to Voyager and convince people that 'Tom Paris' isn't who they think he is. A similar plot appears in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster''. This time Cassie is the victim.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E9Warlord Warlord]]", a former dictator jumps from body to body (usually volunteers from among his fanatical followers) in a quest for immortality but finds himself accidentally inside Kes. At first he finds Kes' mind powers and sexual attractiveness very useful; her stubborn determination to resist him not so much. Not to mention that if you want immortality, a host body that is dead of old age before it hits ten years old is a ''bad choice''.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster'' took place on a planet where a scientist had invented a device which allowed any two people to switch bodies. The BigBad for that episode had stolen that device before the main characters got there. They ended up trying to track down the BigBad as they ended up in the bodies of the locals (or each-other, or in one case the BigBad from a past episode). At one point the titular hamster, the girl who hired him, and the BigBad were all in the same body. At the end of the episode, he (the BigBad, not the hamster) ended up in a cactus.

* ''Manhwa/{{Priest}}'' has villain Jaarbilong, who commands a horde of zombies. He can possess any of the zombies at will, if his current body is destroyed he simply jumps into another one. Ivan gets around this trick by attacking his soul directly.

* ''Film/LifeForce'': After her escape the female vampire starts switching from body to body to evade capture. The male vampires also survive being blown up with grenades by surfing into the bodies of the soldiers who blew them up, taking it to BodyHorror levels by changing the soldiers' bodies into exact duplicates of their old bodies (similar to the Agents in ''Film/TheMatrix'').

* The main mechanic of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', referred to as Capturing, lets you possess and control others with Cappy. You can control Goombas and Hammer Bros., Bullet Bills, taxis, frogs, Lava Bubbles, binoculars, trees, dinosaurs, and even ''other people''. The only limitation is that he can't possess anyone that's wearing a hat.

* The Goa'uld in ''Series/StargateSG1'' can do this, but tend to stick with one host as long as possible. (For example, Apophis kept a body that had been badly scarred by the torture he'd endured at the hands of a rival.) Anubis, on the other hand, was part {{Energy Being|s}} and once his containment field was destroyed, he had to possess humans. The bodies burned out quickly, necessitating taking new ones frequently.

* According to ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Miss Havisham of ''Literature/GreatExpectations'' plans to do this to continue breaking mens' hearts. By way of her genesis device powered by the tears of young men. Along with her army of robot monkeys.

* Androvax in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' story "[[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS3E1E2PrisonerOfTheJudoon Prisoner of the Judoon]]".

** Happens to Tom Paris in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E18VisAVis Vis à Vis]]". A criminal steals his body and dumps Tom in his own, leaving him to avoid pissed-off previous body-swopped personalities, plus somehow get back to Voyager and convince people that 'Tom Paris' isn't who they think he is. A similar plot appears in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster''. This time Cassie is the victim.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E14WolfInTheFold Wolf in the Fold]]", spirit Redjac hops from body to body while committing violent murders because he's [[spoiler: actually Jack the Ripper]]. And another episode had three noncorporeal life forms using the bodies of the Enterprise crew to construct android bodies for themselves.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E24TurnaboutIntruder Turnabout Intruder]]" had one of Captain Kirk's lovers, Dr. Janice Lester, swap her mind with his so she can live her dream of being captain of a starship. Then, she realizes she needs to kill her old body to make the transfer permanent.
* Demons and Angels in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' move from vessel to vessel, when they have [[PossessionBurnout burnt out a host]], the current host is no longer convenient, or a better vessel is available.

* ''AvatarTheophileGautier'': Balthazar Cherbonneau body swaps Octave and Olaf, but they return to him to switch back. Olaf's soul is restored, [[spoiler:but Octave's soul makes no attempt to return to his own body, leaving a corpse to Balthazar. Fearing he might be get accused of murder, he gets the idea to transfer his soul to the corpse and leaving his own body dead, with the false news that Balthazar died in an accident]].

* A benign version in the short story ''Avatar'' (in the Hindu mythology sense) by Creator/TheophileGautier. A young man (desperately in love with a woman married to another man whom she loves) visits a mystic recently returned from the Orient and asks for his help, and the mystic switches the minds of the lover and the husband. A few days later, the lover returns in the company of the husband, having agreed to switch back (the wife could tell it wasn't her husband, as he knew nothing about her or their pet names for each other). The husband's soul is restored, [[DrivenToSuicide but the lover's soul makes no attempt to return to its original body.]] The mystic considers what to do with the dead body on his hands, when the obvious solution hits him. The story concludes with the reported death of the mystic, having made the lover his universal heir.

* Anon, from ''Manga/TheLawOfUeki'', who steals the bodies of his victims [[spoiler:by swallowing them whole.]] He does this to [[spoiler:Robert Haydn]] and even [[spoiler:the current ''God''.]]

* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', [[spoiler:Medusa]] uses magic to cheat death this way, the first time jumping into a helpless child, and then upgrading to something more comfortable by stealing the body of [[spoiler:her sister, Arachne.]]

* ''Literature/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'': This is the method by which [[TheArchmage High Wizard Razen]] has served the Kingdom of Falmuth [[OldRetainer for centuries]]. By using a combination of soul-destroying magic and [[GrandTheftMe Possession]] magic, he can transfer his soul to new bodies when his current one gets too old. This also allows him to use any special abilities tied to the body he's taking over [[spoiler:as shown when he has access to Shogou Taguchi's Berserker and Survivor Skills]]. [[spoiler:However, his OldMaster Gadra notes it has several weaknesses. He can't constantly switch bodies because of the taxing nature it would put on his own soul, because he has to destroy the body's original soul this locks him out any abilities or [[PowersAsPrograms Skills]] tied to the soul (and as a rule the stronger abilities/Skills are almost always tied to the soul; he was lucky that Shogou's Unique Skills were tied to his body), and he'll never be able to use the body's full potential for himself since it wasn't originally his. In fact, Razen had to resort to this method because even he couldn't master Gadra's {{Reincarnation}} SecretArt.]]

** "Retail Therapy" in the Ninth Doctor Chronicles concludes with [[spoiler: the Ninth Doctor, with Jackie Tyler's help, transferring his consciousness into the body of the villain, reversing the life draining devices he sent out, and surfing back to his own body as the man's body "wears a bit thin", so to speak.]]

* This is the entire concept behind the superhero ComicBook/{{Deadman}}, whose sole power is the ability to effortlessly possess ''anybody'', from children to ComicBook/{{Superman}} to paintings to giant crabs. He shows off to ability to rapidly possess people in ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' #86, where a BrainwashedAndCrazy Deadman makes every single person on a crowded street attack ComicBook/{{Batman}} as he passes them by. First, a cop tries to shoot Batman, then a blind guy tries to smack him with his walking stick, then a businessman throws a briefcase at him, and finally a truck tries to crash into Batman just as he grapples away. In ''ComicBook/ShouldAuldAcquaintanceBeForgot'', he quickly jumps from a corrupt businessman to a female skater to a passing man.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': The ComicBook/PostCrisis Giganta started out her villainous career by trying to transfer her essence into ComicBook/WonderWoman to save herself from a fatal illness, but the attempt was stopped by ComicBook/WonderGirl and Zuel's assistant had to transfer her into a gorilla's body out of desperation. Zuel was displeased with her new body and found herself a human victim whose body and sizeshifting abilities are most commonly associated with the villain.

-->'''ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}:''' Joey, [[AccidentalInnuendo get inside me!]]
* The villain named the Ultra-Humanite (originally a ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' character, [[RoguesGalleryTransplant then]] a ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'' one) accomplishes this by [[BrainTransplant surgically transferring his brain between bodies]]. He tried to do this to ComicBook/PowerGirl, but she stopped him.

* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': Characters/DoctorDoom has the Ovoid mind switch, an alien technique taught to him by the (guess) Ovoids, a species of aliens incapable of reproduction at one point so they had to clone their bodies and transfer their minds into it. Despite a later ComicBook/SheHulk issue retconning it as being difficult if there's a soul/mind in the body the "caster" is trying to inhabit, Doom seems to be able to do this with relative ease, especially after the ''Unthinkable arc'', where he's just a spirit, and he swaps and hops about the Fantastic Four until Reed [[KillTheHostBody shoots Doom-in-Thing]], killing both and sending Victor von Doom... ''to hell''.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Flare}}'', the Tigress claims to have done this periodically over thousands of years. Her latest victim is [[http://heroicmultiverse.com/flareonline/?id=171 prison psychiatrist Katherine Kaat.]]

* ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs'': In "What if Tom's yeerk got the morphing cube from David first?", [[spoiler:the Yeerk presses Tom's ear against Jake's so he can get into the latter's brain and learn all the Animorphs' secrets.]]
* In ''Fanfic/HailToTheJewelsInTheLotus'', Nezha is pinned by rock when Baro Ki'Teer is about to be killed by the Grineer. Seeing no other options, Nezha [[spoiler:uses Transference to transfer his mind into the fallen Inaros to rise up and lay waste to the Grineer.]]

* In ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' The SOS Brigade [[FridgeHorror determines]] [[spoiler: Kanae's backstory]] had this. [[spoiler:As Kanae was escaping the AlienInvasion right behind her she jumped [[AlternateUniverse through worlds]], in every world she had an identity but has never considered what happened to her "local" copy, who she had never met]].

* In the J-Horror film ''Film/AnotherHeaven'', the Body Surfing killer is actually [[spoiler: a murderess from the future whose (inadvertent?) time travel turned her into a ''sapient puddle of water''.]] The bodies possessed are found to be missing their brains [[spoiler:which are found to be merely shrivelled up and covered in tumours]]. The film gets kind of weird towards the end, with the implication that [[spoiler:the killer evaporated from a housefire, and is now in the rain]].
* The main character in the Korean horror film ''Film/DeadFriend'' suffers from EasyAmnesia, [[spoiler: and doesn't even remember that she had [[FreakyFridayFlip swapped minds]] with the main villain. Since this happened just as she was about to drown, the villain quickly jumped into the next nearest girl, and spends the rest of the film possessing different characters to get revenge.]].
* In ''Film/{{Fallen}}'' (the one with Denzel Washington and John Goodman), the resident body snatcher can switch from body to body by touch. In one scene, [[spoiler: he chases Denzel Washington in a crowd by body surfing his way through the crowd, each person reaching forward to touch the next in the chain]].

* ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'': After her escape the female vampire starts switching from body to body to evade capture.
** The male vampires also survive being blown up with grenades by surfing into the bodies of the soldiers who blew them up, taking it to BodyHorror levels by changing the soldiers' bodies into exact duplicates of their old bodies (similar to the Agents in ''Film/TheMatrix'').

* ''Film/SatansTriangle'': [[spoiler:Satan cruises TheBermudaTriangle. His MO is possessing someone, posing as a shipwreck survivor so he'll be rescued by another boat, and then killing everyone aboard except for the next body he possesses so he can do it again.]]

* A rare non-supernatural example: In ''Film/TakingLives'', this is essentially the tactic of a serial killer - [[spoiler: he kills people who look similar to himself, dresses them up as his old persona (killing them in messy ways helps), and steals their identity, continuing his life as the victim.]]

* In Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's short story "The Glass Flower", this method of immortality is achieved by way of a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind. In the story, there are three "contestants", three "prizes", and a controller that take part in what is referred to as the "game of mind", where they enter a virtual world and battle one another, with weapons or psychologically. The contestants try to take over the bodies of the prizes, though the prizes can fight back and retain their bodies if they win, and the controller creates the world in which they fight.

* Doro, the adversary in Octavia Butler's ''[[Literature/{{Patternist}} Wild Seed]]'' and ''Mind Of My Mind''. He uses up the body he's in (in months at the most), then jumps to the nearest body, killing the person in it and taking it over. Kill him (or just really startle him) and he jumps automatically. He doesn't know how to die, and he's been doing it since the Ancient Egyptians raided his bronze-age village in Nubia.

* The antagonist of Stephen Gallegher's ValleyOfLights can jump from body to body.

* Creator/RobertSheckley's ''Mindswap'' novel involves a protagonist spontaneously deciding to visit Mars but wanting to avoid the lengthy trip, so he opts to swap minds with a Martian who wants to visit Earth. He finds himself in a room on Mars in the body of a Martian only to be old immediately that he must vacate the body. Apparently, the previous occupant of the body signed two contracts[[note]]12, actually[[/note]], and the contract with another person was signed first. The protagonist wants to go back to his own body but finds out it was stolen, so he goes on a desperate quest to return his own body, including switching bodies several times. In the end, he corners and defeats the thief.
* A ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' novel had the BigBad figure out how to do this with the use of some ancient ruins.
* In ''Shattered Sky'', the final book of the ''Literature/StarShardsChronicles'', one of the Vectors travels this way, taking a host body and forcing it to commit suicide so that it can travel to its next host (the Vectors require host bodies in our world, and will die if disembodied for too long), who then repeats the process until the Vector has reached its destination.
* In ''Literature/ThoseThatWake'''s sequel, entering the neuropleth allows you to do this at the cost of your physical body.
* An understated example in ''Literature/{{Edenborn}}'': Dr. Hyoguchi theorizes that it is possible to overwrite a mind with another one from brain scans if the two bodies are genetically identical. He leaves a message to the Ten asking them to clone him and then overwrite the clone's mind with Hyoguchi's so that he can live again. The morality is nebulous; the clone's mind will cease to exist, but the process is painless and gradual and Hyoguchi recognizes the incredible sacrifice and asks for it as a gift. Both the member of the Ten who receives the message and the clone in question take the proposal seriously.
* The Ganymede in Robert Jackson Bennett's ''Literature/AmericanElsewhere'' does this countless times. In the novel the town of Wink, New Mexico has several trans-dimensional {{eldritch abomination}}s living in it, mostly in {{living body suit}}s. Most aren't evil so they only change bodies when they need to. The Ganymede '''is''' evil, uses up the bodies and jumps to new ones as its whims dictate.
* In ''Literature/LockIn'', a sizeable percentage of the population of the world is suffering from Hayden's Syndrome, one of the symptoms of a flu-like disease. The titular condition is of the AndIMustScream variety - the Haydens are unable to interact with the world in any way. After trillions of dollars in research, several methods of allowing the Haydens to live semi-normal lives are developed. One involves the use of Integrators, a rare form of Hayden who did not suffer a lock in, but whose brain chemistry was still altered. An Integrator can be used as a temporary vessel for a locked-in Hayden. The more common alternative is the use of Threeps, robotic avatars, although they don't provide for a full experience.
* {{Familiar}}s in F.J. Hale's ''After the Spell Wars'' novelettes work like this, possessing the bodies of animals and jumping into a new one (with sorcerous help) if their current host dies. Morasha swaps bodies repeatedly over the course of two short books, once deliberately and the other times because her host was killed. [[spoiler: Subverted in the end when she gets trapped in an intelligent dolphin's body and refuses to Body Surf again until a means to extract her ''without'' killing the host can be devised.]]
* In ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle'':
** Thorn has a habit of hopping into the body of one of his minions when he wants to have a conversation, destroying his new host's mind in the process.
** After his body is killed, [[spoiler:Harmodius]] hops into the mind palace of his ally, though his host remains alive and (mostly) in charge. Eventually, the ghost kills the mind of an enemy mage and takes up permanent residence in his body.
* One science fiction story from the anthology magazine Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (titled Through All His Houses Wandering if memory serves) this happens unintentionally to a scientist who volunteered himself for their psychic communication experiment after initially giving him amnesia only he was body surfing random aliens in widely scattered parts of the galaxy associated with the Western Zodiac with a range of effects from going unnoticed and unable to do anything all the way to total control.
* In ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'', it eventually turns out that this is how [[spoiler:Nirai Kujen's]] immortality works. In a flashback, when he walks into [[spoiler:Jedao's office]], he's immediately shot, only to enter a moment later in a different body and say that he has more of those than his less-than-gracious host has bullets.
* There's a CloneByConversion example in ''Literature/{{Slimer}}''. Charlie is a genetically-engineered shapeshifting shark who absorbs the minds and bodies of his victims. Near the end, as his original body is dying, he "impregnates" the body of a Brinkstone helicopter pilot instead of absorbing him. The original body dies, while the cells implanted into the pilot convert the man's body into an exact duplicate of Charlie, with his memories and personality.
* In the ''Literature/SonjaBlue'' series, fire demons work this way. They possess a body to give themselves a physical presence, but their fiery nature causes the body to slowly cook from the inside, so before long they have to choose another body to leap into.
* In Creator/GregEgan's ''The Safe-Deposit Box'' short story, the protagonist's mind inhabits a different body every day. They all live in the same general area and are of similar age (and since the age the protagonist started identifying himself as a boy, they are usually male), but nothing else seems to give any clues as to how or why it happens. In fact, it wasn't until school age that the protagonist realized that this isn't a norm, and other people don't "change" into someone else every day.
* One of the first scifi examples is the race of kaldanes from Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' novel ''[[Literature/JohnCarterOfMars The Chessmen of Mars]]''. Kaldanes are grotesque disembodied heads with spiderlike limbs that live in vast colonies devoted to [[StrawVulcan pure logic and reason]], seeing all concerns of the body as beneath them. They keep things called rykors -- which resemble perfect humanoid bodies, but without heads - as both vehicles and, when they have exhausted their use, food.
* In ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'', [[spoiler: Darquesse]] does this once her current host has [[PossessionBurnout died]].
* ''Literature/TitansForest'': In the climax of ''Crossroads of Canopy'', Kirrik [[spoiler:attempts to take over Ular's body when she's killed, fails thanks to Ular's protective amulet, steals Ekhis' body instead, is promptly assassinated, and then takes one of her servants' bodies in which to make her escape]].
* ''Literature/Touch2015'': The basic premise of the story. Kepler jumps from body to body while trying to solve the mystery of the conspiracy trying to find and assassinate them.
* ''Literature/TheCyberiad'': In "The Fifth Sally, or the Mischief of King Balerion" King Balerion of Cymbronia, a great lover of hide-and-seek, promises a royal reward to anyone who will instruct him on the best hiding place in the world. Trurl and Klapaucius enter the contest with a "portable personality transformator", a device which, when worn on the head, can swap one's personality with that of another person by simply bumping them in the head. Balerion at once uses the apparatus to go on a mind-swapping spree through his capital, willfully causing chaos and shifting into another body whenever he has got the old one injured or got it into trouble with the law. As Balerion is unresponsive to all exhortations to use the device responsibly, Trurl and Klapaucius eventually punish him by transferring his personality into a cuckoo clock, and shifting the personality of one of his victims into the royal body to be king in his place.
* In Elizabeth Moon's ''Literature/TheDeedOfPaksenarrion'' books, Dorrin returns to her birth family's home to put most of the family under attainder for crimes against the crown and attempts to salvage the rest. In the process of cleaning up her family's mess, she discovers that multiple members of her birth family do this [[spoiler:and are now inhabiting the bodies of children in the nursery and people not related to her but who had done business with the family]]. One such soul tries to take over Stammel [[spoiler: who manages to fight it off, but ends up blind as a result]].
* ''Literature/{{Quarters}}'': Gyhard is capable of moving from one body to another, expelling a person's soul and taking it over. He's done this for over a century, living six lives in different bodies.

* ''Series/BehindHerEyes'': [[spoiler: The big twist is that Rob has used AstralProjection to swap bodies/lives with his friend Adele.]]

** Subverted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]]: [[spoiler:[[AllOfTheOtherReindeer The other passengers]] are eager to accept the idea that the malevolent entity that has been possessing Sky has jumped into the Doctor, freeing her. Instead, not only is she still possessed, but is now playing a rather sick [[PeoplePuppets ventriloquism game]] in trying to get the Doctor killed...]]

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}''

** Season 10 BigBad {{ComicBook/Darkseid}} can possess any host that can't control the darkness in their heart.

*** When Flemeth learns about this [[spoiler:she realizes that she can combine these two by tricking the archdemon soul into the body of her unborn grandchild (who would not have a soul yet), thereby salvaging the soul of the Old God...for her own mysterious purpose, of course.]]
** [[spoiler: Corypheus]] from the ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII: Legacy DLC'', who was [[spoiler: one of the Tevinter Magisters who entered the Black City and became one of the ''first'' Darkspawn.]] After being defeated by Hawke, before s/he strikes the final blow, his eyes briefly turn black and the Grey Warden (Larius or Janeka) that Hawke has allied with [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent staggers in the background]]. It's further implied that [[spoiler: Corypheus]] is now possessing them with the large SlasherSmile they wear as they leave.
** The above is confirmed in ''Videogame/DragonAgeInquisition''. The Elder One [[spoiler:is Corypheus. It is later confirmed that he can reincarnate himself in any tainted being, including Wardens.]]

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', Master Xehanort seeks to transfer his heart into a younger vessel, mainly that of Terra. [[spoiler: It only works partially.]]
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' reveals that [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX Luxu]] has been doing this for eons ever since the Keyblade War to keep watch over his Keyblade. Xigbar, Xehanort's [[TheDragon Dragon]], is Luxu's latest vessel.]]

* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2: Mask of the Betrayer'' [[spoiler: the player spends the entire game struggling against a body-surfer that has inhabited her body and threatens to devour her identity.]]

* In ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'', this was how [[spoiler:Queen Himiko stayed alive for hundreds of years. Whenever her body becomes too old for her she chooses a successor among her handmaidens. Then she transfers her soul into the girls body, [[FateWorseThanDeath destroying the original soul in the process]].]] However the cycle was broken, [[spoiler: when the latest handmaiden [[HeroicSacrifice comitted suicide]] during the transfer ritual. As a result Himiko was trapped in her previous body which quickly decayed into a [[AndIMustScream horrifying corpse]]]]. Now very pissed off [[spoiler: Himiko causes the storms that keep people trapped on the island, while the solarii cult searches for a new host body]]. As it turns out the perfect replacement happens to be [[spoiler: Lara's best friend Sam]].

* Godiva from ''Webcomic/{{Vanguard}}'' has a power that requires a line of sight but lets her see and hear through the victim. It comes in handy against tougher opponents, as people very rarely have a defense against throwing their own weapon down and pulling back the [[NighInvulnerability Nigh Invulnerable]] face plate blocking all those bullets.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', The Lich has this ability. Whenever his old body is destroyed, he simply surfs to a new one. The first time, Finn manages to kill his old body, so his soul transfers into [[spoiler: Princess Bubblegum. After that body is shattered and he's exorcised, he possesses [[EasterEgg The Snail]] to escape]].
** In the Season 4 finale, he does it again, taking the body of [[spoiler: Billy, which ultimately allows his plan to succeed]]. It's unknown whether [[spoiler: The Multiverse]] affected his current body.

* According to ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Miss Havisham of ''Literature/GreatExpectations'' plans to do this. By way of her genesis device powered by the tears of young men. Along with her army of robot monkeys.

* In ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'', [[spoiler: the Season 4 BigBad Clifford "The Thinker" [=DeVoe=] learns to do this thanks to a CoolChair built by his wife. However, at first, he can only do it to a metahuman with PsychicPowers. Afterwards, though, it appears to work on anyone, as he then moves on to Becky "Hazard" Sharpe, much to his wife's chagrin, and later Izzy "The Fiddler" Bowin, in both cases because the dark matter which fuels his massive intellect is causing his host bodies to eventually fail. Later, he transfers briefly into Edwin "Folded Man" Gauss, before finally settling on Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny, whose shapeshifting powers make his body stable enough to hold the dark matter without burning out (and as a bonus, lets him regain his original appearance.]]

** "Better Luck Next Time" featured two nearly immortal aliens who could inhabit any living host and can survive for however long they can bind to the central nervous system. After the host dies, they have only moments to transfer into another body until they die, since they can't live too long in the Earth's atmosphere. If they transfer, they will still live for however long they can repeat the sequence. If they fail, they disintegrate. This was a sequel to another episode: one of the duo was in fact ''[[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy Jack the Ripper]].''
** "Free Spirit" featured a person involved in a mind-transfer experiment whose consciousness became disconnected from his body after the scientists chose to terminate the experiment by killing the test subjects. He takes several years to learn how to possess people's minds and then comes back to get revenge on his killers. He's become so good at it that in one scene he repeatedly jumps between two people [[FinishingEachOthersSentences to finish a single sentence]].

--->'''Clark''': [[Funny/{{Smallville}} Crown's mine, bitch.]]

** Happens to Tom Paris in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E20VisAVis Vis-a-vis]]". A criminal steals his body and dumps Tom in his own, leaving him to avoid pissed-off previous body-swopped personalities, plus somehow get back to Voyager and convince people that 'Tom Paris' isn't who they think he is. A similar plot appears in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster''. This time Cassie is the victim.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E10Warlord Warlord]]", a former dictator jumps from body to body (usually volunteers from among his fanatical followers) in a quest for immortality but finds himself accidentally inside Kes. At first he finds Kes' mind powers and sexual attractiveness very useful; her stubborn determination to resist him not so much. Not to mention that if you want immortality, a host body that is dead of old age before it hits ten years old is a ''bad choice''.

* Done in a deliberately de-MindRape-ified fashion in ''[[Literature/AWrinkleInTime A Swiftly Tilting Planet]]'' -- Charles Wallace has to Body Surf throughout history to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Notable as a rare example of the ''hero'' doing this. He specifically ''doesn't'' displace the original mind, and in fact that mind often doesn't even know he's there.

* Done in a deliberately de-MindRape-ified fashion in ''[[Literature/AWrinkleInTime A Swiftly Tilting Planet]]'' -- Charles Wallace has to Body Surf throughout history to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Notable as a rare example of the ''hero'' doing this. He specifically ''doesn't'' displace the original mind, and in fact that mind often doesn't even know he's there.

* Karla The Grey Witch of ''Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar'' has survived for centuries doing this via GrandTheftMe by placing the circlet she now resides in on her victims' heads. She is forced out of one victim only to possess another. It's implied in the manga that she needs a willing host, as the circlet doesn't do anything except lie on the ground until [[spoiler:Woodchuck picks it up and places it on his own head after crossing the DespairEventHorizon]].

* ''LightNovel/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'': This is the method by which [[TheArchmage High Wizard Razen]] has served the Kingdom of Falmuth [[OldRetainer for centuries]]. By using a combination of soul-destroying magic and [[GrandTheftMe Possession]] magic, he can transfer his soul to new bodies when his current one gets too old. This also allows him to use any special abilities tied to the body he's taking over [[spoiler:as shown when he has access to Shogou Taguchi's Berserker and Survivor Skills]]. [[spoiler:However, his OldMaster Gadra notes it has several weaknesses. He can't constantly switch bodies because of the taxing nature it would put on his own soul, because he has to destroy the body's original soul this locks him out any abilities or [[PowersAsPrograms Skills]] tied to the soul (and as a rule the stronger abilities/Skills are almost always tied to the soul; he was lucky that Shogou's Unique Skills were tied to his body), and he'll never be able to use the body's full potential for himself since it wasn't originally his. In fact, Razen had to resort to this method because even he couldn't master Gadra's {{Reincarnation}} SecretArt.]]

* The Asicans in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' can do this since they don't have a true body. Whenever someone kills them, the Asican's soul hangs between the planes of life and death until they recover and they then find a new body to hijack. However, hijacking someone's body is ''very'' taxing on the hijacker and doubly so if said body is actually alive and not dead. [[spoiler: Even with his great magical strength, Lahabrea is easily defeated by the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] because he constantly switched bodies when the old ones [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness became no use to him,]] thus making him very weak. Emet-Selch on the other hand uses cloned bodies of his emperor guise, thus whenever he's ready to "die", he can just hop into a new younger version of the same body and not wear himself out. This makes the fight against him much more intense and difficult compared to Lahabrea.]]

** ''The Fearmonger'' has the titular Fearmonger jumping into people... first the leader of the biggest political party, and then, [[spoiler:apparently,]] the Doctor. [[spoiler: At the end, it's revealed the monster was in another guy up until the point where Ace had been in hospital -- whereupon it jumped over to her, getting her to try to kill the Doctor.]]

* This is the entire concept behind the superhero ComicBook/{{Deadman}}, whose sole power is the ability to effortlessly possess ''anybody'', from children to ComicBook/{{Superman}} to paintings to giant crabs. He shows off to ability to rapidly possess people in ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' #86, where a BrainwashedAndCrazy Deadman makes every single person on a crowded street attack ComicBook/{{Batman}} as he passes them by. First, a cop tries to shoot Batman, then a blind guy tries to smack him with his walking stick, then a businessman throws a briefcase at him, and finally a truck tries to crash into Batman just as he grapples away.