Collective consciousness.... Swarm Intelligence..... Hive Mind. There are probably very specific and scientific details and levels to each of these terms, but I'm going to go an pretend they all describe the same thing. Basically, we're talking about a group of natural or artificial individual things (famously Bees) showing signs of collective thought or intelligence. In nature, this behaviour is seen in colonies of ants, schools of fish, livestock, birds, and bacteria.
Its more "mindblowing" though, if you think of the concept applied to human (or superhuman/extra terrestrial) beings. The ending of that new Indiana Jones comes to mind, where the council of Aliens were absorbing and sharing as much knowledge about the universe as possible. A portal to another world was opened when this stream of collective hyperconsciousness was interrupted....
I came up with a supervillain idea the other day, named "The Swarm" where the nefarious humanoid guy was actually just a swarm of collectively-conscious superinsects wearing a "man-suit". Shotgun the copyright on that one, suckers. (But let's face it, its probably already been done.)
