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90% of Your Brain
- 343 statements
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A situation where a character's miraculous abilities are not so much a product of "superpowers" as this being something humans in the series universe could have but are unable to access for some reason. That is, until they reach Brain Critical Mass. This trope name comes from the oft-repeated but false assertion that humans only use 10 percent of their brains, a misquote of a foreword to Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.note "The average person develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability." In Real Life, we use all of our brains, just not all at the same time — in much the same way you don't have every electronic/mechanical item in your home running at all times; you only turn things on when you need to use them. If you ever do find yourself with every part of your brain "on" at once, congratulations, you're having a seizure! The origin of the myth may not even have anything to do with these facts about actual brain activity. It may be a distorted version of the more plausible claim that we only use a fraction of our total mental capacity, ie. we could potentially learn things more effectively and stuff. However, even in this context, the number "10%" is completely arbitrary (in other words, a statistic Dale Carnegie likely pulled right out of his ass). This trope was examined by the MythBusters, throwing the 10% theory right out the window when it was proven that the human brain is at least 15% active while sleeping, and even more so when awake. There is debate as to how much of our brain activity takes place on the level of conscious thought, with roughly a tenth being a common figure cited, but this is still very different from claiming our brains are 90% inactive. And the fact is, it's nonsensical. What would be the evolutionary incentive to keep this supposedly unused 90%? It's a waste of resources, of which the brain is a significant consumer. Evolution tends to trim that kind of inefficiency. Compare Uninhibited Muscle Power, where powers activate the unused muscle potential instead of unused brain potential. For exceeding the limitations of the body to epic effect, see Charles Atlas Superpower. Also see Pineal Weirdness, which tends to show up in similar places. Very prevalent in Science Fiction as a common trope with mentalists and ESPers. A Genius Serum may come into play to unlock this "buried potential". |
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In Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, this is given as the reason why Fuka, a human Ordinary Middle School Student, can keep up with her demon teammates. She deluded herself into thinking the afterlife is All Just a Dream, and since it's her dream, she's free to do anything she wants. This allows her brain to unlock her full potential. | |
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In a statement that impressively manages to be wrong in every particular, Marville gives us this as an add-on to reciting the 10% myth verbatim: | |
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Tommy Boy: Richard uses this as an insulting mnemonic device to help Tommy remember the figure 1.5%. | |
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The Key from Justice League of America once claims to have tapped into "the ninety percent of the brain we never use" via a device he built, which allows him to devise all manner of amazing plans and schemes. This is an aversion, though, as it also drove him completely mad, leading to the implication that he only thinks he's tapping into new parts of his brain. This is later lampshaded and mocked by the Key himself in Batman/Superman: World's Finest when he tells the captive David Sikela/Boy Thunder/the future Magog that this trope is a load of BS and that he used those chemicals and devices to make him smarter. | |
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The Simpsons: Parodied in "Brother's Little Helper" when Bart becomes ultra-focused after taking medication for attention deficit disorder. "Did you know most people use ten percent of their brains? I am now one of them." | |
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In My Favorite Martian, Uncle Martin states that Martians have gained their powers due to fully using their brains, unlike humans who use less than ten percent. Tim protests that humans use more than ten, only to get the reply "Your astronauts pee in their spacesuits. Case closed." | |
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In Godzilla: The Series, Dr. Nick Tatopoulos states that this is the reason why the aliens were able to copy their minds into human brains. | |
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The Sorcerer's Apprentice uses this trope to explain how sorcerers get their powers. | |
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In the Teen Titans Go! episode "Brain Percentages", the use of this trope is heavily lampshaded. Cyborg tells the others that this is untrue and purely exists as a narrative device, only for the other Titans to dismiss him on the basis that it wouldn't be used in so many shows and movies if it weren't true. The episode then has Beast Boy increase the percentage of his brain anyway, and along the way, travel back in time to physically contact his prehistoric ancestor and inexplicably become a reality warping computer at 100% brainpower. This is all in the service of solving a hidden images puzzle, by the way. | |
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Naruto does this, but with the chi-like chakra instead of brainpower. Rock Lee's ace in the hole is the ability to open various chakra gates that act like dams for the stuff, with opening enough of them putting him in a Kaio-Ken-esque Super Mode. The catch is that, if a ninja opened all the gates, he would suffer from a fatal Heroic Red Ring of Death. | |
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Sofia of Breakpoint City explains her telekinesis this way. | |
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According to Todd Ingram in Scott Pilgrim, ninety percent of your brain is filled up with curds and whey. Hence his telekinetic vegan power. Arguably an aversion, though, as Todd is shown to be the dimmest and least imaginative of the League of Evil Exes. While it is canon that veganism gives psychic powers in the Pilgrim universe, Todd's explanation comes off more like a thinly veiled insult, and Kim in particular seems skeptical. Also, when he's revealed to have broken the rules of veganism, rather than losing his powers naturally, they're removed manually by the "vegan police". | |
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This is part of the premise for Psyren. Like many others, this explains Psychic Powers, though they seem no less limited than any other set of superpowers in other series. | |
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Implied at the end of The Shadow when the Big Bad gets a glass shard through his head and has to have a part of his brain that "no one uses" removed. It turns out that this was where his psychic powers were located. | |
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Fist of the North Star does something similar with breathing. The real secret to Kenshiro's Charles Atlas Superpower is harnessing the traditionally untapped 70% of his breathing. | |
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Deathstroke has this as one of his powers. Eventually retconned in favor of the explanation that he uses his brain in various ways that regular humans do not; his grey matter got re-routed and reprogrammed (which makes slightly more sense, at least in terms of comic book science). | |
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A Cracked article compares this notion to becoming a better writer by using every key on your keyboard in every sentence. | |
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Aberrant uses this as part of the Meta Origin for novas. Most humans have an underdeveloped, uncharted node in their brain that maps the background forces of the universe. When a nova Erupts, this node becomes active, allowing for limited manipulation of reality — a.k.a., superpowers. | |
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Night Head Genesis states at the start that normal people leave 70% of their brain unused. Once again, this explains Psychic Powers. | |
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Referenced for the sake of a joke in Wedding Crashers. "You know how they say we only use ten percent of our brains? I think most people only use ten percent of their hearts." | |
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SCP Foundation: SCP-1475 is a deliberate Deconstruction (the author even flat-out stated that his inspiration for writing it was his hatred of this trope). He gave himself a non-reproducible drug that lets him use 100% of his brain 100% of the time. This not only gave him complete control over his body but let him rewire his brain so that he doesn't need to sleep anymore. However, in a true case of Blessed with Suck, this completely destroyed his autonomic nervous control (that is, the body's ability to automatically regulate the heart/lungs/etc.), so he has to spend most of his concentration on keeping himself alive. Not only does this not leave him much concentration to use his voluntary muscles, but he's also suffered permanent damage to a lot of his organs due to having messed it up in the past. Surprisingly played straight with SCP-3733, which is described as activating "several typically inactive areas of the brain, resulting in the ability to act and reason outside of one's experiences and personality". That's because the entry is from a world where an unknown entity has hijacked humanity's collective mind and suppressed their emotions and individuality. The SCP is the aforementioned concepts, which is now being contained by the Foundation. |
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Parodied in Les Shadoks. The Shadoks use their brain plenty, but they only have four boxes in their brain, and they can only know how to do up to four activities as a result; for example, if a Shadok knows how to ride a bike, and doesn't know how to read, and if their brain is already full, they'll have to unlearn how to ride a bike if they want to learn how to read. | |
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Penny Arcade: A joke that unfortunately never made it into the comic but does show up on their podcast uses the concept: One strip uses this trope as part of an advertisement for "air for gamers". |
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Referenced and subverted in Uncle from Another World: Uncle (having grown up in the nineties) believes this trope is true, and that unlocking it was the source of the power he obtained in the other world. Takafumi (having grown up in the twenty-tens and with easy access to the internet) immediately points out the trope was debunked long ago. | |
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JLA (1997) reveals that millennia ago, when man was still primitive, a group of White Martians came to Earth and deliberately tampered with their genetic code, reducing their brains and bodies to ten percent of their potential. Had the Martians not done this, it's implied that humans would be greater than the Kryptonians. | |
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It is implied in Phenomenon that the incredible mental and psychic abilities George suddenly gains after seeing a strange light in the sky is caused by a tumor spreading across his brain and activating unused parts of it (but also killing him). | |
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The Batman Beyond episode "Mind Games" has an Unreliable Expositor claim this to explain psychic powers. | |
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CGP Grey discusses this trope, with a bit of a Take That! at the end: | |
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This fake statistic appears in the Iron Man mini Hypervelocity, as the AI protagonist is frustrated at being forced to function at a relatively slow "cognitive clockspeed". | |
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In Chaos;Head, Norose muses that Gigalomaniacs use the remaining 90% of their brain unlike normal humans, and this is responsible for their abilities. Possibly even worse, it's also stated that 80% of the brain is used for processing visual data. | |
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In Dragon Ball Online, set more than 200 years after the main series, this happened with the book "Groundbreaking Science" written by Gohan, explaining Ki manipulation to the saiyan blooded humans. | |
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In Resident Evil: Outbreak, beating the first scenario with Yoko Suzuki has her cite the trope while waxing poetic about the outbreak around her. She really should know better, having been formerly employed as an Umbrella researcher. | |
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Mentioned in Paranatural, during a battle with their teacher possessed by Hijack (a spirit shaped like a brain). When Max complains that Hijack has too many abilities, he used this mixed with Insane Troll Logic. | |
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The foundation of superpowers in NEEDLESS. | |
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The Onion parodied the concept with a man who invented a device that lets him fire all his neurons at the same time. Every time he turns it on, he has a seizure. | |
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FreakAngels seems to be hinting at the fact that they have simply not reached their full psionic potential. Arkady's continual experimentation with her abilities seems to be a testament to this. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Gundam: Mentioned in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, maybe as an explanation for why Newtypes exist — that people used only a part of their brains on Earth, and began to use the rest after moving into space. However, it's said to be "half" of the brain being used, not 10%. Also, the conversation is between a couple of teenagers, so they may simply not know what they're talking about (they also take a fairly romantic interpretation of the idea/purpose of Newtypes, which Gundam goes back and forth on).note This first appeared in the writings of Zeon Zum Deikun, inventor of the Newtype concept, in the Mobile Suit Gundam novelizations. This is in turn based on the writings of Timothy Leary, specifically the 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness which predicted that people's brains would develop in new ways in the future, becoming more enlightened to cope with the challenges of space travel. The fifty percent figure is brought up again in Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, though it is again said by a teenager who isn't shown to have any real education in the subject. |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Superman: One Silver Age story involves a computer which is supposed to be designed like a human brain (but is the size of a small room). Its creator explicitly laments there being no power source "powerful enough to activate all its circuits at the same time" and wonders what it might be capable of if there were. Then he decides to program it with a human personality... by hooking it up to Clark Kent's brain. One odd story features a stand-up comedian having part of his unused brain areas activated in an accident, which gives him telekinetic powers, which he uses unconsciously to become a sand-covered monster and try to amuse people to counter his fear of not being laughed at. He's only cured once Superman uses his super-laughter so that he can finally hear through all the sand that someone is laughing. |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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A famous line from The Wizard of Oz also riffs on this: | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In Archie Comics, Archie recites this statistic to his friends. Moose exclaims that 10% is "almost less than half our brains". Archie muses that the statistic is too high in some cases. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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The DCU: Deathstroke has this as one of his powers. Eventually retconned in favor of the explanation that he uses his brain in various ways that regular humans do not; his grey matter got re-routed and reprogrammed (which makes slightly more sense, at least in terms of comic book science). JLA (1997) reveals that millennia ago, when man was still primitive, a group of White Martians came to Earth and deliberately tampered with their genetic code, reducing their brains and bodies to ten percent of their potential. Had the Martians not done this, it's implied that humans would be greater than the Kryptonians. The Key from Justice League of America once claims to have tapped into "the ninety percent of the brain we never use" via a device he built, which allows him to devise all manner of amazing plans and schemes. This is an aversion, though, as it also drove him completely mad, leading to the implication that he only thinks he's tapping into new parts of his brain. This is later lampshaded and mocked by the Key himself in Batman/Superman: World's Finest when he tells the captive David Sikela/Boy Thunder/the future Magog that this trope is a load of BS and that he used those chemicals and devices to make him smarter. Superman: One Silver Age story involves a computer which is supposed to be designed like a human brain (but is the size of a small room). Its creator explicitly laments there being no power source "powerful enough to activate all its circuits at the same time" and wonders what it might be capable of if there were. Then he decides to program it with a human personality... by hooking it up to Clark Kent's brain. One odd story features a stand-up comedian having part of his unused brain areas activated in an accident, which gives him telekinetic powers, which he uses unconsciously to become a sand-covered monster and try to amuse people to counter his fear of not being laughed at. He's only cured once Superman uses his super-laughter so that he can finally hear through all the sand that someone is laughing. |
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In Race to Witch Mountain, the extraterrestrial humans Sarah and Seth have access to telekinesis, telepathy, and phasing, which Sarah states the humans on Earth cannot use yet, because they "haven't learned to use that part of [their] brain yet." Ironically, in an interview with AnnaSophia Robb, who plays Sarah, she confirmed that the director wrote that line in because he wanted to be "as scientifically accurate as possible." | |
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In My Stepmother Is an Alien, the alien Celeste explains that "We use 104% of our brain capacity, as opposed to your 36%." | |
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In Lucy, unlocking more and more takes the eponymous protagonist down the Jean Grey path of increasing mind powers. Using 100% of one's brain capacity leads to omniscience and omnipotence, making the title character practically a Physical God. The trailer also features a character said to be one of the world's top experts on the workings of the human brain repeating the misconception. According to Word of God, they were aware this is just a myth but chose to go with it anyway as a What If?. | |
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In Reborn! (2004), Reborn gives Gokudera an unique brand of Training from Hell by making him eat ramen while withstanding I-pin's Gyoza-ken. Reborn's technical explanation is that, since the Gyoza-ken affects directly the brain, the fact of being able to eat ramen while resisting the muscular spasms the technique provokes would force Gokudera to use all of his brain capacity (whose standard usage is defined here as 30%). | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Tohru brings this up during a conversation in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Note that Tohru is a dragon with almost zero understanding of human biology, and she brings it up in response to seeing a magic trick. The English dub works in a Take That! against Lucy by having Tohru say that she heard about it from a "should-be-forgettable movie". | |
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El Goonish Shive: In one strip of EGS NP, Susan complains about Lucy, saying it's "based on a 'fun fact' that isn't even true! You might as well make a movie about an assassin who uses daddy-long-legs venom!" Later, in the main strip, an Immortal starts telling a series of Blatant Lies in order to demonstrate to a confused griffon that Immortals are capable of lying. This is one of them. |
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In The Last Mimzy, the characters' newly-unlocked abilities include telepathy, telekinesis, and super-hearing, as well the ability to control spiders by emitting certain frequencies, to send objects through small warp portals, and to draw ancient patterns without ever having seen or heard of them. In the future, levitation is also a standard part of humanity's milieu.note Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, who wrote the original story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", are spinning in their graves. The point of that story is that they are not becoming more advanced, just different; their thinking and reasoning use the logic that's normal for the dimension the toys come from. But that doesn't make a good movie. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Mentioned in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, maybe as an explanation for why Newtypes exist — that people used only a part of their brains on Earth, and began to use the rest after moving into space. However, it's said to be "half" of the brain being used, not 10%. Also, the conversation is between a couple of teenagers, so they may simply not know what they're talking about (they also take a fairly romantic interpretation of the idea/purpose of Newtypes, which Gundam goes back and forth on).note This first appeared in the writings of Zeon Zum Deikun, inventor of the Newtype concept, in the Mobile Suit Gundam novelizations. This is in turn based on the writings of Timothy Leary, specifically the 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness which predicted that people's brains would develop in new ways in the future, becoming more enlightened to cope with the challenges of space travel. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In Limitless, Eddie takes a novel drug, NZT-48, which the dealer claims to allow him to access 100% of his brain as opposed to "the twenty percent". Of course, since the dealer is clearly lying about everything else he says about the drug, such as it being "FDA-approved", he was probably just making up whatever he felt would get Eddie to take it. The actual effects of the drug are flawless information recall, maximized reflexes and extreme situational awareness, which simulate super-intelligence, precognition, and a host of other low-grade superpowers. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In Star Trek: The Animated Series, the general idea that 10% is the norm for humans and perhaps most humanoids is implied, without being stated explicitly. When Spock scans the literally vegetative bodies of a newly discovered species, he states that they "used almost seventy percent of their brains: a very high ratio". | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, vegan evil ex-boyfriend Todd Ingram claims the source of his psychic powers is that he's able to use more than 10% of his brain because it isn't gunked up with all that filthy animal protein. However, it's more likely that he's an Unreliable Narrator, given that 1. the Vegan Police are able to take those powers away, suggesting that they were granted to him and not an inherent ability, 2. he still seems to be able to use his powers after breaking the 3-strike rule, and 3. Todd is actually pretty stupid. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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The Lazarus Effect calls out this trope's misuse... and then goes right to saying that newly resurrected Zoe is using all of her brain, all of the time, as an explanation of her Psychic Powers. | |
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In B.Ichi, the Clowns can supposedly use 50 to 60% of their brains when activating their powers. However, this detail is only mentioned in the introduction, and the Clowns' powers don't have anything to do with using more of their brains in the end. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In the film of AKIRA, it's stated that everyone has powers, but they aren't always "activated". The Espers have medication that keep them under control to an extent, though poor Tetsuo doesn't, ultimately leading to his ultimate form. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Casey and Andy examines this, thanks to Anti-Stupid Science Man! | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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In To Boldly Flee, it's stated that a critic's brain usage is typically 5%, but Ma-Ti's brain uploading has boosted Spoony's brain usage to 92%. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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The fifty percent figure is brought up again in Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, though it is again said by a teenager who isn't shown to have any real education in the subject. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt is sometimes said to use 100% of his brain, thanks to quasi-mystical training. Recent treatments of the character have at least implicitly acknowledged the mythical nature of the claim; Cannon simply perceives things nine times as well as most people. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Spoofed in Italiano Medio. A clever but insufferable man is convinced by his friend to take a pill that reduces his brain capacity to 2%, to make him complain less and enjoy life more. | |
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The aliens in Stan Lee's Mighty 7: Beginnings have superpowers because they use 80% of their brains as opposed to humans using 10. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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This is part of the plot of Flight of the Navigator, in which a young boy discovers an alien probe had experimented with using the unused ninety percent of his brain for data storage. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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This turns out to be how the Diadem of Ravenclaw works in The Arithmancer. It allows the conscious mind full access to all the sensory information, processing power, and memories that the subconscious normally filters out. Normal people can't handle that level of input and overload, but Hermione has been training her entire life in the sort of mental discipline necessary to handle the Diadem. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Assassin's Creed makes use of this trope to explain where the accumulated memories of ancestors that all humans have in its universe are being stored. It also uses it to explain Eagle Sense and Eagle Vision, extranormal senses that only some people with a greater than usual concentration of DNA from the Abusive Precursors can learn to use. | |
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90% of Your Brain | |
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Inception says that this is why in dreams your brain can work faster, as the majority of your brain's processing ability is devoted to processing sensory perceptions. With the use of shared dreaming technology, the brain can work much faster, allowing for a dreamworld hour to pass in minutes in the real world. | |
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