History Main / GhostAmnesia

* In the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Random Shoes", Eugene is {{Dead To Begin With}} and doesn't remember much about his life or anything about how he died, [[spoiler: though his memories gradually come back throughout the episode as he sees things that remind him and helps [[WhodunnitToMe solve the mystery of his own death]], which turns out to be an accident.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Lapse}}'': Eli claims he remembers everything, but his demonstration is less than convincing. [[http://lapsecomic.com/comic/2013/11/29]]

** ''[[TheNumairChronicles Tempests and Slaughter]]'' clarifies things a little further. In the afterlife the dead heal from the events of their lives and forget them, eventually becoming ready for {{reincarnation}}.

* "D" from the DS game ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'' (''Trace Memory'' in the States). Recovering his memories is a subplot.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGhostAndMollyMcGee'' most ghosts in the show can remember their former life, but Scratch seems to of forgotten everything about himself before he became a ghost. [[spoiler: Season 2 has Scratch get small recollections of his life when he was a human child.]]

%%* [[spoiler:Ego]] from ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest''.

* The manga ''Manga/DuskMaidenOfAmnesia'' has this trope as a central premise. The main plot being a freshman's ability to see a ghost woman named Yuuko and his attempts to seek out the reasoning and perpetrator behind her death in the former building of the Academy.

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'': In the final arc, [[spoiler:Yoshikage Kira after his death]] could not remember how he died at first, and initially believed he succeeded [[spoiler:in activating Bites the Dust and turning back time]]. It's not until he is confronted by Reimi that he remembers.
** In the spin-off ''Dead Man Question'', after [[spoiler:Kira]] escaped from [[spoiler:the hands of the Ghost Alley]], he can remember his name and his desire for a quiet life, but nothing else.

** Protagonist Sakura starts as the only (verbal) member of Franchouchou who can't remember anything from before her death, possibly from a head injury sustained when she [[LookBothWays got hit by a speeding truck and died]]. Recovering her memories is her motivation for most of the first season. [[spoiler:Played with a bit when she gets hit by a speeding truck ''again'', and she spends most of the season's final arc in a deep depression because she regained her memories of her DarkAndTroubledPast but forgot being a successful idol who formed strong friendships with the other zombies.]]

* ''Anime/YuGiOh''. The pharaoh can't remember anything but gaming; he only even knows he's a pharaoh because other people told him. This seems to have been a semi-explicit part of his HeroicSacrifice, though. Maybe.

* ''Anime/ZombieLandSaga'': Sakura is the only member of Franchouchou who can't remember her life from before she became a zombie, and throughout the first season much of her motivation for performing is hoping to spark those memories.

* In ''Literature/WarmBodies'' the average zombies remember nothing of their past but little of their humanity and spend time trying to guess their former lives from their clothes.

* Alluded to in ''Literature/TheBible'', in an unusual manner. "The former things shall not be remembered, they shall never come to mind. " Unusual in that, after the Resurrection, everybody is [[BackFromTheDead alive]], so it doesn't technically fit the parameters of this trope, but it's close enough.

* The Haibane of ''Anime/HaibaneRenmei'' can only remember generic skills, habits, and culture. Any memory specific to their previous lives is forgotten. This includes locations, friends, family, and even their own name. For example, Rakka is riding a bike, and remembers that she usually sings songs while riding, but doesn't know any songs to sing.

* In ''ComicBook/PS238,'' [[UnhappyMedium Satori]] says that a lot of ghosts have problems like this. Most notably, there's a Native American ghost who haunts the school's lawn--in his case, he was actually cursed for his {{Pride}}, stuck in that spot until he saves a life and unable to remember anything that he was arrogant about in life (which was apparently just about ''everything,'' including his name). The experience does seem to have humbled him, at least.

* Alluded to in ''Literature/TheBible'', in an unusual manner. "The former things are passed, nor will they come to mind." Unusual in that, after the Resurrection, everybody is [[BackFromTheDead alive]], so it doesn't technically fit the parameters of this trope, but it's close enough.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', ghosts are psychic echoes left behind by the impression of a traumatic death. This means the ghost is basically the person's mind on replay, constantly trying to resolve old business.

* ''Theatre/RideTheCyclone'' both downplays and plays the trope straight for its ghost characters. As the show opens, the teenage members of the St. Cassian High School chamber choir die in a horrific roller coaster accident. Five choir members arrive in limbo slightly confused as to where they are, but retaining their memories of their lives up until the fateful coaster ride. The sixth choir member, Jane Doe, was decapitated in the accident and arrives without a head. She's missing all the memories of who she was in life, including her name and her appearance. (The actress who plays Jane Doe carries a [[CreepyDoll headless doll]] and is made up with porcelain-pale skin, a pale blonde wig, and blacked-out contact lenses, as if Jane Doe has taken the doll's head for her own.) The other teens can't remember who Jane Doe was in life, and even the narrator of the show (a fortune telling robot with legitimate in-universe psychic powers) is stumped when it comes to Jane Doe's identity. Her signature song is a MelancholyMusicalNumber where she laments her sad status:

* Pretty much all of the ghosts in ''VideoGame/TheBlackwellSeries'' fall into this, as they can't find peace and move on to the afterlife before they are remember they are dead. The problem is that their death is often such a traumatic event, that most ghosts subconsciously avoid thinking about things that can remind them of the event, and some even actively attempt to suppress the memory, so they need a little push (and sometimes more than that) to regain the memory.

* Used in ''VideoGame/GhostTrick'', where the dead take time to remember who they were, and what they even looked like. The entire plot is spurred by Sissel's search to find out who he is. Sissel himself can't even remember a lot of basic concepts such as "science" or "jail", or even [[spoiler: how to read]]. Of course there's a good reason for this--[[spoiler: he never knew them to begin with. He's a cat.]] ''Ghost Trick'' uses some pretty interesting concepts to explain why Sissel has memory loss that's lasted more than everyone else, too. [[spoiler: Apparently, if a ghost is somehow misled into thinking a body other than theirs is their own, they won't regain any memories. Conversely, once a ghost does identify their body, their memory starts coming back nearly immediately afterwards. Essentially, Sissel's memories stayed gone for so long because he was trying to remember ''the wrong person.'']]

** One notable example is [[spoiler:Nageki, a ghost who has forgotten almost everything except for books.]] Initially he can't even remember [[DeadAllAlong the fact that he died]]. He does figure out that he's dead and regain some of his memories in his ending, but he ''still'' doesn't fully remember the circumstances of his death; he knows that he [[spoiler:killed himself]], but lacks most of the details and is thus unable to explain them to the player. His memories are extremely fuzzy [[spoiler:to the point that believes that he committed suicide in the library, not in the underground medical center directly beneath it]]. To learn the rest, you have to play the full version of the game, because the route where he regains the rest of his memories (Bad Boys' Love) isn't in the demo.

%%* Pretty much all the ghosts in ''Webcomic/{{Lapse}}''.

* ''Podcast/TheAdventureZone'' features an [[InvertedTrope inversion]]: because [[LaserGuidedAmnesia the Voidfish's memory blockers]] only affect the Prime Material Plane, dead characters (including [[OurLichesAreDifferent liches]] and spirits forced out of their bodies) are able to remember all of the memories they had been unable to access in life. The visions of the past that Magnus receives after having his soul knocked out of his body in Wonderland are some of the first clues that [[spoiler:he and the rest of the main cast are actually interdimensional travelers from a parallel universe, who forgot an entire century and have been living fake lives during the twelve years since their arrival.]]