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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"I've been having these dreams lately. Like is any of this real, or not?"''
|'''Sora'''|''[[Kingdom Hearts (video game)|Kingdom Hearts]]''}}
Around fifty minutes into the program, really weird stuff starts happening, like little people juggling while riding a tricycle around a bewildered protagonist. Then the protagonist realizes, just as you do, that this has all been a dream, a really bad hallucination, or some other escape from reality.
Sometimes, the character awakes after the dream, realises it was all "just a dream" (often actually saying this to himself, which rarely happens in real life), sighs with relief, and then sees an artifact lying next to him that was ''in'' the dream. This usually will leave protagonist and audience wondering "[[Or Was It a Dream?]]", however it may also be an opening gambit in a [[Dream Within a Dream]] sequence. Sometimes the dream lasts longer than one
If other characters start acting out of character or otherwise just don't seem to be quite themselves during the dream sequence, expect lots of finger-pointing and exclamations of "''[[And You Were There]]!''" when the dreaming character awakens.
Normally, [[Anticlimax|this really grates on the audience]], but if done properly it can be humorous and, for an individual episode, it can [[
One of the [[Stock Epileptic Trees]]. It's also a popular trope for [[Music Video Tropes|music videos]].
Variant form of the [[Reset Button]]. See also [[Crashing Dreams]], [[Or Was It a Dream?]], [[Pinch Me]], [[Dying Dream]], and [[Catapult Nightmare]]. Compare with [[Nested Story Reveal]], a similar trope that lacks the dream aspect. Often [[Deconstructed]] with the [[Dream Apocalypse]]. If the dream is a quick-hit gag instead of a major element of the narrative, you have a [[Daydream Surprise]]. Not to be confused with [[Cuckoo Nest]].
{{examples|Examples}}▼
{{endingtrope}}
== Advertising ==
* The delightful Kia Sorento commercial "[http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/kia-sorento-joy-ride/ Joyride Dream].
* Don't forget the Pepsi Twist commercial when [[Ozzy Osbourne]] notices his kids drinking Pepsis, only for them to actually be Pepsi Twists, and that his kids are actually the ''Osmonds'' in [[Latex Perfection|full rubber bodysuits]]. Ozzy starts screaming, only to wake up and realize that it was just a nightmare, though the Pepsi Twists are still real...
* One of the DVD specials for ''[[Durarara
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* The Season 2 opening of ''[[
▲* One of the DVD specials for ''[[Durarara (Literature)|Durarara]]'' cleverly inverts this trope. The opening scenes show downright absurd scenes, like UFO sightings. As these are shown, Walter muses that most people would call his fantasies a pipe dream. The rest of the episode is narrated chronologically backwards, revealing that the strange occurrences at the beginning of the episode are ''not'' part of Walter's fantasy.
* The second season of ''[[
▲* The Season 2 opening of ''[[Genshiken (Manga)|Genshiken]]'' starts with Sasahara opening a book... and then goes into an opening for a Mobile Suit Gundam-like series starring the Genshiken characters, including a helmeted Madarame as the antagonist. Then Sasahara wakes up and we see that he was looking at a sketch of the club members.
* Repeatedly used in several episodes of the anime series ''[[
▲* The second season of ''[[Shakugan no Shana (Literature)|Shakugan no Shana]]'' starts with Yuji trapped inside a dream (created by the real first villain of the season). Yuji picks up on some deja vu, but when complete scenes and defeated villains from the first season start showing up, then he knows something's wrong. No one will listen to him or tell him anything he--the one the dream is based on--doesn't already know. The dream falls apart once he pieces everything together, and he wakes up in the middle of a battle with that villain.
* One episode of ''[[
▲* Repeatedly used in several episodes of the anime series ''[[Ergo Proxy (Anime)|Ergo Proxy]]'', due to {{spoiler|the proxies, god-like beings who can shape-shift and invade human minds with horrifying ease.}} Several characters are subjected to this trope, but none more so than the main character, Vincent Law, to the point that when unexpected things happen in ''reality'' he assumes it's yet ''another'' dream. Half the time he's correct. Other times he's outright ''told'' he's being subjected to a dream, or is it a dream within a dream, [[Or Was It a Dream|or has it been reality all along?]] It's a wonder this show made any sense at all.
* The idea is poked fun at in the 6th episode of ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou
▲* One episode of ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch (Manga)|Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' was a very, very strange New Year's dream in which Lucia uses her [[Idol Singer]] powers to become famous.
* [[Inverted Trope]] in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya
▲* The idea is poked fun at in the 6th episode of ''[[Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Manga)|Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei]]'''s second season.
▲* [[Inverted Trope]] in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya (Literature)|The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', in the [[Wham Episode|sixth episode]] (chronologically). Kyon falls asleep, complete with explanations of REM- and Non-REM sleep and colorful visuals. Just at the climax of the episode, with Haruhi and him kissing, it abruptly cuts off and he falls off his bed. He then rants "What kind of dream was that? [[Freud Was Right|Sigmund Freud is gonna be laughing at me!]]" The next day, he meets Haruhi wearing a ponytail which he told her in the dream, looks good on her. After she also claimed to have had a bad dream, it is entirely obvious that it ''wasn't'' a dream.
** Koizumi suggests this trope as an ending to Haruhi's movie that will subconsciously convince her that the events of the movie are fictional. This suggestion is met with blank stares from the rest of the Brigade.
* One of the [[Gainax Ending|great many]] interpretations of episodes 25-26 of ''[[
* Done humorously in the form of episode one of ''[[The Tower of Druaga (
* A manga chapter of ''[[
* ''[[
* The {{spoiler|Dice-Killing Chapter}} of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
* The first ''[[
* Ban Mido from ''[[
** The entire series turns out to be just a virtual dream in the end.
* Frequently subverted in ''[[
* In ''[[Ranma
* ''[[
* Episode 287 of ''[[
** Done again with episode 304, although this time, {{spoiler|it's Komamura's.}}
** Happened straight in the comic that came with UNMASKED. {{spoiler|Ulquiorra dreams up the memories of his past.}}
* Nastily inverted in ''[[
* The episode "Haruhi in Wonderland" of ''[[
* [[Jerk
* In the fourth arc of ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
* In ''[[
* The third-to-last episode of ''[[
* The ''[[
* The {{spoiler|last}} ''[[
** In the un-animated skit ''High School Girls are Funky -- Tolerance'', {{spoiler|[[Always Second Best|Yanagin]] again dared NAGO to test how long can they stay in the sauna. While most of the skit showed Yanagin won over NAGO... it turned out Yanagin fell unconscious earlier than NAGO, Ikushima and Habara; what we saw for the previous pages were just her dream while she was unscious.}}
== Comic Books ==
* The last issue of ''[[Gen 13]]'', vol. 1 combined this with a [[Downer Ending]]: The
== Comics ==▼
▲* The last issue of ''[[Gen 13]]'', vol. 1 combined this with a [[Downer Ending]]: The team -- along with various other gen-active teens they'd met along the course of the series -- has one last hedonistic, live-like-there's-no-tomorrow-cuz-there-ain't good time before "The End". Turns out this was all in Caitlin Fairchild's head, an extended hallucination brought on by the effects of another gen-active's powers in the split-second before a [[Death Trap]] disintegrated them all (they got better).
* This has happened innumerable times in [[Superhero]] comics as an "out" for a wacky story that doesn't fit into canon. So much so that it was common to include the blurb "Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!" on covers to reassure readers that no such cop-out would be used. Of course, since [[Covers Always Lie]], they'd usually find some ''other'' cop-out that meant the events still weren't what they seemed.
* The current{{when}} high-profile ''[[Batman]]: RIP'' storyline is (among other things) an attempt to bring the wackier [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] adventures of the Dark Knight in-canon by explaining them as hallucinations caused by sensory deprivation experiments. An original quote from one of those Silver-Age tales is a prominent part of the storyline (and very typical of the trope): "It would be far easier to consider this a dream... but how can I? For in my hand, I hold the Bat-Radia!"
* ''[[
* ''[[
* A two-week storyline in ''[[FoxTrot (Comic Strip)|FoxTrot]]'', parodying ''[[The Metamorphosis (Literature)|The Metamorphosis]]'', has Jason waking up one morning to find he's turned into a miniature version of his sister, Paige. Midway through the story, he [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this trope by saying he's figured out that he's dreaming, because he thinks that if this were real, [[The X-Files (TV)|Mulder and Scully]] would've come to investigate. (Dream-Peter then points out that Mulder and Scully [[This Is Reality|are TV characters]] -- and therefore [[Comically Missing the Point|only investigate incidents appropriate for primetime shows]]. Turning into a teenage girl is too horrific.)▼
* Two ''[[Spawn]]'' issues written by [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[Grant Morrison]] has Spawn dying accidentally after a fight with an angel warrior, and goes to a special level of Hell, where he finds all [[Marvel Comics]] and [[DC Comics]] superheroes imprisoned, and with help of [[Lawyer
▲* ''[[The Sandman (Comic Book)|The Sandman]]''. Quite a bit of it really is just a dream, but that doesn't make it any less real. "I give you - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_The_Sandman#Alex_Burgess eternal waking]..." Brrrrr...
▲* Two ''[[Spawn]]'' issues written by [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[Grant Morrison]] has Spawn dying accidentally after a fight with an angel warrior, and goes to a special level of Hell, where he finds all [[Marvel Comics]] and [[DC Comics]] superheroes imprisoned, and with help of [[Lawyer Friendly Cameo|Superman]], who gave him his power, he sets them all free. Next issue happens back on Earth, with the narrator saying "Let's come back to reality. Spawn has a bad dream last days."
* From ''[[Bloom County (Comic Strip)|Bloom County]]'', after a long-awaited wedding, Opus is knocked out when his nose collided with Lola's when they kiss. While unconscious, Opus dreams about Lola leaving him twenty years later with twenty-three tube-grown kids.<br />At another point, Opus ends up wandering lost in the desert. Suddenly, he's back home in Bloom County. He announces how happy he is it was all just a dream. Milo then says "No. ''This'' is the dream. You're still in the desert." And sure enough..▼
* ''[[Little Nemo (Comic Strip)|Little Nemo in Slumberland]]'' ends every strip with Nemo waking up in bed. There were continuous storylines despite this. And when Nemo gets into trouble it does not feel as safe as a dream. No no no.▼
* ''[[Drabble]]'' pulled this twice, then subverted it ''hilariously''. The first time, Ralph dreams that his job as a mall cop is more like [[Batman]]. The second time, Norman goes to a piercing salon with Wendy and ends up with multiple ear, nose, and other rings. The third time, Norman and Wendy run off to Vegas and get married on a dare. Norman is about to invoke this trope when the next panel reveals the cartoonist has already used up his chances to use it. The plot gets resolved another way.▼
* Sometimes used as a [[Cold Opening]] in ''[[Quantum and Woody]]''. For example, issue #5 starts with Woody, Quantum, and Amy working together as a tightly-coordinated counter-terrorism team to stop a criminal called Othello. In reality, it's a dream induced after Quantum was accidentally blasted off of a building in the previous issue.
* A story of ''[[The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers]]'' from the early '70s has the trio staging a violent assault on a prison to free an incarcerated friend. Fat Freddy ends up cut off and bludgeoned to death by a horde of cops - but it's all just a dream, and Franklin is beating him with a rolled-up newspaper for eating a whole batch of hash cookies. Then, some seven years later, an extended story where they take a cross-country trip in a vintage RV ends in a full-scale riot at a Greenwich Village Halloween parade - but it's all just a dream, and Franklin is beating Freddy with a rolled-up newspaper...implying ''everything'' that happened between the two stories was Fat Freddy dreaming!
* There's a ''[[The Punisher|Punisher]]'' story where Frank goes back in time to the 30s thanks to Reed Richards and Nick Fury. He quickly infiltrates [[Al Capone]]'s gang and kills every last mobster in Chicago along with Al, the idea being that by breaking the mafia's hold early on, there'll be no gang shooting in Central Park in the late twentieth century, saving Frank's family and preventing his [[Start of Darkness]]. Then he wakes up.
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[
** Forget about that, {{spoiler|the
* [[Inverted Trope]] in ''[[Kyon
* In a parody fanfiction about ''[[Dragon Ball GT]]'', right after Goku's [[Heroic BSOD]] and [[Big No]] when learning that {{spoiler|after his 100 years with Shenron, his family and friends are dead.}}, we return to {{spoiler|Goku and Chichi's bedroom and he explains to her the ''entire events of GT'' as a nightmare!!}} Then, it becomes a [[Dream Within a Dream]] as Goku has a run in with {{spoiler|''[[
* The ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/545/Equestria Equestria]'' is a ''[[My Little Pony
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6515261/7/Dalton Chapter 7] of ''[[
* One "episode" of ''[[
== Film ==
* Some have suggested that the events of ''[[The Polar Express]]'' were all just a dream, though others feel that the presence of the bell from Santa's sleigh as a present for the Hero Boy signifies that they were really real.
* Poor poor ''[[An American Tail|Fievel Goes West]]'', written off as a dream Fievel had in the third ''An American Tail'' movie. Which is a headbanger [[Retcon]] as there was an entire TV series with the Wild West theme that aired prior to the third movie. What, was Fievel in a coma or something? The dream lasted a whole TV series!
* ''[[The Wizard of Oz (
▲* ''[[The Wizard of Oz (Film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' is the most famous film example, of course, though there is a ''wee'' bit of room for alternate interpretation. It should be noted that in the book it is definite that Oz '''was''' real and Dorothy returns there several times in other books; Oz was changed to an elaborate dream in the film because producers [[Viewers Are Morons|felt that the 1930s audience was too sophisticated to accept a straight on fantasy like that]].
* Two of Laurel and Hardy's short films used this example: ''The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case'' and ''Oliver the Eighth''.
* Hilariously played with in the ''[[Enter the Dragon]]'' parody "A Fistful of Yen" in ''[[The Kentucky Fried Movie]]''.
* ''[[American Psycho]]'' effectively repackages this into "And it was all a psychotic hallucination". [[Mind Screw|Or was it]]?
* In ''[[Total Recall]]'' we are [[Left Hanging]] as to whether or not the entire film after the point he goes to Rekall is real or a hallucination.
* Subverted in ''[[
** Bonus points for {{spoiler|the film having run long enough to make you think it might be ending.}}
* Reality and dreams are blurred in ''[[
* ''Stay (1996)''
* Throughout ''[[
* In ''[[The Shining]]'', it sometimes got difficult to tell what was real and what were projections of the family's minds. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110104151920/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
* Subverted in ''[[The Butterfly Effect]]''. At one point near the end of the film it looks like the story is gonna go out with a [[Twist Ending]]. As Evan's doctor explains that there are no journals, he asserts that everything that we've apparantly seen so far is a delusion that Evan created to cope with the guilt of killing Kayleigh, describing alternate universes with colleges, prisons, and paraplegia. Then it turns out that the mental time travel ''was'' real when Evan goes back one last time.
* ''[[The Descent (
** It's also more likely they exist (although not a certainty) in the original cut, where the ending of the US cut turns out to be All Just A Dream and the film ends with Sarah about to be killed by a horde of the crawlers while she's too wrapped up in hallucinations to even realize they're there. For obvious reasons, the sequel is based on the [[Revised Ending]] instead.
* Related to this is the film ''[[Atonement]]'' in which {{spoiler|1=the entire conclusion of the plot (involving Briony taking back her evidence and [[Keira Knightley]] getting back together with her boyfriend) from the wedding of the rape victim and her rapist onwards is from the imagination of Briony. She reveals that James McAvoy's character in fact died while at Dunkirk and Cecilia was killed in the (real-life) flooding of Balham tube station by a German bomb.}}
* ''[[Vanilla Sky]]'' (2001), directed by Cameron Crowe and starring [[Tom Cruise]]. Remake of 1997 Spanish film ''Abre los Ojos'', a.k.a. ''Open Your Eyes''. After a car accident that kills his girlfriend and disfigures his face, the protagonist is haunted by increasingly bizarre occurrences. The ending explains that {{spoiler|everything that has occurred after the car accident has been a dream. In real life, after the car accident, he signed a contract with a company that preserves its clients' bodies after death and keeps their brain waves active in lifelike virtual reality dreams, and then committed suicide. The bizarre occurrences are explained as glitches in the program. In the end, he decides to wake up from the dream program.}}
* Ripley's nightmare of having an alien rip out of her chest near the beginning of ''[[Alien (
* In ''[[Hackers]]'', the two main characters (played by Jonny Lee Miller and [[Angelina Jolie]]) each have erotic dreams about the other at the same time.
* In ''[[Brazil (
** This was edited out in the "Love Conquers All" edition; the "reveal" is removed, moving the events from fantasy to reality.
* Played very non-comedically in ''Happiness'', where one of the characters apparently goes on a rampage through his neighbourhood with a machine gun, only to wake up. He's a... troubled guy. {{spoiler|We later find out he's a paedophile.}}
* ''[[Give My Regards to Broad Street]]''. {{spoiler|1=All portions of this film with plot are a dream, so it's a good thing this is a McCartney musical. This dream even has a [[Dream Within a Dream]] ''inside it.''}}
* ''[[Phantasm (Film)|Phantasm]]''...[[Mind Screw|or was it?]]
* Lampshaded/parodied in ''[[Top Secret (
* ''[[A Nightmare
* ''Dead End''. {{spoiler|Early in the film, the characters are all weary and very nearly get involved in a car crash, startling them awake. From here, things start to get weird. By the end, it transpires that [[Total Party Kill|nobody woke up in time to prevent the crash]].}}
* A similar ending closes the movie ''Reeker''.
* Most of ''[[North]]'' is the title character's dream. Unlike in the original book, where the events did actually happen to the title character.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Mirror Mask]]'', (boy, [[Neil Gaiman]] sure loves dreams) Helena figures out pretty early on that the entire [[Magical Land]] is all a dream, populated by [[And You Were There|characters based on people she knows]]. However, the possibility is certainly left open that it isn't ''just'' a dream, when she meets someone who was in her dream, but she'd never met before in her day-to-day life.
* Happily subverted in ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]''. He's back in his own world, but has mysteriously gained self-confidence, and is a better fighter. Was it all a dream?... oh, wait, {{spoiler|the old shop-keeper is actually the now-immortal [[Jackie Chan]] character!}}
* ''[[
* One of the few relatively certain things about the [[Mind Screw|plot]] of ''[[Mulholland Drive]]'' is that it includes some element of this. One interpretation is the whole movie is a sinister creeping inversion: it is a dream where the ''dream gradually wakes up'' and walks away, rendering the original dreamer fictional.
* Inverted in ''[[
* Open to interpretation in ''[[Click]]''. Just as the main character {{spoiler|is about to die, he wakes up at the Bed, Bath, and Beyond he laid down for a short while at the beginning}}. However, {{spoiler|Morty and the magical remote turn out to be real. It could be that this was more of his imagination. Given the prevalence of time travel in this film, it could also be that Morty simply reversed time to the exact point at which he laid down in the bed.}}
* Tacked on at the end of 2002 Hong Kong flick ''Undiscovered Tomb''.
* ''[[The Matrix]]''. The entire world the film starts in is
** Some have suggested that even Zion is just another level of the Matrix, satisfying many beyond the official interpretation as it explains the liberties taken in the third movie.
* ''[[
* At the ending of ''[[
* Some have argued that an alternate interpretation of ''[[The Sixth Sense]]'' is that the entire movie is a dream, from the time of the shooting to the end where we "rewind" back to the shooting, and thus the little boy who "sees dead people" doesn't even exist.
* Each sequence of ''[[Film/Living In Oblivion|Living In Oblivion]]'' is revealed to be
* ''Lunatics: A Love Story'' uses a lot of this for humor. "''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|You're having a nervous meltdown!]]''"
* Subverted and then unsubverted in ''The 13th Floor''.
* Both the original and remade version of ''Invaders From Mars'' have the whole thing {{spoiler|turn out to be a young boy's nightmare}} only to {{spoiler|have the invasion [[Or Was It a Dream?|start all over again]] at the end}}. The first version in particular emphasizes this, with off-kilter sets and camera shots throughout.
* In the movie ''Next'', most of the second half of the film is {{spoiler|actually the protagonist looking into a future, which he then changes.}}
* [[Fritz Lang]]'s 1944 noir ''[[The Woman in
* The entirety of ''[[The Wizard of Gore]]'' is implied to be a brief dream of Montag's as he's starting his routine.
* Taken to '''[[Overly Long Gag|the]]''' extreme with ''[[Inception]]''. {{spoiler|The whole plot revolves around making sure they wake up from the layers of dreams at the right time. In Cobb's backstory we learn that his wife became convinced she needed to wake up from reality. And finally the ending and beginning both suggest that the whole movie was a dream. Maybe.}}
* Several interpretations of ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[I Married an Angel]]''
* Happens three times in ''13 Seconds''. First, the main character is attacked by demons, and wakes up in bed. Later, a demon [[Groin Attack|grabs his groin]] and drags him under the bed; he wakes up again. As for the third time,
* Everything but the last couple of minutes in ''Nightmare City'' is in the main character's dream, and the movie ends with the beginning of his dream playing out in real life, with an end card reading "The nightmare becomes reality..."
* At the end of the Italian Horror movie ''Shadow'', we learn that {{spoiler|the main character has never left Iraq, and was under anesthesia as the camp doctor (the evil creature in the dream) and nurse (who is the girl he met in the dream) worked on him. He survives, but loses his legs and his left eye. The two hicks who the evil creature tortured and killed are revealed to be fellow wounded soldiers who died of their wounds}}.
* The first twenty minutes of the ''[[Halloween (
* The last third of ''[[
*
== Literature ==
* Many scholars interpret ''[[
* One of the classic uses of All Just a Dream in children's literature is ''[[Alice in Wonderland
* The most famous anecdote by Chinese Daoist philosopher [[Zhuangzi]] has him relating how he had a dream that he was a butterfly, and upon waking up was unsure whether or not he was a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who dreamed it was a man. Since he lived around the 3rd century BC, this trope is [[Older Than Feudalism]].
* Polish author [[
** ''The Futurological Congress'' features its narrator accosted by powerful mood-altering drugs that cause powerful hallucinations while he sleeps (perhaps they could just be called dreams?). He awakens from hallucination within hallucination, sometimes by degrees and sometimes suddenly, with such frequency that less than halfway through the book it becomes virtually impossible to tell whether he is really awake (one of the major themes of the book).
** In ''Observation on the Spot'' Lem references ''The Futurological Congress'' and lampshades the trope. The protagonist tries to wake from the dream - explicitly mentioning his wakings up during the Congress. He fails, because his observation on the spot was not his dream.
** Also, in ''[[
* Towards the end, [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Coraline (
* In ''The Queen and I'' by Sue Townsend, the election of the British People's Republican Party and subsequent banishing of the Royal family to a council estate turns out to be an election night nightmare by the Queen.
* [[Subverted Trope]] in the original ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]''; Covenant ''starts out'' by believing that everything happening to him is a dream, and is then made to doubt this over the course of the trilogy. The question is deliberately left unresolved, although {{spoiler|the Creator's intervention to save Covenant's life at the end}} strongly implies that the Land was real, as do the passages from the points of view of Hile Troy and Lord Mhoram.
* [[Subverted Trope]] in ''[[Maximum Ride]]''. A group of scientists unsuccessfully attempt to convince the protagonist that the events of the entire past three books were all a dream.
* In the short story ''An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'', the protagonist (a [[The American Civil War|Confederate]] sympathizer) makes a daring escape from inevitable death by hanging when the rope breaks! He evades pursuit from Union soldiers, runs 30-odd miles to his home, finally embraces his beloved family -- {{spoiler|and the story ends abruptly when his neck snaps. It wasn't technically a dream because he wasn't asleep, but it is an excellent example of a [[Dying Dream]] nonetheless}}.
* [[The Longing of Shiina Ryo|Metamonogatari]].
* [[O. Henry]]'s short story ''The Roads We Take'' is about a [[Wild West]] [[Train Job]] gone awry: one robber murders his friend and accomplice, justifying that their only horse "cannot carry double". It turns out to have been a stockbroker's dream. He wakes up and {{spoiler|promptly betrays a friend of his for financial gain}}, [[Ironic Echo|repeating]] the phrase "Bolivar cannot carry double".
* The sequel to ''[[
* ''[[Jacob Two Two]] Meets The Hooded Fang'' by Mordecai Richler.
* One of [[
** Speaking of Dickens, this is also one interpretation of ''[[A Christmas Carol]],'' though Scrooge doesn't think so.
* An in-story example occurs in one of the ''Henry Huggins'' books where Henry has to play the lead in the school Christmas program about a boy going to the North Pole to visit Santa. He hates the role- a six-year-old boy, the costume- footy pajamas, and the ending- where it turns out he dreamed the whole thing. [[Beverly Cleary]] didn't seem to like this trope, either.
* [[
* [[
* Chris van Allsburg's ''Just a Dream'', obviously. Although whether or not the author intended the dreams to be actual premonitions of potential futures is debatable.
* In [[
* In [[Julio Cortazar]]'s "La noche boca arriba", this trope is played with. The narrative switches between two characters, one of which is a boy in a hospital, and the other a man about to be sacrificed by Aztecs. {{spoiler|The ending reveals that the boy's life is actually a dream of the man, who keeps falling unconscious.}}
* Happens in-story in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya
* Deliberately invoked in [[John Varley]]'s ''Steel Beach'' and Justin Lieber's ''Beyond Rejection'' when both protagonists discover they've been subjected to artificially induced "All Just A Dream" scenarios for therapeutic purposes. Lieber's protagonist is grateful for the intervention but Varley's is not.
* [[Subverted Trope]] in the ''[[
{{quote|
It was just about the worst ending you could have to any story.'' }}
* ''[[Godel Escher Bach]]'' has a dialogue in which the protagonists win a raffle. The prize is a "Subjunc-TV", which has the ability to show them what would happen under various hypothetical circumstances. In the end, it turns out that they never actually won the raffle; the entire dialogue was itself a Subjunc-TV broadcast of what would have happened if they had.
* Chapter 39 of ''[[Atlanta Nights]]'' reveals that the rest of the book was all a dream, and the main character is on death row. Please note that there are 41 chapters, and the last two [[Anachronic Order|follow the same plotline as]] [[Plot Hole|the first 38 chapters]].
* ''[[The
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[
{{quote|
* In book four of ''Tales from the House of Bunnicula'', Howie attempts to end the story this way after he inadvertently writes the protagonists into a situation they can't get out of. However, Harold tells Howie that ending the story like that is a cop-out, and tells him to try again. So Howie lets Delilah write the final chapter, ending the story on a much happier note.
* Reversed in ''The Lathe Of Heaven''. George Orr has “effective” dreams, meaning, when he wakes up, something that was in his dream is now part of reality. His psychiatrist tries to use this ability to improve life on earth, but when he suggests that George dream of an end to international strife, George dreams of an alien invasion!
* In ''[[Metro 2033]]'', Artyom is put on trial to be hanged by the Fourth Reich {{spoiler|but is saved by Hunter, when the latter literally ''massacres everyone in the station''}}. Aaand then Artyom wakes up only to find himself {{spoiler|leaning against a door in one of the Fourth Reich's cells}}.
* ''[[An Elegy for
* Justified in Frederick Pohl's short story "The Hated", in which the protagonist plots to murder a former co-worker, but before he can, he's awakened by a psychiatrist from an induced dream. {{spoiler|The protagonist and his co-workers were astronauts on a lengthy voyage during which they developed a profound, murderous hatred for each other. The psychiatrist was working with all of them to enable them to control their rage. It's made clear at the end that at least in the protagonist's case, it wasn't working.}}
* In ''[[Goosebumps]]'', this is played with in the TV ending to "Awesome Ants". The protagonist’s experience turns suspiciously nightmarish as the town is suddenly abandoned, there is a storm outside, and the ants are growing to enormous proportions. Just before he gets killed by one, he wakes up at home and all seems fine. Then he gradually remembers the reality of the situation: in the real world ants are actually mountain-sized, and keep humans secluded in the human equivalent of ant farms and force them to live on small pellets of blue food. In the book the ants just grew that big rather than always having been so.
** For a true [[Mind Screw]], count how many times this happens in "I Live In Your Basement".
* [[
* [[The Box of Delights]] ends this way. The action supposedly takes place during Kay Harker's school holidays, but at the end he wakes up still on the train.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show
* ''[[
** In one episode, Mulder and Scully have [[Lotus Eater Machine|fungus-inspired hallucinations]].
** In "Triangle" Mulder wakes up in hospital after apparently going back in time and [[And You Were There|meeting his friends and enemies]] as heroes or villains on a [[World War II]] liner. Naturally no-one believes him, but Mulder can't help smiling when he feels the bruise on his cheek where past-Scully gave him a [[Megaton Punch]] after he [[Now or Never Kiss|stole a kiss from her]].
* ''[[Dallas]]'' infamously undid an entire season this way. To explain what happened: the actor that played Bobby left the show, and they had [[Dropped a Bridge
** There's even more to this: Producer Leonard Katzman was kicked off the show at the same time Patrick Duffy left, only to be brought back at the cast's demand. Katzman hated a lot of stuff that was done to the show in his absence (primarily making the women much stronger characters), and so thought of a way to ensure they never happened.
* ''[[Day By Day]]'' had an interesting variation: Ross after getting an F on a history paper, as a result from watching a ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' marathon, falls asleep while writing a new paper, and dreams he was Chuck Brady their long lost son. soon he gets advice from Mike and Carol repeat their dialog, this causes him to wake up, upon waking up he hears his parents come down, he finds that they are {{spoiler|Carol and Mike Brady}} he wakes up again, only to find that his parents are back to normal. making this a case of a dream within a dream.
* There are quite a few in ''[[Married...
** One season was made "just a dream", though justified as a case of [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]. The entire season had been built around Katey Sagal's pregnancy. She had a late and unexpected miscarriage and couldn't deal with having a newborn baby on the set.
** Another One involves Al taking a job as a janitor for a Private Eye only to become one himself and solve a diamond case, getting a big fat check as reward. Of course, [[Status Quo Is God]] and it was just a dream of his (this one was the season-erasing resolution).
** Another has Al making a deal with the Devil (Robert Englund) to lead a football team to the Super Bowl. He gets his wish but is killed in a tackle and taken to Hell where his family and friends also end up (as a result of improbable accidents after his death, oddly enough). After three hundred years in Hell, Al can't take it anymore and challenges the Devil to a football match. The Devil picks some of the world's worst historical figures for his team. Al manages to win (even though given an offer to go back with beautiful women and loads of cash which, in a rare moment selflessness, he passes up). Al then wakes up back where he was before the Devil appeared and it appears to be a dream to him... least until he pulls out some Red Hots candy the Devil had given him.
* Sent up by Robert Rankin in ''[[Far
* The last episode of ''[[St. Elsewhere]]'' reveals that the entire series has taken place in the mind of an autistic child. If you accept that crossovers between shows imply that they occupy the same fictional universe, an argument can be made that no fewer than [https://web.archive.org/web/20060824200044/http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html 282 shows] were figments of Tommy Westphall's imagination, including ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. The aforementioned site seems to have a very low threshold for calling a show a cross-over, however; it includes minor [[Shout
* This trope's application in the ''[[Newhart]]'' episode "The Last Newhart" resulted in what is widely considered one of the best series [[Grand Finale|finales]], ever. In the end it was revealed that the entire show was a nightmare of Robert Hartley, the star of ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'', also played by Bob Newhart. Interestingly, ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'' received a crossover from ''[[St. Elsewhere]]'', which combined with the previous entry could make ''[[Newhart]]'' a [[Dream Within a Dream]].
** If that's true, explain {{spoiler|the parody at the end of his 1995 episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.}} Was that a [[Dream Within a Dream]], too?
* In season 4 of ''[[
* The second failed resurrection of ''Crossroads'',<ref>Buried, as it were, at the crossroads.</ref>
** The closing scenes show a number of characters who made their debut in the first resurrection also working in the supermarket... except the character having the dream didn't appear until the second resurrection. (Maybe the first resurrection was one of the other workers' dreams, explaining why [[Aborted Arc|none of the cliffhangers were resolved]]?) And just as you're getting your head around that, a customer at the supermarket, who looks like another character who's been around since the first resurrection, is identified as "Tracey from ''Crossroads''" by the staff. Um... huh?
* The season 1 finale of ''[[Reno 911
* ''[[The Cosby Show]]'' did a number of these, normally precipitated by Cliff's consumption of a large sandwich near bedtime.
* ''[[Smallville]]'': The episode "Slumber" both uses and subverts this trope, as a girl with dream-walking powers can only contacts Clark through dreams. Although occurrences in the episode were fantasy, the dreams do serve a purpose to the plot.
** Used as a bit of a fake-out in season 6's {{spoiler|Lana/Lex wedding. The episode begins with a ridiculously melodramatic wedding/murder/suicide scene, which is immediately revealed to be a dream. The rest of the episode tells the story out of order chronologically, with many of the scenes using the same lurid gothic style, faking the viewers out into thinking these scenes are ''also'' just a dream; unfortunately, ''none'' of them are. Instead, when the episode is over and no-one wakes up from the terrible dream, the viewer is left with the slow, horrible realization that the gothic awfulness ''actually happened''.}}
* An episode of ''[[MacGyver]]'' in which the title character dreams of his [[Identical Grandson|lookalike ancestor]] ends with an [[Or Was It a Dream?]] moment when he woke to find he now possessed his ancestor's distinctive pocketknife.
* ''[[Happy Days]]'' somehow managed to [[Spin
** The episode "They Call It Potsie Love" had
▲* ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show|The Dick Van Dyke Show's]]'' classic ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'' parody "It May Look Like a Walnut."
* British surreal comedy series ''[[The Brittas Empire]]'' concluded with the revelation that the entirety of the programme, all 53 episodes, had been a dream. The title character had fallen asleep while on the train to the interview for the job that he'd had throughout the series. The other people in the dream (apart from his wife, who was the same in the dream and in real life) were actually people on the train with him, and he projected them into the dream.
* ''[[
* ''[[Star Trek
** Interestingly used when Chief O'Brien is arrested by aliens and serves out a 20-year prison sentence within a dream that lasts only hours. The rest of the episode shows him dealing with this experience and how it has changed him.
** "Far Beyond the Stars" and "Shadows and Symbols", where a science fiction writer in the 50's dreams about Deep Space Nine. It's also lampshaded in the dream when someone suggests making Benny's story turn out to be a dream to get around complaints about the hero being black. In fact, the producers toyed with the idea of making the entire series a figment of Benny Russel's imagination
** In "Inquisition", the investigator creates an elaborate holo-simulation that tries to trick Bashir into believing that he was a spy for the Dominion. Most of the episode occurs in the simulation
* Similarly, in an episode of ''[[Star Trek:
** Unlike most of the examples on this page, this is usually considered one of the series' best episodes. Quite probably because we were shown Picard lying on the floor of the bridge dreaming from the start of the episode while the crew struggles to wake him up.
* A slight variation of this happens to Commander Riker in the ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Star Trek
{{quote|
'''Klingon:''' That was the ''naj'' -- the dream before dying. When we can't accept that we've died, we create the illusion of life to hold on to.
'''B'Elanna:''' ''(seeing the helmsman, Kortar)'' He slaughtered my friends!
'''Klingon:''' No. He slaughtered the dream. He dragged you from the illusion of life. This is where you belong. }}
{{quote|
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'' makes use of this, both as (seemingly) the circumstances of the main character (in a coma, dreaming the entire thing), and side instances where Sam wakes up in bed after being harangued by the [[Creepy Child|Evil Test Card Girl]]. Not to mention the fact that... {{spoiler|in the end Sam's adventures in the past turn out to be just a dream. One Sam ''commits suicide'' to get back to... if you believe that interpretation of the ending instead of [[Epileptic Trees|one of the dozens of others]].}}
** Something very similar occurs in {{spoiler|''[[Ashes to Ashes]]''}}.
** In the finale of the [[Life
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'': There's nearly always a quick way to tell that House is dreaming. If he limps, then it's sad reality. If he doesn't, then it's a dream or an hallucination.
** In Season One there's a scene where House told Vogler, whose whole role was making House miserable, that he had cancer and was going to die soon. The fact that Vogler calmly and gratefully accepted the news, even when House made a crack about jumbo-sized coffins, as well as the fact that House was walking without a limp, quickly revealed the scene to be a dream.
** An episode {{spoiler|(the season two finale "No Reason")}} was "All Just A Hallucination", and the episode ends minutes after its beginning. Still, the fact that it was a hallucination meant that it served as an exploration of House's mental state (rather than an excuse to kick the audience in the teeth at the end), which may be why this episode is not derided in the way that so many All Just a Dream episodes are. Also, House discovering it was a hallucination was an important part of the plot and set up literally moments into the hallucination, so it was in accordance with the rules of fair play. Furthermore, House uses an idea from his hallucination in real life that shows its effects throughout the next few episodes.
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** Another episode has House trying to kill a mosquito, but accidentally knocks off the valve to a propane tank and lights the stove. Cue explosion, cut to House waking up.
* ''[[The Sopranos]]'' has a lot of these as a way to get into Tony's head, although it was made apparent to the audience what they were.
* In the ''[[
* The first episode of ''[[Terminator]]: [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' starts out this way. Just so you know. Also, in the second season episode "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep", Sarah is taken captive and interrogated by a man she had killed in an earlier episode. It is then revealed that this was in fact a dream, and that Sarah was admitted to a sleep clinic, because of her insomnia. She keeps having this dream, while she suspects something bad is going on at the sleep clinic. {{spoiler|Eventually, we find out the sleep clinic was in fact the dream, induced by the drugs given to her by the man who abducted her, for real - him having survived the earlier episode against the odds.}}
* In the ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20121103034017/http://cycling.finial.com/stuff/mpcyclingtour.php "Cycling Tour" sketch], a bicyclist (Mr. Pither) ends up in a Soviet prison cell about to be executed. He is suddenly woken up by his mother and says "So, it was all a dream!" His mother says "No dear, this is the dream, you're still in the cell." He then wakes up for real, still in the cell.
* Likewise at the end of ''[[The Young Ones]]'' episode "Interesting" where Neil experiences something similar as he is about to be kicked in the head by skinheads.
* ''[[
** In TOS episode "Death Ship", an astronaut stranded on another planet dreams that he has returned to Earth and everything's all right. His commanding officer bodily enters his dream and literally drags him back to wakefulness. The [[Karmic Twist Ending]]? He and his commander are actually dead, and his dream was actually the afterlife he should have gone to.
** In another episode, "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3MfyuNspe4 Shadow Play]", a man on Death Row tells everyone they are all figments of his dream based on people from his life, and that when he's killed, he'll dream the same dream again, with everyone in different roles. As it turns out, {{spoiler|he's right}}.
** An even more sadistic episode -- "{{spoiler|The Midnight Sun}}"
* In ''[[
* In one episode of ''[[
* ''[[
** Inverted in the 2008 episode "Silence in the Library". A little girl on what looks like present-day Earth dreams of a futuristic library in which several people (including the Doctor and Donna) are in danger. Her psychiatrist tells her confidentially {{spoiler|(in a complete reversal of expectations) that her dream is real and that the people in danger need her help.}}
** On the other hand, the entirety of Season 23 is revealed in "The Ultimate Foe" to have been an inaccurate reconstruction of what really happened. Of particular note, it turns out that the death of the Doctor's companion Peri in "Mindwarp" never really happened and instead she is happily living with King Yrcanos (despite the fact that he seems to be violently insane).
** Also used in Series 5's "Amy's Choice". While it's obvious from the very beginning that at least one of the worlds is a dream, {{spoiler|both turn out to be dreams and the last scene is the only one that actually happens.}} However, {{spoiler|[[Character Development|Amy realising that she does, in fact, love Rory]]}} is NOT [[Reset Button]]-ed, so it's all okay.
* The ''[[
* ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'' had an entire dream episode, where {{spoiler|Partner Trivette was revealed to have gotten killed at the beginning, and Walker died at the very end, but not before [[Heroic Sacrifice|foiling the villains' plans anyway]].}} When Walker's wife wakes up at the end of the episode, you find out that it may [[Or Was It a Dream?|end up coming to pass anyway]].
* Not even Hispanic [[Soap Opera]] escapes from this trope. There has been at least two soapies who ended with the implication that all the chapters we've seen has been just a Dream: ''Los Amores de Anita Pe?'' and ''Pecados Ajenos''. However, the results were very different:
** In ''Los Amores...'', which was a comedic soap that swung between the [[Affectionate Parody]] and the [[Deconstruction]], the whole thing was played for laughs, with the ghost characters of the people who died during the story lampshading the [[Twist Ending]] and openly decrying it in a full rupture of the [[Fourth Wall]]. However, the series gives not only a whole chapter after the reveal to close the few loose plots and point out the parallelisms between the "dream story" and the "real life", but also gives a happy ending for the heroine and the story: maybe her life isn't as exciting as it was in her "dream", but she is now truly happy with her son and her beloved husband.
** In contrast, in ''Pecados Ajenos'' (who was ''non''-comedic and pretty gloomy for a traditional soap) not content with using this trope to reset the whole story, also used the reset to put the heroine in a worse condition than the one she began with. It also [[Karma Houdini|left unpunished some of the worst villains of the story]] (a big no-no in traditional Hispanic soaps), and leaves the unsavory feeling that all the grisly, tragic and creepy things that happened during the soap [[Groundhog Day Loop|are going to happen in the same way]]. Naturally, none of the viewers were happy with this.
* Or US [[Soap Opera
* Used rather drastically on ''[[Seinfeld]]'' when, after Kramer persuades him to get an illegal cable hookup, Jerry dreams that he is graphically gunned down by the FBI. Then he wakes up and discovers the plane he's on is about to crash, which is real.
{{quote|
* A ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' Digital Short parodied this. [[
* Also done on ''[[Mad TV]]''. It begins with the children of an elderly couple shocked by their parents' dirty dancing and ends with Stephnie Weir waking up from a dream "about a skit that has no ending".
* In ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' Jackson and Lilly end up dating after Miley tries to sabotage it. At the very end, despite it being a fairly normal story line and not all that much changing, it still turns out to be a dream.
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* ''[[UFO]]''. The episode "Ordeal" has a lengthy sequence where Colonel Foster is violently abducted by aliens and taken to their UFO which is later (after various [[Shoot the Dog]] arguments between his superiors) shot down by SHADO. Foster is recovered inside an alien spacesuit and is nearly killed having it removed. The whole thing turns out to be a dream experienced when he passed out in a sauna after over-indulging at a party. A more imaginative use of this trope occurs in "Mindbender", when a [[Green Rock|crystal]] found at a UFO crash site causes Commander Straker to hallucinate that he is [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|an actor in a science-fiction TV series]].
* The Spanish comedy ''Los Serrano'' finished this way, with the main character waking up to discover the entire series has been all just a dream. Fans were not pleased.
** A critic saw it in a slightly different light: if all was just a dream, that means that the atrocious [[Boy Band]] that [[Spin
* A segment on ''[[
* ''[[The Wild Wild West (TV series)|The Wild Wild West]]'' episode "The Night of the Man-Eating House". Near the beginning, the characters discover and approach the title house. After a series of terrifying events, at the end the characters wake up and discover that the horrific events in the house were All Just a Nightmare. In the last scene, they find themselves [[Or Was It a Dream?|approaching the house again]].
* The [[Halloween Episode]] of ''[[Dark Angel]]'' started fairly normal, then became progressively more wacky until the end revealed it was All Just a Dream.
** In the season 1 finale, Max dreams that her and Logan finally get-it-on. But in the middle of it all, a crow caws and blood appears on Logan's hand. Max asks desperately what's happening, then it's revealed {{spoiler|The young clone of her who shot at her earlier '''Didn't Miss''' and instead shot her in the heart, leading her to die, until Zack shoots his own brains out to donate a heart for her}}
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* In the ABC Afterschool Special ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243434/ My Mother was Never a Kid]'', Victoria Martin gets into an argument with her mother, and runs away from home. While she is on the subway train, she hits her head and seemingly travels back in time to 1944, {{spoiler|while she was there, she learns that she and her mother are very much alike in many ways, while still in the dream state she hits her head again, and wakes up back in the present with the relationship with her mother repaired.}} Considering Victoria [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|clearly had no knowledge of the 1940s]], this raises the question of how she could have dreamed up the period so accurately.
** The special is adapted by Francine Pascal from her own Young Adult novel, 'Hanging Out With [[Ci Ci]].
* This happened in the final episode of ''[[I
* ''[[Friends]]''
** In-universe example: Phoebe gets pissed off at one of her friends for something that is eventually revealed to have happened in her dream.
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** It also appears in another episode. When Frasier meets a supermodel-zoologist on an airplane, he comments that "This is usually the part where I wake up." Cut to Frasier opening his eyes - [[Subverted Trope|and the camera panning out for a]] [[Bedmate Reveal]].
* ''[[Roseanne]]'' essentially ended the series with a version of this.
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* At the end of the fourth season of ''[[Oz]]'', Tobias Beecher is up for parole. His lawyer enters the room and tells Beecher the Parole Board have approved his release. Everyone cheers as he returns to Em City, and a last minute assassination attempt by the Aryans is barely averted. Beecher is then shown walking out into the sunshine (showing the exterior of Oswald Prison for the first time) then playing with his daughter and new girlfriend in the park. Then he wakes up in his cell, and we flashback to his lawyer telling him that the Parole Board did ''not'' approve his release.
* One episode of the Charlie Drake [[Britcom]] ''The Worker'' has the title character experiencing an increasingly surreal series of events which culminate in his arrival at a TV studio, where it turns out that he's the leading actor in a TV [[
* One episode of ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' ends with this ending, negating the revocation of her witch's license. A flying banana, witnessed in an earlier dream sequence, tipped her off.
* Most events of the ''[[China Beach]]'' season 3 finale episode "Strange Brew" may have been a shared dream (after [[Shell
* In an episode of ''[[The 4400]]'', main character Tom dreams of a world where the 4400 abductions never happened. As it turns out at the end, {{spoiler|the "dream" was actually a power of one of the 4400, whose alternate reality powers allowed him to have an eight year relationship with her in an extremely short time, allowing them to know everything about each other despite only meeting once.}}
* ''[[
* Several ''[[Round the Twist]]'' episodes ended this way, as a result of being adapted into a continuing series from standalone stories. A particularly odd example is "Santa Claws," which not only has Pete falling asleep in the first scene, thus establishing
* Spoofed in the final episode of ''[[
* In ''[[Dollhouse]]'', the events in the Attic are
* "For Whom The Bell Trolls" in Season 1 of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''. It's left ambiguous as to whether "The Wild Wipeout" in ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' was this or not.
* ''[[Growing Pains]]'' had two episodes featuring this. In "This is Your Life" (season 3, episode 10), Ben is afraid to get a tonsillectomy. So, he sneaks out after getting anesthesia, only to find that he's been replaced, since he didn't get the procedure done. Luckily, this was an anesthesia induced dream. In "Meet the Seavers" (season 6, episode 21), Ben gets in trouble, and wishes that he lived in a TV show, because then he wouldn't be in trouble. He wakes up the next morning to find that he is Jeremy Miller on a show called ''Meet the Seavers''. This is a nightmare for him, as his family isn't a family anymore, and his house isn't his home. He wakes up to find that it was all just a dream.
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* The {{spoiler|''entire premise''}} of ''[[Toku|Choukou Senshi Changerion]]'' is this trope, which sparked a number of angry letters to Toei!
* The ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' episode where the characters get trapped in a slasher movie scenario is actually a dream Shawn has while sleeping through detention.
* The last episode, "Home", of ''[[
* The series ''[[Awake (TV series)|Awake]]'' mixes this with [[Or Was It a Dream?]], and [[Alternate Reality|dual realities]] as its main premise.
* The pentultimate episode of ''[[Without a
* ''[[Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'''s Hyper Battle Video ends with this. For good reason too, since the Kamen Riders [[OOC Is Serious Business|were acting like a Sentai team]] and Ryuki wound up crossing over with [[Kamen Rider Agito]] to fight an [[Evil Twin]]. With those outlandish concepts, how could it ''not'' be a dream?
== Music ==
* Aaron Carter's upbeat song "That's How I Beat Shaq" relates the singer's adventures as he beats Shaquille O'Neal in a one-on-one basketball match, and ends with him waking up in bed. ("But if it was a dream, and it wasn't real... [[Or Was It a Dream?|how'd I get a jersey with the name O'Neal?]]")
* [http://www.mesozoicmind.com/ "Mesozoic Mind"], by the Charmers.
{{quote|
* [[
* Josh Turner, "Loretta Lynn's Lincoln" begins with the singer buying Loretta Lynn's Lincoln, ends with the singer being woken up from a nap in his pickup truck.
{{quote|
* [[
{{quote|
''I thought that I heard you sing
''I think I thought I saw you try
''But that was just a dream
''That was just a dream'' }}
* Porter Wagoner/Tom Jones's song "Green Green Grass of Home" has the subject of the song seemingly returning home after being away for a long time, enjoying his return, only to wake up in prison awaiting his execution, only to return home dead and buried there.
* The Billie Holiday version, and most subsequent English-language versions, of "[[Driven to Suicide|Gloomy]] [[Brown Note|Sunday]]".
* [[
* "One More Red Nightmare" by [[
* All the video of the song "Thriller" of [[
* The video to The [[
* The music video for Gorillaz's "Dare" is a [[Dream Within a Dream]].
* Converge's music video for "Eagles Become Vultures" probably applies, though it's more of a waking fantasy than a dream.
* The video for [[
* The music video for [[
* The music video for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" ends with her on the bed next to someone whom we are to assume is her boyfriend.
** The same thing happens in "Hot & Cold", though that was a daydream.
* Airbourne's "Blonde, Bad and Beautiful" turns out to be this, in a video that was [[Sex, Drugs and Rock
* The [[
* [[
* The video for Live's "Run To The Water" turns out to be Ed Kowalczyk's dream.
* The video for [[
* The video for
== Oral Tradition, folklore, Myths and Legends ==
* Certain branches of Hindu philosophy hold that because truth is unchanging, and the world is constantly changing, then the world is not real. Hence, [[Real Life]] is just a sort of dream state.
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* A two-week storyline in ''[[
▲* From ''[[
▲* ''[[Little Nemo
▲* ''[[Drabble (comics)|Drabble]]'' pulled this twice, then subverted it ''hilariously''. The first time, Ralph dreams that his job as a mall cop is more like [[Batman]]. The second time, Norman goes to a piercing salon with Wendy and ends up with multiple ear, nose, and other rings. The third time, Norman and Wendy run off to Vegas and get married on a dare. Norman is about to invoke this trope when the next panel reveals the cartoonist has already used up his chances to use it. The plot gets resolved another way.
== Puppet Shows ==
* ''[[Captain Scarlet]]'' has an episode where The Mysterons actually come to Cloudbase to attack it, leading to Captain Scarlet's death and the destruction of Cloudbase. We then find out this was all a dream one of the Angels was having after she'd been shot down over the desert earlier in the episode. When repackaged in a [[Compilation Movie]] for the American market, the episode ended up with the [[Reset Button]] treatment.
** Gerry Anderson is all over this one (he was once quoted as saying "I wish somebody would make a film of my dreams"). There are at least two episodes of ''[[Stingray (1985 TV series)|Stingray]]'', one of ''
== Radio ==
* There's an episode of ''[[
* Comedian Emo Phillips {{spoiler|inverts this trope when he}} talks about a dream he had. He describes a long series of really bizarre, Emo-Phillipian events, that ends with him getting knocked unconscious. "And that's when I had my dream...."
== Tabletop Games: [[Trading Card Games]] ==▼
▲== Stand-Up Comedy ==
▲* Comedian Emo Phillips {{spoiler|inverts this trope when he}} talks about a dream he had. He describes a long series of really bizarre, Emo-Phillipian events, that ends with him getting knocked unconscious. "And that's when I had my dream...."
▲== [[Trading Card Games]] ==
* ''Hecatomb'' had a literal "It Was Only A Dream" card which can eliminate practically any card your opponent has out, essentially making them have never happened.
== Theater ==
* Played with in ''[[
* The famous ballet ''[[The Nutcracker (
* Toyed with in the ''Red Shift: Interplanetry Do-Gooder'' radioplay episode "Havoc Over Holowood" (available [http://www.huboftheuniverseproductions.com/rec_rshoh.html here]), where the entire episode turns out to have been a story Lumpy wrote about his friends and was reading to them.
* Done well in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's opera ''[http://www.korngold-society.org/synopsis2.html Die tote Stadt]'' ("''The Dead City''"). At the finale, it is revealed that much of the story is the dream of the protagonist Paul. However, this experience allows Paul to realize how destructive his obsession over his dead wife can be, thus compelling him to let go of his past, leaving the eponymous "Dead City" and starting anew.
* In ''[[Avenue Q]]'', Rod overhears Nicky talking in his sleep, but at the end of the song "Fantasies come true" we find out that ''Rod'' was talking in his sleep.
* Shakespeare played with this. Most of the main characters in ''[[A Midsummer
{{quote|
''Think but this, and all is mended,
''That you have but slumber'd here
''While these visions did appear.
''And this weak and idle theme,
''No more yielding but a dream. }}
* Alan Ayckbourn's 1985 play {{spoiler|''Woman in Mind''. The entire play. From start to finish. Really.}}
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
* In ''[[Super Mario Bros
* The ending of ''The Magical Quest'' reveals that [[Mickey Mouse]] has been dreaming the entire adventure all along. Oddly enough one of the bosses in the sequel is a painting of Emperor Pete, the final boss from the first game, with music and all.
* ''[[
* Taken very, very seriously and sadly in ''[[
* The SNES game ''Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday'' centers around [[Porky Pig]] having nightmares, and you having to guide him out of them.
* ''[[Twisted Metal]]: Black'' seems like an [[Alternate Continuity]] to the main ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' series. In fact, various in-game hints reveal {{spoiler|that the whole game occurs inside [[Monster Clown|Sweet Tooth's]] head}}.
** Roadkill's ending in ''[[Twisted Metal]]: Head On'' adds more [[Mind Screw]]. It's suggested that {{spoiler|the regular [[Twisted Metal]] continuity takes place inside the head of Sweet Tooth's alternate personality, Marcus Kane.}}
** In ''[[Twisted Metal]] 2'', Marcus Kane (driver of Roadkill) can see through the [[Fourth Wall]] and is convinced the world is fake. {{spoiler|His wish is to get out, and when Calypso grants it, he wakes up in a hospital bed, [[And You Were There|surrounded by the other characters]] - the game was a dream he had in a coma. But then Calypso's eyes appear, hinting that the Twisted Metal world ''is'' real and he's sent Kane ''into'' a dream.}}
* Hong Meiling's storyline in ''[[
** The fan-made game ''Concealed the Conclusion'' implies that everything in all the games is a coma dream Reimu and Marisa shared. It works surprisingly well, given the general tone of the games, even if ''CtC'' itself is very, very dark. The Extra and Phantasm stages confirm that at least something of Gensoukyou survives after they wake up.
* At the very least, the manga version, and most likely, the visual novel version of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
* Possibly the most horrifically shocking AND depressing endings in a children's video game, the ending to ''[[Drawn to Life]]: The Next Chapter'' for the DS... Basically, all of the adorable animal characters in the village are killed, G-Rated style (they fade away). One of the characters, named Mike, fades away last. The voice of Mike's sister Heather is heard asking the Creator, the god-like figure in the game to bring her brother back, which at first seems like a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]]. Then, her message changes and she was really trying to say, "God, just bring back my little brother to me." God? Like the god that people in real life pray to? That doesn't sound right at all does it? It is now revealed that Mike and Heather {{spoiler|are actually humans, and the whole story with the village of cute animal things was all just a dream that Mike was having. It wasn't a regular dream either. It turns out that Mike and his family were in a car crash, which killed his parents and injured his sister. As Mike awakes from his coma, he is tearfully hugged by Heather, who has bandages over half her face. This is parallel to the Heather in his dream who had a half-shadowy face. Mari and Jowee, two other animal characters who were actually MORE IMPORTANT TO THE GAME'S STORY, are shown to have been two plush toys that Mike won at a fair before the crash.}}
* One of the [[Multiple Endings]] to ''[[
* ''[[
* In one of the endings of ''[[Silent Hill Homecoming]]'', Alex is revealed to be a mental patient and the whole game was just a delusion, similar the Bad+ ending ([[Dying Dream]]) in ''[[Silent Hill 1]]''.
** Ditto for ''Shattered Memories'', where {{spoiler|the plot is just a fantasy conjured up by Harry's daughter, and Harry died in a car accident 18 years earlier.}}
* Even ''[[Samurai Warriors]] 2'' does this. At the beginning of Nagamasa Azai's last stage in his story mode, the Battle of Kanegasaki, the story up to that point is revealed to be a dream he was having right before the battle. The entire thing being brought on due to how torn he was between helping his friends, the Asakura, and potentially betraying Oichi's love by attacking her brother, Nobunaga. Of course most of 'final chapters' of story mode are events that never happened due to the historical character dying, captured, or otherwise defeated. Or are nostalgic "best times" events that happen earlier in the chronology. This same game also features an entire sequence in Magoichi Sakai''s story mode in which he 'dreams' (or Fuma's ninja trickery) of bandits and chaos overwhelming the country after Nabounaga Oda's death.
* ''[[Strong
* The whole point to ''[[Tsukihime
** There's also the first [[Eroge]] scene in the original game, which turns out to be All Just A Wet Dream.
* In the {{spoiler|Freedom Ending}} of ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' {{spoiler|after Kagutsuchi is defeated and the energy of creation is released, the hero wakes up in his own bed.}} Although considering the letter from the teacher regretting what she did and thanking him, and the message {{spoiler|presumably from Lucifer}} warning {{spoiler|that in time, there'll be another adversary and to stay strong when it happens}}, it might also be [[Or Was It a Dream?]].
* ''Mission Critical'' does a very interesting version of this trope. {{spoiler|The events that took place during the vast majority of the game were all a dream, but also really happened. Near the end, you discover that time travel into the past is impossible, but that information can be sent back. As a result, you basically trigger a dream in your past self that outlines everything that has happened in the game, giving you the chance to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]].}}
* [http://girlflash.deviantart.com/art/The-Linear-RPG-114501766 The Linear RPG] has a dose of this as a component of its overall [[Stylistic Suck]].
* The Japanese version of ''Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere'' (of the [[Ace Combat]] series) featured a branching storyline with five separate endings; {{spoiler|unlocking all five would show a short cutscene where it's revealed the player character is an AI that has been put through a series of simulations by a questionably-sane professor as preparation for carrying out his plan to avenge his late wife.}}
* ''[[
* Subverted in ''[[Visions and Voices]]''; no one (except maybe Marlowe) can remember or understand what happened, but it really did happen.
* The [[Multiple Endings|Forgotten Dream endings]] of ''[[Yo
* Ling Xiaoyu's ending in ''[[Tekken]] 6'' ''looks'' like a [[Squee]] moment for Xiaoyu and Jin shippers, with Xiaoyu going as far as to hug him... cut to [[Fan Service|Xiaoyu in bed in her underwear]] hugging Panda, who knocks her awake.
* In ''[[A
* In ''[[
* Occasionally, this is the case in the 1999 [[PS 1]] game ''The Adventures of Alundra'' or just ''[[
** And even crazier: Whatever amounts of money or items Alundra finds inside other people's dreams, he gets to keep when he leaves them.
* A common fan interpretation of ''[[
* In the Konami arcade game ''Devastators'', the entire events of the game were actually parts of a movie somebody was watching.
* The chapter
* The opening to ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Conversed in ''[[Escape From St.
* Happens in ''[[SNK Gals Fighters]]'' for the Neo-Geo Pocket Color, specifically in [[Fatal Fury|Mai Shiranui's]] ending. Winning the tournament and the [[Plot Device|K' Talisman]], means somehow that she can now marry Andy, who appears just in time... {{spoiler|to "reveal" that he has been secretly a woman all of these years}}. Shocked, Mai [[Catapult Nightmare|awakes to reality]].
* In a rare example where this is actually a step ''up'' in continuity, part of the [[Continuity Reboot]] for ''[[Soul Series|SoulCalibur 6]]'' makes the events of the forgotten and previously non-canon spinoff ''[[SoulCalibur Legends]]'' into this. Iska, the main antagonist of ''Legends'', reappears in new story chapters added by the last update and serves as a secondary antagonist for a few characters'; one sequence of dialog in Nightmare's story describes one of the dreams that Soul Edge used to corrupt Siegfried into Nightmare which matches the plot of ''Legends''.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* This [
* As does [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=29025#110861 this] ''[[
* The brief [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=030707 "Magic Flap"] arc from ''[[
* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' sets this up, [http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF044-Falling_Dream.gif then subverts it].
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Silent Hill: Promise]]'' uses this in the beginning, before getting to the real horror.
* [http://explosm.net/comics/1590/ This] ''[[Cyanide
* ''[http://www.tru-lifeadventures.com TRU-Life Adventures]'' is currently suggesting everything that happened since the first time travel story has been Bob's dream.
* [http://dizzy.pestermom.com/?p=thcomic55 This] ''[[
** [http://dizzy.pestermom.com/?p=thcomic128 A later one] combines this, [[Acid Reflux Nightmare]], and a [[Brick Joke]] about Meiling's accused [[Homosexual Reproduction]]. ([[Word of God|Word of Muffin]] states that only this comic is All Just A Dream, not the entire [[Story Arc]].)
* ''[http://gr3g0r.deviantart.com/art/Featherlike-98184784 Featherlike]'', from the man who brought you [http://gr3g0r.deviantart.com/art/Untitled-85561930 this] popular 4chan comic.
* ''[[Dan and
* In ''[[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]]'', The chapter "[http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c50/p1.html Wonderland]". Lucy "wakes up" at the beginning of the chapter and the chapter before it was an April Fool's comic, making it all just a dream as well.
** [http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c59/p1.html Chapter 59] was All Just A Daydream. Paulo's. Best. Daydream. ''' Ever'''.
* ''[[
* Used and then subverted in [http://darklegacycomics.com/200.html this strip] of ''Dark Legacy Comic''.
* In ''[[Soul Symphony]]'' the protagonist purposely makes another character believe that his experience of using magic to fight evil demons was this. It really wasn't.
* Grace of ''[[
* This happens twice in ''[[My Milk Toof]]'' with the episode of "villainous ickle" who goes around breaking everything and when they go fishing they fall asleep and dream of catching a fish.
* [[Evil Diva (
* Happens every year in [[Rhapsodies]] with [[Cloudcuckoolander|Kevin]] getting shanghaied into helping with Santa's Christmas rush. This always ends with him waking up... Though occasionally there's a few details lying around to make the audience wonder.
* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20120527073040/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00519.html hoping things turned out well.]
* In ''[[
* In [[Greg (
* In ''[[
== Web Original ==
* At the end of some cutscenes in ''[[
* More than once this has been used for ''[[
* Most of the second half of ''[[The Tale of the Exile
* [[
** The end of the review of ''[[Full House]]'' when the Olsen twins came [[He Knows Too Much|to silence him]] was revealed to be a dream. Then they showed up again, which was revealed to be a dream. And so on.
** This also appears to be a pet peeve of the Critic's, given his reaction to learning that ''[[North]]'' was entirely a dream.
* This concept is an enemy in [[Improbable Island]].
* ''[[
* Parodied in the ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[
{{quote|
'''Lopez:''' Oui, c'était un rêve horrible... OU ÉTAIT-IL?!? [Yes, it was a horrible dream... OR WAS IT?!?] }}
** This was also used for a non-canon alternate ending on the Season Five DVD, where Church had been knocked out instead of killed from Sheila's attack in episode eight and had dreamed up the other ninety-two episodes, except he forgot all about his green-armoured teammate, Jacobs.
** Another of the alternate endings did something very similar except, instead of being a dream, the whole series was an [[
* ''[[The Onion]]'' episode [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qYL_KT06-U Today Now!: Save Money By Taking A Vacation Entirely In Your Mind] deals with using this trope to your advantage.
* An episode of [[Ranma ½: The Abridged Chronicles]] features Akane sleepwalking and causing chaos as she goes through several dreams. After waking her up, they discuss how ridiculous the episode was, until it turns out to be Ranma's dream.
▲* At the end of some cutscenes in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition (Video Game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition]]'', people are seen waking up. This has no bearing on gameplay whatsoever.
* [[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG]]
{{quote|
1007. That whole Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? [[Dream Sequence]]. }}
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s "[http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/why-saved-by-bell-all-dream-conspiracy-theory/ Why 'Saved by the Bell' is All a Dream: A Conspiracy Theory]" explains why ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'' has to be an escapist dream of a character in ''Good Morning, Miss Bliss'' (the pilot that was retooled into ''SBTB''), using clues from the [[Expository Theme Tune]].
== Western Animation ==
* Naturally, ''[[The Simpsons (
** In the season six episode entitled "Lisa's Rival", Lisa is competing against a new student, Allison, for the first chair saxophone position when she faints in the middle of it. After "regaining consciousness", she's told that Allison got the chair and Lisa screams. The screen then blacks out and she really wakes up... only to be told the exact same thing with the added disclaimer, "And believe me, this is not a dream!"
** In the episode after Mr. Burns is shot, Smithers wakes up in his apartment to find [[Shout
** Even the specific tendency of soap operas to rely on this trope is parodied. In one episode, Moe lands a role on [[Soap Within a Show|a soap called]] ''[[Soap Within a Show|It Never Ends]]'', only to stumble upon a future script in which his character is killed off. He angrily confronts the producer.
{{quote|
'''Moe:''' I thought dreams was on goldenrod.
'''Producer:''' No, goldenrod is for [[Adventures in Coma Land|coma fantasies]]! }}
** Happens in "Treehouse of Horror" episodes which are already [[A Day
* In the ''[[
* ''[[
** "The Sting": Fry dives in front of a space bee about to sting Leela, gets impaled and injected with venom, and dies. Leela who comes out of the incident with only a "boo-boo", tops, begins feeling horribly guilty for the loss of Fry, and slowly descends into insanity, going through one [[Dream Within a Dream]] after another. {{spoiler|At the climax, the walls are talking to her, bees are materializing out of nowhere, and Leela tries to steal Fry's corpse to remind herself that he's really dead. There's also a musical number in which the other characters serenade her with the song "Don't Worry, Be(e) Happy." It turns out it was all a coma-induced dream; Fry had come out of the incident relatively unscathed, save for the gaping hole in his chest, which was easily repaired by future-medicine, while Leela got all the venom from the bee and nearly died.}}
** In another episode, Bender is forced to get an upgrade to make him more compatible with Planet Express' advanced new robot. He breaks free and ends up on a deserted island populated by outdated robots, then returns to wage war on technology. {{spoiler|The whole storyline was actually an artificially induced [[Aesop]] caused by the upgrade, resulting in the following exchange:}}
{{quote|
'''Technician:''' ''(shrugging)'' Everyone experiences the upgrade a little differently.
'''Bender:''' Oof. If that stuff wasn't real, how can I be sure ''anything'' is real? Is is not possible, nay, ''probable'', that my entire life is just a figment of my or someone else's imagination?
'''Technician:''' No. Get out. }}
** In the first "Anthology of Interest" episode it is revealed at the end that the entire episode, consisting of three scenarios generated by the professor's What-If machine, was, in fact, a scenario generated by the professor's What-If machine. Strangely enough, the What-If machine seems to know things that no one else does, like the fact Fry not coming to the future would cause a universe-destroying paradox, because he is [[My Own Grampa|his own grandpa]]. And the second Anthology of Interest featured a segment that really ''was'' a dream, instead of a What-If, as the writers didn't wish to reveal Leela's true heritage at that point of the series. Also, the Professor eventually invents the "Finglonger" in real life. This all seems to imply that the What-Ifs are 'canonical hypotheticals' that would have actually happened that way if the setup was true, making them more [[For Want of a Nail]] than All Just a Dream.
* ''[[
** The absurd (even for them) Y2K episode, "Da Boom", ends in live-action with Pam Ewing of ''Dallas'' waking to Bobby in the shower and relating the episode. Bobby has no idea what ''Family Guy'' is. (This sequence features the real live Victoria Principal and Patrick Duffy.)
** A variation occurred in the episode "Lois kills Stewie." When Peter kills Stewie before he could act on his chance to kill Lois, the ending reveals that it was all just a computer simulation designed by Stewie of what would happen had he successfully conquered the world.
* In ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'', "Take This Ed and Shove It", the finale of the fourth season (and originally of the series) ended with the elderly Eddy discovering that the whole show has been apparently a series of dreams about his childhood. The canonical implications of this are dubious at best, as the show has been renewed for two more seasons; though it explains things such as [[Flanderization]], the cast [[Middle of Nowhere Street|never leaving the cul-de-sac]], [[Minimalist Cast|how we never see any characters but the main cast even at school]], and just the general vagueness of setting throughout the show.
** In a season episode, Ed has a nightmare about Jonny. But then the episode ends with ''Jonny'' waking up in horror. So Ed had a dream that he was scared of Jonny, but then it's really Jonny having a dream that Ed had a dream that...he's scared of Jonny...uhm.
* ''[[
** First appeared in the episode "Flashbacks", which twisted the conventional [[Clip Show]] by having each clip end with a completely different situation from its original episode, ending every time with [[Running Gag|a reference to ice cream]] among other things. This was all [[Framing Device|framed]] with the kids telling stories while the bus lies on the edge of a cliff. At separate points, they flash back on a [[Happy Days|Fonzie]] stunt they witnessed (which never happened on the show) and an earlier moment in the framing device itself. When the bus finally falls into the chasm, it inexplictibly lands on a giant tub of ice cream. All of this, including an unrelated subplot surrounding Ms. Crabtree, were all part of a dream by Eric Cartman which ended with him eating beetles and ice cream once again being brought up, thus revealing that the entire episode was a dream within a dream conjured by Stan. ("Dude. That's a pretty fucked up dream." "Yeah, I must be having some real emotional problems.") After ''that'' was established, however, the episode returns one last time to Ms. Crabtree's subplot, where her love interest Marcus -- [[I Have Many Names|or was it Mitch?]]
** Subverted at the end of the "Imaginationland" series of episodes. Butters wakes up and starts telling his parents about the dream he had that he saved Imaginationland. His parents tell him that it really happened and they read all about it in the morning paper.
** Also subverted earlier on, in the first chapter. Kyle wakes up and assumes that the Muslim terrorist attack on Imaginationland and Butters being left there was all a crazy dream, but when he calls up Stan, he finds out that he had the exact same dream. Then Butters's parents come into Stan's house worrying about Butters. Finally, the Pentagon reports that our imagination was taken over by terrorists, complete with a videotape showing proof. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And Cartman still wants his balls sucked by Kyle.]]
** Also subverted in the season 3 episode "Spontaneous Combustion". Cartman was tied to a cross for a crucifixion re-enactment, but his friends forgot about him and left him up there. A couple of days later, Chef finds him and takes him off the cross. The following conversation is from the car ride home.
{{quote|
'''Cartman:''' What?
'''Chef:''' It'll really piss you off.
'''Cartman:''' What, tell me!
'''Chef:''' This is just a dream, you're still up on that cross.
'''Cartman:''' ''(he wakes up, still on the cross)'' Oh, dammit! }}
* An episode of ''[[Batman:
** Another episode has Batgirl getting hit by Scarecrow's fear gas and hallucinating a scenario where [[Bad Future|she dies, and Gordon goes to war against Batman]]. The dream ends when Bane, who had just been electrocuted to near-death, uses his last breath to toss the Bat-signal at Batman and Gordon, knocking them both off the top of Police Headquarters.
* The ''[[
** The episode "In the Dreamtime" begins with Chuckie waking up from a dream, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91TKa2133vQ ending like this.] His father explains that there is nothing to fear as nothing can hurt you in a dream. In the next scene Chuckie explains his dream to the babies only for that to be revealed to be a dream. When he next talks to them, he decides that he is still in a dream. Yet when he gets hurt, he realizes it isn't a dream. Chaz then puts his son to bed leading to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNmINEsN6U the final scene of the episode.]
* Subverted in the ''[[
** Played straight in the early Merrie Melody ''Smile, Darn ya, Smile''.
** In ''A Waggily Tale,'' a boy who mistreats his dog is sent to his room by his mother, and he falls asleep dreaming he's a dog; in the end he learns what a dog's life can be like, and learns to be nice to him.
*** In a final twist, the boy's dog remarks, "In truth, I'm just another little boy having a dream."
** ''Scrap Happy Daffy'' (1943) is a cartoon-short-length dream [[Daffy Duck]] has that he's defending his scrap drive pile against Nazis and proceeds to throttle them with superhuman powers. Or was it a dream?
{{quote|
* Brutally subverted in ''[[
** But played straight several times in the Christmas special episode.
** Hank Venture also tries to believe that a mystery involving his missing father and bodyguard and an impending nuclear holocaust is all "just a dream". It's not.
* The ''[[
** The actual moment she realises what's going (the first time), is hilarious.
{{quote|
'''Jeremy''': That would explain the talking zebra.
'''Candace''': Oh, no, I see ''him'' [[Running Gag|all the time]]. }}
** Invoked and subverted in the [[Christmas Episode]]: Phineas [[Catapult Nightmare|sits up in bed]] and exclaims, "It was all a bad dream! [[Saving Christmas|Christmas isn't cancelled]] after all!"
* ''[[
* In the ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom", Dib receives supernatural powers from the alien race of the Meekrob, to help him stop Zim and the Irken invasion. {{spoiler|The episode portrays Dib's following life being a celebrated Hero and the most successful paranormal investigator in the world, until old age, where in a TV interview he confesses having tossed a muffin at Zim in the school cantine once, upon which the moderator pulls of a mask revealing Zim's face laughing at him. Dib wakes up in Zim's laboratory realizing all of this was just a dream, programmed and simulated by Zim.}}
* ''[[
* An episode of ''[[
* One episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'', "Rewriting History", repeatedly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] the increasingly unlikely coincidence that [[Generation Xerox|all the cast's grandparents]] were involved in a plot at the start of the century, with a last minute solution that "seemed like something from a dream" - because that's what it all was. Which is sad, because [[Generation Xerox]] plot seemed pretty cool. Though, oddly, the episode did end with a rather absurd [[Generation Xerox]] being canon.
* ''[[Squidbillies]]'' plays with this trope in the first episode. It first portrays Rusty spending his childhood being [[Raised
* ''[[Eek!
** In "Eek Goes to the Hot Spot", while being chased by Sharky, Eek is run over by an oncoming truck and gets killed, and thus he mistakenly gets sent to hell (instead of heaven). There, Eek confronts [[The Devil Is a Loser|its ruler, Fido]], for a long time, who forces him [[Impossible Task Instantly Accomplished|to clean out an infinitely large litterbox for three seconds]]. Then Eek finishes this task, and happily goes to heaven (with two angels flying down and carrying him away), waving goodbye to Fido. But just then, [[Death Is Cheap|Eek wakes up from all this lying in the backyard]], and gets chased by Sharky once again.
* Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[Sheep in The Big City]]'' where two scenes turns out to be dream
* In the "Leave it to Munchy" story of ''[[PB and J Otter]]'', Munchy Beaver prevents all of Lake Hoohaw from being flooded, but it turns out to be just a dream. This becomes very obvious when the characters are shown freely swimming about, talking to each other and even doing the iconic "Noodle Dance" underwater without any special gear.
* In the episode "On the Run" of ''[[Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat]]'', the protagonist and her friend accidentally wondered into a town where cats are illegal by getting on a traveling puppet show cart. After various scary scenes that would've blown several fuses on the brain of toddler-aged viewers to which the show is targeted, the entire prior happenings are revealed to be a dream. The owner of the puppet show noticed them halfway through the journey and had turned around to return the protagonists to their own town.
* [[Once an Episode|Every single episode]] of the French animated short ''Ernest le vampire'' ends with the title vampire waking up from a [[Catapult Nightmare]].
* ''[[
* The end of Disney [[Wartime Cartoon]] ''[[Der
* This happens a couple of times on ''[[
** Additionally, there was an ''[[
* Happens in an episode of ''[[
* {{spoiler|The better part of episode 20}} in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* The ''[[Jimmy Two
* In ''[[The Smurfs]]'', Lazy, Brainy, and Greedy enter a paradise world behind a waterfall in the episode "Paradise Smurfed", where its master eventually tries to imprison them for his own purposes. Brainy and Greedy escape, but Lazy doesn't. Fortunately, Lazy finds out that it was all just a dream.
* Parodied by ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'': [[The Stinger]] of the final episode cuts to the original 1980s ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' cartoon and reveals that ''Renegades'' was just 80s!Duke's dream.
* One episode of ''[[Young Justice (
** Unlike many instances of this trope, the events have long lasting effects, as it not only tips other characters off to the strength of Megen's abilities, but the cast are shown to be traumatised by the events, as it still feels as they watched all their family and friends die.
* Subverted in ''[[
* The events of the 2003 ''[[
* The 1988 ''Ninja Turtles'' episode "Shredderville" had the Turtles supposedly taken to an alternate world where [[
* The episode "The Binky Show" of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' is this. It ends with
== Real Life ==
* Some people believe that "real life" is really all just a simulation using technology that doesn't yet exist in real life/this simulation. This is based on the belief that technology is likely to get to the point of being able to perfectly simulate real life while making the subject forget real life while in the simulation and that since once this technology exists it will result in more virtual worlds than the one real one the odds are that this is a simulation and not real life.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20081204055726/http://www.simulation-argument.com/ The Simulation Argument] postulates that: it is overwhelmingly likely that ''either'' 1) we are living in an "ancestor simulation" created by our descendants ''or'' 2) humanity can never be technologically advanced enough to stage ancestor simulations. Neither conclusion is very palatable.
** "Perfectly simulate real life while making the subject forget real life"? Why are we talking about ''[[The Sims]]''?
** An interesting counterpoint is the idea that [
* The trope may have arisen from a dream those grieving a deceased loved one often experience. In the dream, the griever learns that the loved one is not dead and that the "death" was nothing but a very bad dream. The griever then wakes up, only to realize that the death really took place and the "miraculous survival" was in fact the dream. Although not every griever experiences this dream, it's common enough to be considered a normal part of the grieving process. Children who experience the dream may not be able to differentiate the dream from reality and therefore may suspect that the deceased person didn't really die (a common fallacy among bereaved children). ''Books'' by reputable scientists have been written on this phenomenon.
** Interestingly, it's possible to have an inversion of
* A [[Subverted Trope|Subversion]]: After [[Daniel Radcliffe]] learned that he had gotten the part of [[Harry Potter (
* The philosophy of existentialism holds that how one views the world is subjective to one's experiences. Existentialists believe that truth is in the eye of the beholder, as is even the existence of the world around us. It's the basis for the scene in ''[[The Matrix]]'' in which the boy in the Oracle's apartment tells Neo, "There is no spoon."
* Confabulation, or false memory syndrome, applies to this trope, as well. Also see this Cracked article: [http://www.cracked.com/article_18704_5-mind-blowing-ways-your-memory-plays-tricks-you.html 5 Mind Blowing Ways Your Memory Plays Tricks On You].
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[[Category:Dream Tropes]]
[[Category:Script Speak]]
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