Genetic memory in fiction

Main article: Racial memory

Stel Pavlou uses genetic memory as the central theme in the novel Gene 2005. The debate over nature versus nurture is embodied in the two central characters whose revelations of past lives through genetic memory stretch back from modern day to the Trojan War.

J. R. R. Tolkien explores the idea of a linguistic race memory in The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, and speculates about the real world in English and Welsh.

Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End incorporates genetic memory as a plot device.

In Pierre Boulle's novel Planet of the Apes, important exposition is given by a primitive human who has been hypnotized into revealing subconscious racial memories.

The idea of racial or genetic memory is central to the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

Terry Pratchett uses race memory when his antihero Rincewind confronts the monsters of the Dungeon Dimensions, where race memory, (accessed by a Sourcerer, Coin) tells him not to use magic against them as it only makes them stronger in his Discworld book Sourcery.

The Goa'uld, an alien race featured in the Stargate SG-1 television series, possess a genetic memory. In the sister series, Stargate Atlantis, the whale species flagisalis also possesses a genetic memory

The Magog, an alien race on the television series Andromeda, possess a genetic memory. Magog larvae are incubated in sentient host bodies and when they emerge (by eating the host), mature Magog retain the memories of their host up to the point of the host's death.

In the Star Control series of games, there is a race called the Mycon that apparently possess racial memories from the Mycon that came before them.

In the novel Life, the Universe and Everything, an ancient series of terrible wars known as the Krikkit Wars manage to affect most civilizations in the Universe, including the one which would eventually become Earth. Vague racial memories of the events of the war lead the humans to create the sport cricket, forgetting what they're basing it on. The rest of the universe, noting how shameless it is to create a sport based on such horrible events, chose to shun the Earth due to its tactlessness, which is why Earth still remains uncontacted by aliens.

An episode of The X-Files dealt with genetic memory. A police detective is having visions of crimes committed by a rapist. It turned out she was the offspring of one of the rapist's surviving victims and in turn was his biological daughter. The urge to kill the surviving woman nearly overtakes her.

In the Doctor Who serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, humanity is revealed to possess a racial memory of the (misnamed) Silurians, humanoid reptiles who ruled Earth in prehistoric times. Since the "Silurians" treated primitive humans as at best pets and at worst vermin, the racial memory is one of abject terror, and the sight of a "Silurian" can drive a person mad.

In the anime series Macross 7, the Zentradi, a cloned species, are revealed to have a racial memory of the Protodeviln, so terrible that they (and those of mixed human/Zentradi blood) are driven into wild rages by their close presence.

The Jack London book The Call of the Wild deals with a tame dog rediscovering his wolf heritage. As this occurs, he vividly remembers one of his ancestors living alongside a cave man. Interestingly, at the time the book was written, very little was understood about genetics and the idea of genetic memory did not seem to have been introduced. Jack London appears to have been ahead of his time.

The videogame Assassin's Creed has been rumored to be a flashback of a descendent of the main character, accessing his genetic memeory to see the assassinations.

In Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a distant descendent of Ghengis Khan shows attributes of his ancestor: he likes axes, and often has visions of angry men, horses, and war when he becomes angry.

In Jean Auel's Earth's Children series -Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of the Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage and The Shelters of Stone - The primitive Neanderthal people who adopted and raised the Cro-Magnon main character had ancestral memories that they could draw upon at will as adults. Children were born with these ancestral memories and needed only a "reminder" to be able to recall this knowledge. This ability was necessary for communication and survival due to their undeveloped verbal abilities. These ancestral memories were important because they grasped new ideas only with great difficulty. It was far easier to recall what had already been done than to work out new ways.

In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time fantasy book series, wolves are sentient and innately retain the memories of their wolf ancestors. Mat Cauthon, even before gaining memories through passing through the ter'angreal in Rhuidean, retained memories of his Manetheran ancestors and was consequently able to sometimes speak the Old Tongue.

In Star Trek: The Original Series, episode Catspaw, the idea of racial memory is central to the plot.

In the classic anime film Akira the character Kei ponders the dangerous consequences of awakening the dormant memories that are passed genetically from being to being since the beginning of the universe.

In the video game Psychonauts, Fred Bonaparte, head orderly turned inmate of Thorney Towers, is haunted by a genetic memory of his ancestor, Napoleon Bonaparte, who won't leave until Fred finally beats him at a game of Waterloo.

Within the Warhammer 40,000 universe Genetic memory is present within Space Marines such as the Blood Angels who remember the tragic death of their founder, with whom they share genetic material. Also one of the super-human abilities of the Marines is to consume genetic material of living things to absorb their memories via the victims DNA.