History Main / NoteToSelf

* The first ''VideoGame/DeepSleep'' game includes a note from "yourself", reminding you that you're dreaming and hopes that you have lucid control over said dream. The third game has a similar note left for [[spoiler: a clown named Bert who followed you to the bottom layer.]]

I know you may find this hard to believe, but it was actually you who wrote this page. Upon learning of a GovernmentConspiracy (though it could have very easily been an AncientConspiracy), you decided to investigate. Unfortunately for us (remember, I am you from the past), the local BigBad found out and decided to make you forget everything through LaserGuidedAmnesia, even implanting FakeMemories to throw you off. As he warmed up his AppliedPhlebotinum, you quickly scribbled this page on the first piece of available medium you found. It could have been [[HumanNotepad yourself]], a piece of paper, the floor, a videotape, or [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents the back of a DNA-tracking device]]. If you're [[FridgeLogic wondering why]] you chose a wiki where [[WikiVandal anyone can get at this note and alter it]], well... [[HandWave it was there.]]

* ''Film/AvatarTheWayOfWater'': Recombinant Quaritch starts the movie watching one he made prior to getting his memories and personality digitized and sent back to Earth to be put in an Na'vi avatar. It also helps bring the audience up to speed and understand that since Quaritch made the video after Jake Sully GoingNative, there's no AlternatePersonalityPunishment involved.

* ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'' starts with the player character waking up close to one of these, informing him that he wiped his own memory willingly, and now has to kill a certain baron of the castle he finds himself in. As the player character progresses, he will find more notes from his pre-amnesia self explaining who he is, why he ended up here, who the castle baron is, their relationship, why he erased his memories in the first place, and what he hopes his current self will do with the knowledge now that he knows.
* The first log you find in ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' is this, from just before you went in to get a military-grade neural implant, which requires a six-month-long healing coma. You, having freed [[AiIsACrapshoot SHODAN]] of her ethical restraints by Edward Diego's request, acknowledge that [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong you don't know what'll happen after that]], and leave yourself some tools and reminders for when you wake up.
* ''VideoGame/ReahFaceTheUnknown'' has one near the end of the game. A partial audio recording of the journalist's voice that contains clues to a puzzle he found along the way. When the journalist himself hears this in-game, he assumes he's suffering from amnesia.
* The first ''VideoGame/DeepSleep'' game includes a note from "yourself", reminding you that you're dreaming and hopes that you have lucid control over said dream. The third game has a similar note left for [[spoiler: a clown named Bert who followed you to the bottom layer.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject 2: Buried in Time'', you, Agent 5, meet your future self who's been framed for tampering with history. He then gives you his Jumpsuit which teleports you 10 years forward in time, where an action figure contains a holographic message providing details on the current time period and how to [[ClearMyName clear your name]].
* In ''VideoGame/BlightDream'', Michiru keeps a notebook about her daily life to remind herself about everything that's happened since the car accident that caused her to suffer short-term memory loss. However, some of her notebook entries become mysteriously blacked out the morning after, so she starts keeping a second notebook in a hiding place only she knows about.
* In the beginning of ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', after waking up in Iosefka's Clinic, you find an item nearby named Handwritten Scrawl, a note with the cryptic instruction "Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt." While the English translation of the game doesn't make this very clear, the Japanese version refers to the note as an "autograph", indicating your character wrote it to themselves.

* Played rather chillingly in the [[Series/TheFlash2014 Flash]] episode when the Thinker's wife finds out he's been drugging her to make her forget things he doesn't want her to know. She records a message to herself, saves it...and finds ''dozens'' of previous messages saying the exact same thing.

* On ''Series/ParkerLewisCantLose'' Parker had "Mental note...." as a CatchPhrase in his constant InternalMonologue.

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'' series 6, when team TARDIS faces an alien that you can't remember the moment you look away, they leave notes to themselves (often all over their body) telling them what to do. ParanoiaFuel at its finest.

* Gwen Cooper in the first episode of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'', but she wasn't as successful.

* In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'', [[spoiler: this is how Sorin Sprocket deals with the anterograde amnesia he developed in a traffic accident. He meticulously logs the events of his day in his personal notebook so as to remind himself of what he'll inevitably forget. This factors into the case, since his vengeful butler Pierce has been tampering with said notebook to manipulate his memories against his bride, who is your client]]

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' ("Unforgettable"). Chakotay falls in love with a beautiful alien from a species that fades from memory after a while. To ensure this they also implant a virus that destroys all computer records. To make sure he doesn't forget, Chakotay writes out what happened on paper.

* According to ''Don't Panic: Creator/DouglasAdams and Franchise/TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' by Creator/NeilGaiman, Adams used to leave himself notes reminding himself just how much he hated writing. And other notes saying "This was not written after a bad day. This was written after an ''average'' day."

* Stewie Griffin on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''

* Dale Gribble does this in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''.

* ''WesternAnimation/WorktOutWombats'': In "Zoom In Zadie," Zadie's photos advertising the square-painting class leads the neighbors to believe that it's a jack-in-the-box class or a face-painting class. Quique makes mental notes to start face-painting and jack-in-the-box classes.

* Used by several time-travelling characters in ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality.''
* In VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition fanfic ''FanFic/WalkingInCircles'', [[BadFuture Redcliffe future!Solas]] gives Evelyn a note to deliver it to himself in the present. Most of it concerns future events such as Celene’s assassination, the eluvians’ locations and such, but the last line is to remind himself not to give Evelyn any red wine since it triggers her trauma.

* Zaphod Beeblebrox in ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', who was complicit in the memory wipe but left a message by burning his initials into his own brains.

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* Literature/{{Discworld}}: In ''Literature/SoulMusic'', during an early demonstration of Susan's PerceptionFilter, Miss Butts has a note on her desk saying "You are interviewing Susan Sto Helit. Try not to forget it." After a while, she looks at the note, puzzled, throws it away, and gets on with her paperwork. Susan waits politely for a moment in case there's anything else, then leaves.

* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'': In the ''Kamen Sentai Gorider'' special, Emu wakes up in an abandoned amusement park in the middle of literal nowhere without any idea what happened. There he meets [[Series/KamenRiderGaim four]] [[Series/KamenRiderAgito dead]] [[UnexpectedCharacter riders]] and an [[Series/KamenRiderBlade undead]] one, who don't know any more than him. His memory gets reset everytime he dies, so one cycle leads to him [[CouldntFindAPen writing down]] his findings before dying of a stab wound inflicted by an imposter among the dead riders. He then corrects the note in the next cycle before dying again, which becomes crucial in this next cycle over.

* The novel ''Bob Nine'' by Greg Haugland is about a man with recurring amnesia (the title refers to this being the ninth iteration of Bob), and opens with him waking up with no memory and finding assorted notes around his home directing him to play the VHS cassette he's prepared to explain his situation to himself.

** Also featured in ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'', where the "Memo From Your Future Self" card can be used to cancel any other card as it's played (the note apparently says whatever that player was about to do was a bad idea). Hilariously, the rules do specifically state that the memo ''itself'' can be canceled by ''another'' memo, as your future self might be a slightly neurotic memo-taker (memo to self: ignore previous memo).

* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', Gretchen mentions that she tried to fight off Deadland's GhostAmnesia by writing down a notebook of all her positive memories - but wound up throwing the book away because trying to think about people she'd probably never see again was more painful than just [[HappinessInMindControl letting the memories go]].

** Another episode, ''2010'', taking place in the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture then-future]] year of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 2010]], showing that the Goa'uld have been defeated by a benevolent and powerful alien race that SG-1 discovered. [[spoiler:It is later revealed that the aliens have used their technology to secretly sterilize humanity so they can take over when everyone has died of old age.]] Jack is able to use the Stargate to send a message back in time [[spoiler:warning his past self not to go to the star where they discovered the aliens.]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure General Hammond]] immediately issues an order that the note's instructions be followed.

** In "Time Heist", the Doctor and Clara leave themselves messages explaining that had to have their memories wiped of ''why'' they're breaking into a bank, but they ''have'' agreed to do so, and they have a [[CaperRationalization really good reason]].

* In ''Film/{{Cypher}}'', Sebastian Rooks, the MagnificentBastard playing two security companies against each other leaves his notes to self through a FemmeFatale. [[spoiler:Morgan almost screws the plan by being WrongGenreSavvy and turning on her before she can turn on him, but in the end hears a recording addressed to him from himself.]]
* ''Film/GroundhogDay''. When Phil is trying to use the GroundhogDayLoop to romance Rita, he's shown memorizing things she hates to avoid doing them in the next loop. In one loop she overhears him and is not happy, realising he's trying to manipulate her even if she doesn't understand how.

* ''Film/{{Paycheck}}'' has the protagonist willingly receive LaserGuidedAmnesia to protect proprietary secrets in exchange for an 8-figure sum. Instead of this huge paycheck, he's shocked to find an envelope containing twenty innocuous items left by himself before he was mindwiped. While mostly it's a ChekhovsArmoury, others are clues he's meant to follow, though unlike usual for this trope nothing is spelt out for him.

* In ''Film/{{Looper}}'', this happens twice. First, Old Joe pins a paper note on an unconscious Young Joe's jacket, warning him to [[spoiler: skip town before the mob figures out he didn't kill his older self.]] Later, Young Joe carves the name of his favorite waitress ''into his arm.'' Old Joe reads the scars that appear on his arm and meets his younger self at the diner, then dryly comments that there was another waitress with a much shorter name Young Joe could've used.