Brain In a Jar: Difference between revisions
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{{trope|wppage=Brain in a vat}}
[[File:Human brain in a vat.jpg|thumb|400px|[[Young Frankenstein|Abby Someone.]]]]
{{quote|''"We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?"''
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* {{spoiler|Teitoku Kakine}} of ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'' has been reduced to this after Accelerator horribly dismembers him. It's also forced to create a constant stream of {{spoiler|Dark Matter}} for the use of Academy City's soldiers.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', Aaroniero Arrurerie's true form is that he has a glass jar where his head is supposed to be, filled with a blood-like substance and contains two Hollow-mask heads.
* A variant in ''[[One Piece]]'' is Dr. Vegapunk. His Nomi Nomi no Mi Devil Fruit ("Brain-Brain Fruit") gave his brain unlimited potential, giving him a photographic memory and the ability to memorize infinite amounts of information. Unfortunately, the more information he gained, the more his brain physically grew, until eventually his cranium was larger than the rest of his body. Eventually he built a facility (the Punk Records, as he calls it) that let him separate his brain from the rest of his body, and since then he and his "satellites" (five androids that are extensions of himself) are linked to this facility, where his brain - now the size of a small town - contains the information of a large supercomputer. Vegapunk says he eventually wants to devise a way for the whole world to access the Punk Records, meaning in a sense he wants to create a fantasy version of the internet.
** Later in the arc, {{spoiler| his physical body is killed, along with those of many of his Satellites, but seeing as his brain is still alive and functioning for the surviving Satellites, it seems he has become a straight example of this Trope.}}
== Comic Books ==
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* {{spoiler|[[Girls Aloud]] members Kimberley and Nicola}} were found as heads in jars in ''[http://fav.me/dd7ow55 Case of Missing Technology]''. {{Spoiler|[[Spice Girls|Melanie C]]}} meets the same fate but recovers after her body went through [[Unwilling Roboticisation]], which the narrator and team of surgeons finish up, as it was [[I Did What I Had to Do|all they could do]] . During this, {{Spoiler|Melanie C}} was [[And I Must Scream|traumatized when she noticed the situation]]. Trying to calm her, the narrator [[Seinfeldian Conversation|has a conversation]] with her.
* Hedy "Sexy Thing" Dresden from [[The Teraverse]] ([[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]'s non-magical female counterpart in that universe) is one of these attached to a synthetic but mostly organic body that's built like a ''[[Playboy]]'' Playmate.
* In the ''[[Worm]]'' [[Alternate Universe Fic]] ''[[Mauling Snarks]]'', Bonesaw/Riley (who is not the psychopathic monster she is in canonical ''Worm'') eventually has this done this to herself in such a way that she can move her brain between multiple bodies. Unlike the usual implementation, the container holding her brain is not designed for long-term support outside a body; it's got enough for the move and not much more.
== Film ==
* ''The Brain that Wouldn't Die'' (Actually a head in a pan,
** Another head in a pan (with exposed brain yet!) in ''The Frozen Dead''.
* ''[[They Saved Hitler's Brain|They Saved Hitlers Brain]]''
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* [[Larry Niven]] has Eric, a ''sans corpus'' fellow whose brain now runs the spaceship of his pal, Howie. Eric and Howie appear in two of Niven's earliest stories, "The Coldest Place", and "Becalmed in Hell". The stories have a [[Shout-Out]] to the Siodmak novel: Eric was installed by a company called "Donovan's Brains, Inc".
* The first novel based on the ''[[Doom]]'' video games had the [[Legions of Hell]] actually [[Handwaved]] as genetically engineered scare-tactic bioweapons created by aliens who consist of huge brains in [[Giant Spider]]-like mobile carriers.
* [[wikipedia:Neil R. Jones|Neil R. Jones]] is credited with ''inventing'' this trope in the 1931 SF short story "The Jameson Satellite", making it [[Older Than Television]]. The story was popular enough to spawn a series of books on the same theme.
* In ''[[
* [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''Wyrms'' features talking disembodied heads kept alive by some kind of leech.
* Occasionally seen in the'' [[Perry Rhodan]]'' universe, with both disembodied ''human'' brains (though usually those are given robot bodies at the very least) and alien ones—the 'Central Plasma' that governs the mostly-robotic Posbi species is basically one giant protoplasmic brain in a jar. One arc of the series even dealt with the abduction of the titular protagonist's brain into a distant galaxy; an android brain was substituted and operated his body for nefarious purposes while he tried to find his way back. (Good thing the civilizations of said galaxy had their own brain transplant technology as part of their quest to extend life, even if it did contribute to their acute overpopulation issues; so, plenty of disembodied donor brains around there, too.)
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* The space-faring slavers from [[Vernor Vinge]]'s ''Tatja Grimm's World'' kidnap people, remove their brains and then fit them to a computer that [[Nightmare Fuel|suppresses their personality]] without totally trashing their intellect. The result has computer speed and power with some human intuition and intelligence, forming a useful [[Wetware CPU]].
* Left Brain, who replaces Eddie the ''Heart of Gold'' computer in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/And Another Thing|And Another Thing]]'', is actually {{spoiler|Zaphod's second head}}, put in a jar and connected to the ship.
* An Igor in ''[[
* In the ''[[Deathstalker]]'' universe there exist psi-blockers, devices that espers using their powers in a given area. It is eventually revealed that Empress Lionstone had them created by extracting the brains from espers and sealing them in containers. The ''[[And I Must Scream|psychic screams of agony]]'' were what prevented espers using their abilities.
** The later series replaced the original psi-blockers with genetically-cloned esper brains that could generate the same effects without the horror.
* Ypsilon/Duktig in P.C. Jersilds ''En Levande Själ'', who had the rest of his body amputated and his memory wiped.
* The inhabitants of "The Pygmy Planet" in Jack Williams' eponymous short story are human brains in transparent jars, mounted in mechanical bodies.
* The protagonist is threatened with this in Frederik Pohl's "The Fiend". It's stated that criminals have their brains removed and forced to control industrial machinery, then get their bodies back at the end of their sentence.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'': "[[Star Trek/Recap/S2/E16 The Gamesters of Triskelion|The Gamesters of Triskelion]]" has three, while "[[Star Trek: The Original Series/Recap/S3/E01 Spock's Brain|Spock's Brain]]" has just the titular one.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S1/E05 The Keys of Marinus|The Keys of Marinus]]'' and ''The Brain of Morbius''.
** And Lady Cassandra in ''The End of the World'' and ''New Earth''.
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* ''[[Gamma World]]''. Borgs, Permanent Cybernetic Installations and Think Tanks in 1st Edition. Borgs in 2nd Edition.
* A longtime [[Running Gag]] on ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'''s website is that Magic's Research And Development department is run by Gleemax, a literal Brain In a Jar.
** Which even has its own (non-tournament-legal) [https://web.archive.org/web/20090218195354/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=73947 card]. The gag, by the way, dates back to at least the February 1998 issue of the long-defunct ''Duelist'' magazine, in which Mark Rosewater explains the "Top Ten Myths About Magic R&D" -- the myth about Gleemax is listed as #1, and it's not quite clear from context whether MaRo refers to an ''actual'' earlier myth or is just throwing in a red herring on the fly.
** Also, [http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Psychosis+Crawler this card.]
* The Brain In A Jar is an enemy in ''[[Munchkin (game)|Star Munchkin.]]''
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* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', Dave comes across the alchemy combination that makes Dave's Brain In A Jar during his experiments with [[Item Crafting]]. It's too expensive for him to make because the organ is virtually inimitable, but he uses the code in alchemy to make the [[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff (Webcomic)|SBAHJifier]] camera.
* In [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html this] ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' strip, Xykon references Brain in a Jar transformations as a method to avoid death. [[Emergency Transformation|Though he makes it clear that he wouldn't become one unless he had to.]]
* In ''[[Minion Comics]]'', Hitler's head is seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20120904142145/http://www.meetmyminion.com/?p=862 in a jar attached to a giant rampaging gorilla].
== Web Originals ==
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* Stan has a couple of these on display in the Mystery Shack in ''[[Gravity Falls]]''. Seeing as Stan is a [[Snake Oil Salesman]] who just happens to live in a town full of paranormal activity, it's impossible to tell whether they - or anything in the shack - is real or a fabricated hoax.
== Other Media ==
* Parodied by [https://web.archive.org/web/20130728210901/https://amorphia-apparel.com/design/dabney/ this shirt].
* [[wikipedia:Animat|Animats]] or Cultured Neuronal Networks are almost a [[Real Life]] version of this trope, almost being that they aren't complete brains (and usually animal neurons).
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