All Just a Dream: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"I've been having these dreams lately. Like is any of this real, or not?"''|'''Sora''', ''[[Kingdom Hearts (video game)|Kingdom Hearts]]''}}

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 episode -- entireepisode—entire seasons have been known to turn out to be dreams. Often, when the dreamer awakens, the really epic events (death of a major character, etc.) from the "dream season" will [[Reset Button|be reversed]]. Or maybe the [[SchrodingerSchrödinger's Butterfly|"waking up"]] is the dream?

* The delightful Kia Sorento commercial "[http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/kia-sorento-joy-ride/ Joyride Dream].''"

* The second season of ''[[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--thehe—the one the dream is based on--doesnon—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.

* In ''[[Ranma ½|Ranma One Half]]'', Ranma dreams that Jusenkyō dried up and wakes up terrified that he won't be able to lift the curse. He, Saotome, and Happōsai then use a [[Magic Mirror]] to [[Time Travel]]. They first visit a future where Ryōga and Akane are married with children, then visit Jusenkyō to prevent their past selves from falling in the spring in the first place, but Happōsai sabotages it after he's left behind. Then Ranma wakes up again -- theagain—the entire episode was just a dream, and the intro was a dream within a dream. He's understandably paranoid that he hasn't really woken up yet.

* The episode "Haruhi in Wonderland" of ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' is all Haruhi's dream, but though the ending of the episode treats it as "[[All Just a Dream]]", it's obvious from the beginning that it is either a dream or at least a nonsense episode based on [[Alice in Wonderland]]. What makes the episode really neat is its use of [[Fridge Logic|dream logic]] and the way she wakes up by slowly realizing that people and places are not exactly as they are in real life. The final realization that causes her to awaken is {{spoiler|trying to hug her mother who was already dead when the series began}}.

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Tomoya]] of ''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]'s'' first season has a dream that can only be described as trippy, of course to him it all seemed fairly natural. Makes one wonder what it was that Kotori put in the pie he ate before he passed out.

* The ''[[One Piece]]'' short "Jiginai Time" (or "No Respect Time") apparently takes place entirely within the dream of an incredibly bored, talking moai, much to the main characters' chagrin.

* 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!"<br />Noteworthy in that the sensory deprivation experiment was not a [[Retcon]], but was ''itself'' a framing device in an actual Silver Age story. An alternative explanation provided for some of these episodes is the insinuation that they were hallucinations brought about by exposure to Joker toxin, Scarecrow's fear gas, etc.

* 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.

* In ''[[Nobody Dies (Fanfic)|Nobody Dies]]'', {{spoiler|much of chapter 66 is Shinji having a dream (really more of a nightmare) about Zeruel slaughtering everyone.}}

** Forget about that, {{spoiler|the ENTIRE''entire'' 4thfourth season is just a dream, made by Arael.}}

* 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|''[[Dragon BallDragonball Evolution]]''{{'}}s Goku!!!}} The short story is on [http://rulkout1993.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2y63de deviantART.]

* The ''[[Star Trek: NewPhase VoyagesII]]'' episode "To Serve All My Days", involving a delayed effect of [[Rapid Aging]] that afflicts Chekov to the point where he may have died, {{spoiler|in the final scene following the closing credits suggests that most of the whole episode was just a dream he had}}.

* ''[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/545/Equestria Equestria]'' is a ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' fan fiction that suggests that the eponymous world is {{spoiler|actually the elaborate fantasy world that was to be the [[The Verse|setting]] of a series of stories planned by a woman who was emotionally abused by her mother. She never got around to writing it and the emotional abuse that she suffered drove her into her dream world.}}.

* One "episode" of ''[[Calvin at Camp]]'' features Calvin falling asleep and dreaming that he is in an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Lost]]. The readers are aware the entire time that it is a dream.

* ''Stay (1996)''

* Throughout ''[[Pan's Labyrinth|Pans Labyrinth]]'', there are strong suggestions that certain aspects of the plot may be All Just a Dream. [[Word of God]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20090228234339/http://twitchfilm.net/archives/008507.html debunks that possibility], though that same god also explicitly tells you not to listen to him so in the end it looks like nobody's happy.

* 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=/20060618/REVIEWS08/606180302%2F20060618%2FREVIEWS08%2F606180302 Roger Ebert's review] talks at length on the subject.

* ''[[The Descent (Filmfilm)|The Descent]]''. Did the crawlers exist, or was Sarah unable to handle the claustrophobia and stress of the already bad situation, causing her to imagine them and kill all her friends? All that can actually be said is that there was dreaming going on; where it started or ended is never made clear. (Their existence is confirmed in the sequel.)

* In ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]'', a dystopian sci-fi film, {{spoiler|the entire, increasingly weird, ending of the film is revealed to be a fantasy in the mind of protagonist to "escape" from being [[Cold-Blooded Torture|tortured]] in a scene near the end of the film.}}

* 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!}}<br />They didn't even try to play it straight. When he wakes up on the pavement, {{spoiler|the cut he received in his "dream" is still there.}}

* ''[[The Matrix]]''. The entire world the film starts in is [[All Just a Dream]], albeit an artificially constructed one induced by an empire of evil computers.

* ''[[Labyrinth]]''. Invoked and then subverted: Sarah, after hours of weirdness, finds herself in a place that looks exactly like her room. She cries out in delight, jumps on the bed and wraps the pillow around her head... then looks up in wonder and realizes the whole thing was just a big dream! She goes to open the door to the hallway... and is greeted by a goblin, while the other side of the door is a junk heap at night-time.<br />Played straighter by the end, where you could interpret the entire thing as a dream, then subverted ''again'' when {{spoiler|the creatures show up in her room and everyone has a dance party while Jareth watches in owl form outside the window.}}

* Each sequence of ''[[Film/Living In Oblivion|Living In Oblivion]]'' is revealed to be [[All Just a Dream]], a dream which is referenced in the following sequence. In the final sequence is about trying to film a dream sequence important to the production, and lampshades tropes typical of filmed dream sequences.

* 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, <ref> during the movie, he shoots up on heroin. The entire rest of the movie turns out to be a hallucination he experiences in the [[Title Drop|13 seconds]] it takes him to die of an overdose.</ref>

* "Film/''[[Robot Monster -1953]]'' - {{spoiler|Ultimately the youngest member of the family, a boy, apparently wakes up after suffering a mild concussion, revealing that the bulk of the film had presumably been a dream..}}

* [[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.<br />Unless, of course, it ''was'' all just a dream, and Covenant merely hallucinated the Creator offering to help save him. In that, his "miraculous recovery" in the hospital would simply have been due to the fact that he had essentially regained his will to live (as established in his conversation with the Creator). This is even more implicit when you realize that Covenant is a writer (and thus, is a Creator himself), so both the Creator and the Despiser may simply be embodiments of his own personality. The Hile Troy and Mhoram POVs don't necessarily negate this, since Covenant never manages to prove that Troy was "real", and it's possible to passively dream things happening that the dreamer wouldn't necessarily be aware of. But as Covenant himself suggests, it doesn't matter whether it's a dream or not, because either way, it's ''important''. The later books tend to make a much better argument for everything being real, but the original trilogy does a very good job, even right up to the very end, of keeping the paradox.

* [[G. K. Chesterton|GK Chesterton]]'s ''[[The Man Who Was Thursday]]: A Nightmare''. You can't say he didn't warn you -- andyou—and he woke very oddly.

* In [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]' ''[[The Great Divorce]]'', the narrator meets with [[George MacDonald]] -- who—who [[Talking in Your Dreams|solemnly warns him]] that it is All Just a Dream and he must make it clear when he tells the story in [[Real Life]].

{{quote| ''Tiffany sighed. "And then she woke up and it was all a dream."<br />

* 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]].

{{quote| ''He turned back uncertainly, to stare at the cryptic tower he had just left. Was he bewitched and enchanted? Had he dreamed all that had seemed to have passed? As he looked he saw the gleaming tower sway against the crimson dawn, its jewel-crusted rim sparkling in the growing light, and crash into shining shards.''}}

* ''[[An Elegy for the Still-living]]'' implies that this is the case without ever openly stating it, and the ending is left rather open ended on the subject.

* 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.}}

** For a true [[Mind Screw]], count how many times this happens in "I Live In Your Basement".

* Sent up by Robert Rankin in ''[[Far -Fetched Fiction|Armageddon, The Musical]]''. A planet of aliens have been controlling Earth so they can watch us as a soap opera. [[Executive Meddling|Meddling executives]] decide that allowing [[World War III]] was a mistake and try to [[ReContinuity BootReboot|reboot]] the series by having [[Elvis]] wake up and discover it was all a dream of what ''would'' happen if he joined the army instead of lending his voice to the anti-war movement. In minutes, the whole story turns into an [[Anachronism Stew]].

* 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-Out|shout outs]]s as linkage. [http://www.poobala.com/crossoverlist.html Another crossover database site] gives a more conservative estimate, setting fewer than a hundred shows within young Tommy's mind.

* 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]].

* The second failed resurrection of ''Crossroads'',<ref>Buried, as it were, at the crossroads.</ref>, a British [[Soap Opera]], ended by revealing the entire series had been the dream of a supermarket worker. Whether the first resurrection was just a dream as well is up to viewer interpretation.

* The season 1 finale of ''[[Reno 911!]]'' ended on a [[Cliff Hanger]], which was revealed in the season 2 premiere to be a dream, in what turned out to be a [[Dream Within a Dream|dream sequence itself]] Dangle wakes up from the dream, to discover himself in bed with Kenny Rogers. This turns out to be a dream Garcia is having in the meeting room at the sheriff's station.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Happy Days]]'' somehow managed to [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' from an All Just a Dream episode. Though [[That Was Not a Dream]] as shown by Mork's presence at the end of the episode, where he told his contact on Ork that he tricked "the human (Richie Cunningham)" tointo ''thinkthinking'' he had been dreaming. Mork also visited in a subsequent episode during the run of ''Mork and Mindy'' to tell Richie that he was living on Earth in "the future" (i.e. [[The Seventies]] when ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' took place, and when both ''[[Happy Days]]'' and ''Mork and Mindy'' were made and first aired).

** The episode "They Call It Potsie Love" had Joanie--whoJoanie—who had developed a crush on Potsie--fallingPotsie—falling asleep and dreaming she marries him.

* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]''

* Similarly, in an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', an alien artifact which turns out to be a monument to a long-dead race gives Picard the experience of living the life of one of its makers in less than an hour. In an unusual twist, Picard leaves the dream with at least one skill he didn't have before entering it -- thatit—that of [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|playing a recorder-like instrument]] his dream-self was fond of. Slightly different from most examples in that Picard starts off knowing that the experience isn't real, but it lasts so long for him that he forgets.

* A slight variation of this happens to Commander Riker in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Frame of Mind".

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' plays with this trope a lot in "Barge of the Dead". B'Elanna Torres survives a shuttle accident, only to find it's all a dream and that she's actually on a barge taking dishonored souls to the Klingon afterlife.

{{quote| '''B'Elanna:''' But I was on ''Voyager'' with my crew!<br />

'''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.<br />

'''B'Elanna:''' ''(seeing the helmsman, Kortar)'' He slaughtered my friends!<br />

::After being rejected in favour of her mother, B'Elanna wakes up in ''Voyager'''s sickbay with the same hand injury she received on the Barge. She then has to convince her shipmates she didn't imagine the whole thing, and that she has to return to the Barge (i.e. [[Flatline Plotline|recreate her near-death experience]]) in order to save her mother.

{{quote| '''B'Elanna:''' Look at this -- The eleventh tome of Klavek. It's a story about Kahless returning from the dead ''still bearing a wound from the afterlife''. A warning that ''what he experienced wasn't a dream''. The same thing happened to me!}}

** In the finale of the [[Life Onon Mars|American version]] implies {{spoiler|the entire series, ''including'' the 2008 sequences in the first episode, being the dream of an astronaut in hibernation on his way to Mars}}.

* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' season 6 episode "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S6 /E17 Normal Again|Normal Again]]," it is suggested that the entire series is a [[Cuckoo Nest|hallucination of the main character]], who is living in a mental institution and has power fantasies of saving the world with her imaginary friends. The episode's end leaves room for interpretation as to which existence (Buffy's life as a vampire slayer, or her life as a mental patient) is really All Just a Dream. [[Word of God|Joss Whedon]] [[Mind Screw|has outright stated that either one is a definite possibility]].

* 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.

** An even more sadistic episode -- "{{spoiler|The Midnight Sun}}" -- turns—turns out to be just a dream in the end. However, {{spoiler|reality does not turn out to be much better than the dream. The protagonist dreams about a world in which the Earth is burning up as it's falling into the sun, and wakes up in a world that's freezing to death as the Earth is falling away from the sun}}.

* Or US [[Soap Opera|Soap Operas]]s. The soap [[Sunset Beach]] concluded with its two supercouples getting married in a double wedding, only to have the heroine wake up and have it revealed that the last two years (the duration of the soap) were a dream. . .only to have the trope played twice when she wakes up ''again'' to learn that ''this'' was a dream and that she and the hero are happily married rather than the turbulence of the past two years.

{{quote| "What have you done to my little cable boy?!?"}}

* A ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' Digital Short parodied this. [[EllenElliot Page|A woman]] has a frightening dream about a zombie, and then wakes up and sees it, which then turns out to be All Just a Dream for the ZOMBIE''zombie''. This then happens numerous times, ending with a woman waking up from a horrible dream sleeping next to Dracula.

* A segment on ''[[The Daily Show]]'' featured [[Steve Carell]]'s greatest fears (including [[Stephen Colbert]] [[Hilarious in Hindsight|taking over the show]]), leading to him waking up in terror -- nextterror—next to Jon Stewart.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]''. At the beginning of "Collaborators" Adama, Tigh and Roslin are telling Dr. Baltar that they forgive his [[The Quisling|actions on New Caprica]]. It's only when Roslin adds that she finds him desirable that a suddenly terrified Baltar realises he's still in deep s** t. Sure enough, he then wakes up on a Cylon baseship.

* 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 [[All Just a Dream]] right away, but features a [[Framing Device]] within the dream - Pete telling the story of how his mouth was shrunk.

* Spoofed in the final episode of ''[[Ace of Cakes]]'' after building a giant cake replica of the BTTF Delorean the final scene has Duff noticing the lights in the flux capacitor are on the fritz so he opens it up and messes with the wires, next scene he wakes up at his job at a factory, turns to Geoff and tells him about the wierd dream he had 'where you and I worked at a cake shop making all sorts of wierd cakes"

* In ''[[Dollhouse]]'', the events in the Attic are [[All Just a Dream]]. That does ''not'' make it any better. {{spoiler|You'll forever be trapped in an endless loop of your worst fear, unlikely to ever wake up. All the while the Rossum Corporation is using your mind as a giant computer for their own ends. Even worst; one of the co-founders of Rossum dreams of an oncoming apocalypse, and he knows it almost 100% certain to become reality.}}

* The last episode, "Home", of ''[[The Legend of Dick and Dom]]'' starts with [[All Just a Dream]]- the heroes return home in triumph from their quest, to acclaim and cheering crowds... and then it all turns a bit odd... and then they wake up, to find the [[Big Bad]] has stolen the [[MacGuffin]] and put them to sleep (and apparently given them a communal dream) to delay their pursuit.

* [http://www.mesozoicmind.com/ "Mesozoic Mind"], by the Charmers.]

{{quote| ''Last night I had a crazy dream, I fell out of my bed! I missed the floor entirely, I fell through time instead!''}}

{{quote| ''I heard a tappin' on the window as I woke up''}}

{{quote| ''I thought that I heard you laughing<br />

''I thought that I heard you sing<br />

''I think I thought I saw you try<br />

''But that was just a dream<br />

''That was just a dream'' }}

* The music video for [[Evanescence]]'s "Bring Me To Life" suggests this -- thethis—the main action is interspersed with shots of Amy asleep and apparently dreaming, and the video ends with her asleep.

* [[Dokken]]'s video for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee2YFJKYF8Y "Dream Warriors"] winds up being a nightmare that [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy Krueger]] is having.

* The video for [[Maroon 5]]'s "Makes Me Wonder" features this. With gratuitous [[Fan Service]] .

** 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 ''Joe90[[Joe 90]]'', two of ''[[UFO]]'' as noted under Live-Action TV, and one of ''Space1999[[Space: 1999]]'' where the events of the episode turn out to be dreams, hallucinations or implanted visions. The ''[[Thunderbirds]]'' episode "Security Hazard" manages to invert this by having International Rescue convince a boy that his real-life trip to Tracy Island has only been a dream.

{{quote| ''If we shadows have offended,<br />

''Think but this, and all is mended,<br />

''That you have but slumber'd here<br />

''While these visions did appear.<br />

''And this weak and idle theme,<br />

''No more yielding but a dream. }}

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'', the whole game is a dream {{spoiler|of the Wind Fish.}} In this case, it is actually learned about three-quarters of the way through the game, rather than right at the end, and the bosses of the last few dungeons constantly remind the player of it. This adds more emotion, as Link knows that {{spoiler|the island and its inhabitants will disappear once the Wind Fish wakes up.}} And it gets REALLY weird if the player beats the game without ever dying; if that's pulled off, after the credits {{spoiler|Marin is seen in the form of a seagull, reflecting a wish she had told Link about earlier}}. [[Word of God]] confirmed that the events of the game DID acually happen. Basically, the events were a dream, but the real world and the dream world were colliding at the time. Therefore, the events of the game erase themselves once Link saves the day and the events become a dream but said events but have happened otherwise existence would have collapsed. So in other words, this is a rare example in which the events were a dream, yet the dream itself ''was'' real.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass|Phantom Hourglass]]'' '''looks''' like it pulls this in the ending cutscenecut-scene, only to have Link pull out one of the artifacts he found... and then see one of the characters he met. Judging from the dialogue near the end of the game, it's more likely an alternate universe.

* In ''[[Super Mario Bros. 2]]'', upon completing the game, the characters celebrate... and then we see that Mario has been dreaming the entire game. Seems hokey today, but at the time (1988) having ANY sort of twist ending in a game was pretty revolutionary. Most of the enemies themselves and other elements do exist in the ''Mario'' universe, though, indicating that the dream is based on what the titular character has seen through his life. Wart was most likely an actual creation from Mario's imagination, though.

* ''[[Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People|Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People]]'' sort of pulls this in the final episode. Having slain Trogdor, whose very existence was causing the entire [[Homestar Runner]] world to fuse with the Videlectrix video game world, Strong Bad wakes up outside the ''Trogdor!'' arcade cabinet with everyone standing by him. He starts telling them about this wild dream he had [[And You Were There|pointing out how everyone standing there was part of it]] -- until—until he notices that Trogdor is standing right there. Trogdor immediately proceeds to run amok while the credits roll.

* In ''[[A WitchsWitch's Tale]]'', {{spoiler|the entire first playthrough is this, brought on by Queen Alice to test Liddell. The [[New Game+]] is the real adventure, and contains story elements not seen in the first one.}}

** 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 ''[[Rule of Rose]]''; the events were real, but messed by the protagonist's subconsciousness: Jennifer was a young child, not a 19-year old teenager during the actual events, the events did not take place on a giant airship and the imps were just creepy dolls and doodles and/or other children wearing masks, not inhuman monsters. {{spoiler|Unfortunately the Stray Dog was real.}}

* The chapter {{spoiler|Sleepless Night}} from ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' turns out to be a [[Dream Within a Dream]] when {{spoiler|Madison wakes up after having her throat slashed}}.

* ''[[SuguriSUGURI|Acceleration of Suguri]]'' has the "Pudding Deity" storyline, which is a dream of Saki's, revolving around a war over the "ultimate weapon": Pudding.

* Conversed in ''[[Escape From St. Mary's|Escape From St Marys]]''. Two teachers disagree on whether it's an acceptable ending for a story, and the wo turn to blows.

* This [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20090429062720/http://qwantz.com/archive/001183.html episode] of ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' satirizes the trope quite nicely.

* ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2008/12/11/episode-1070-what-were-you-expecting/ had one of these] as a fake final episode, since its author loves [[Anticlimax|jokes that are on the reader]]. Except that what was intended to cause [[Internet Backdraft]] instead resulted in numerous fans genuinely pleased with the horrible ending, as it fit the comic perfectly, and ''thanking'' the author for years of free entertainment.

* ''[[Silent Hill: Promise]]'' uses this in the beginning, before getting to the real horror.

* [http://explosm.net/comics/1590/ This] ''[[Cyanide and& Happiness]]'' comic plays with this trope.

* [[Evil Diva (webcomic)|Evil Diva]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20111117131934/http://www.evildivacomics.com/?p=282 Victorious and popular, as she isn't]. Apparently you should [[Be Careful What You Wish For]].

* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20120527073040/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00519.html hoping things turned out well.]

* In ''[[Minion Comics]]'', there's a [https://web.archive.org/web/20130122160601/http://www.meetmyminion.com/?p=921 short dream sequence] involving Dingus's fantasies about predators, aliens, and the holy grail.

* In [[Greg (webcomic)|Greg]], Greg dreams he's a swashbuckling slayer of beasts and a suave ladies man, too bad the reality is so different, [http://gregcomic.com/2012/02/23/world-of-gregcraft-page-14/ here].

* In ''[[L's Empire|Ls Empire]]'', the [[Zombie Apocalypse]] during the April Fools Day special was actually a movie directed by [[M. Night Shyamalan]].

* Most of the second half of ''[[The Tale of the Exile|The Third Night]]'' takes places during Gaven's hallucinagen-fueled [[Mushroom Samba]]. [[SchrodingerSchrödinger's Butterfly|It's an open question what events actually happen to him and what's all just in his head]].

{{quote| "You mean the whole last season was a ''dream''?! Gimme a break! They [[Jump the Shark|shoulda just had babies]], and then the babies shoulda gotten married."}}

{{quote| '''Church:''' Huh? Oh, thank God. It was all a dream. All a dream. All a dreamiemiemiemiemiemiemie...<br />

** Another of the alternate endings did something very similar except, instead of being a dream, the whole series was an [[X BoxXbox]] Live game played by the characters.

* 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.

{{quote| 598. Any adventure that ends up with my character being worshiped as an orc god was just a dream. Retroactively if need be.<br />

** In the episode after Mr. Burns is shot, Smithers wakes up in his apartment to find [[Shout-Out|Mr. Burns in the shower]], perfectly fine, and concludes with relief that it was all a dream. Burns then informs Smithers that they are the stars of a 60s detective show called ''Speedway Squad'', at which point Smithers wakes up again and realises, "Wait, ''that'' was all a dream!" -- Mr—Mr. Burns really has been shot. Smithers then remarks, "Hey, then maybe I ''haven't'' become a hideous drunken wreck, and --" only to realise that he's in the exact same state he started the episode in, and his mouth still tastes like an ashtray.

{{quote| '''Producer:''' ''(holds up script)'' You idiot! Pink pages always mean a dream!<br />

'''Moe:''' I thought dreams was on goldenrod.<br />

** Happens in "Treehouse of Horror" episodes which are already [[A Day Atat the Bizarro]]. In TOH II, Homer has a nightmare that ends with Mr. Burns' body being crushed by a robot. He awakes to find his boss' head stitched to his shoulder. In TOH V, Bart finds the events of "Nightmare Cafeteria" were just a dream. Marge assures him he has nothing to fear except the fog that turns people inside out. In TOH XVI, "Bartificial Intelligence" is a dream of Homer's while possessed by the devil. He's just happy that gets him out of work.

{{quote| '''Bender:''' But I destroyed the technology of the world! I ran on the beach and felt the sand between my foot-cups!<br />

'''Technician:''' ''(shrugging)'' Everyone experiences the upgrade a little differently.<br />

'''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?<br />

** 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?]] -- tells—tells her that he can't stay, as everything on her side of the story was just a kid's dream. Her response? "I know, but let me just pretend as long as I can." (Aha! So ''Miss Crabtree'' was imagining [[I Know You Know I Know|that Stan was imagining that Cartman was imagining]] that the bus was teetering on the edge of a cliff! Clear as mud.)

{{quote| '''Chef:''' Eric, I have to tell you something and it's really gonna bum you out.<br />

'''Cartman:''' What?<br />

'''Chef:''' It'll really piss you off.<br />

'''Cartman:''' What, tell me!<br />

'''Chef:''' This is just a dream, you're still up on that cross.<br />

** 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.]

{{quote| '''Nazis:''' (''in their sub, on top of Daffy's scrap pile'') Hey! Next time you dream, leave us out of it!}}

{{quote| '''Candace''': Oh, I get it. This is all a dream!<br />

'''Jeremy''': That would explain the talking zebra.<br />

** 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!" -- only—only for [[Reveal Shot|the camera to pan out]] to Isabella, who says that no matter how many times he tries that, it's not going to change anything.

* ''[[Eek! theThe Cat]]'' has an episode called "Rocketship to Jupiter", in which Eek gets a large box dropped onto him by Sharky, and ends up in [[Show Within a Show|the Squishy Bears]] World, where the Squishy Bears leave their rocketship and house. He saves the Squishy Bears, but is met by the Giant Who Thinks Bears Might Taste Good, so he tricks the Giant when it's raining (by Professor Wiggly). After that, Eek and the Squishy Bears try to fly to Jupiter on their rocketship, but the lever was mistakenly switched to the sun by one of the bears, so they fly to the sun instead, where Eek is about to burn. But then, Eek was suddenly waken up by JB, who serves him a bowl of cat food. He realizes it was all a dream.

* Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[Sheep in The Big City]]'' where two scenes turns out to be dream sequences -- muchsequences—much to the annoyance of the [[Narrator]], who complains about this being "[[Rage Against the Author|lazy writing]]!"

* ''[[Danger Mouse]]'': In the episode "Danger Mouse Saves The World...Again," things kept getting worse until DM was stuck in a room full of bombs and explosives -- thenexplosives—then his alarm woke him up.

* Happens in an episode of ''[[Cat DogCatDog]]'', where Cat plans to make Dog and Shriek fall for each other, hoping that the Greaser Dogs will thereby leave him alone. The rest of the episode is Cat's dream of what the consequences are: Dog marries Shriek, which causes the Greaser Dogs to move into their house and generally making Cat's life a living hell.

* ''[[Re BootReBoot]]'' episode "Number 7". A [[Mind Screw]] episode which directly parodies ''[[The Prisoner]]'', including a version of that shows opening sequence. Given what happens during the [[Mind Screw]], this trope is a [[Tropes Are Not Bad|welcome sight]].

** 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.

* The episode "The Binky Show" of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' is this. It ends with {{spoiler|Binky actually showing up. The announcer tells that Binky was going to do a number of things, including embarrassing Jon by singing to him in a restaurant.}}

** [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.

** Interestingly, it's possible to have an inversion of that--someonethat—someone dreams of losing a loved one (or ones), only to wake up and realize it was [[All Just a Dream]]. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Heartwarming]] moments may follow along with a LOT of relief.