Catapult Nightmare: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|"''[[Creepy Children Singing|Bart, it's time to end this dream / And don't forget the standard scream!]]''"

 

Whenever a character awakes from a nightmare on screen, he will ''fling'' himself up from lying down, while panting and looking around confused. Think carefully: how many times do you remember waking up from a nightmare by flinging your torso off the bed? Probably never, right? When most people wake up from one, they lie stunned and confused for a few seconds getting reoriented before looking around. The most you might get is a gasp and a full-body twitch. But that would be boring on screen, so anyone with a bad dream has to halfway fling himself out of bed to show the audience it is a dream. Used particularly during an [[All Just a Dream]] sequence, to emphasize that the previous scene didn't happen. [[Rule of Cool|Besides, it's just cool.]]

 

{{examples}}

* As pictured above, it happens to Owaki in ''[[The Enigma of Amigara Fault]]''. The dream might just disturb anyone who reads it too.

* ''[[Ranma ½]]''. This pretty much describes every single nightmare Ranma has ever had. Hell, it seems that every time Ranma has a dream in either the anime or the manga, it turns into a nightmare for him. Including (but not limited to):

* In ''[[Saint Beast]]'', Goh has one about the failed rebellion at the start of the first OVA.

 

* Fiendishly subverted in ''[[The Sandman]]'', in which the title character sentences an enemy to the curse of "eternal waking," a neverending coma where he dreams he is waking from a horrible nightmare, only to find he is in an even worse one. This causes him to wake up again, only to be confronted with another nightmare. The curse sentences him to live this way for eternity, with each nightmare a little worse than the last.

* In the ''[[Batman]]'' story ''Going Sane'', a normal-looking, reformed and amnesiac Joker has frequent nightmares of [[Bad Dreams|bats and clowns trying to drown him in madness]]. He would wake up from these dreams and yell "drowning!"

* ''[[Little Ego]]'', being a parody of ''[[Little Nemo]]'', always has the heroine waking like this. However, in Ego's case, she is not waking from a nightmare but instead an [[Erotic Dream]].

* Yorrick of ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'' wakes up from a bad (and possibly prophetic) dream like this, and not for the first time, judging by 355's comment: "I wouldn't like to be in your head."

* In ''[[Le Scorpion]]'', Armando experiences one at the start of the album ''The Stone Cross''.

 

 

* The Baby Nightmare sequence in ''[[Shrek]] the Third''.

* ''[[Mulan]]'': Mulan quietly dashes off to the Chinese Army in the middle of the night. Only Grandma Fa, who is closer to the Fa family ancestors, senses something is wrong when she wakes up supposedly not too long after this.

* ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]] 2''. Woody, after he wakes up from a nightmare where Andy throws him away.

* Francis from ''[[Felidae]]'', after he has a nightmare about Gregory Mandel tormenting him with zombie cat puppets.

* Averted in ''[[I, Robot (film)|I Robot]]'', where Del Spooner simply opens his eyes after a nightmare. And he's woken by his alarm clock rather than the nightmare itself.

* ''[[Star Wars]]''

* ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'': Director Tim Burton commented that Johnny Depp does some very good fainting/waking up scenes.

* ''[[The Matrix]]'': After Neo gets the bug put in him, and possibly when he jacks out of the Construct program in the real world hovership after learning the truth about the Matrix.

* Averted and then played straight during Picard's [[Dream Within a Dream]] in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''. When he falsely wakes up from his first nightmare he simply opens his eyes while sitting in his desk chair; when he wakes up for real, he jumps up from his bed.

* ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'': Buttercup wakes to fill the screen with her frightened "gasp of awakening" directly after the scene featuring "the ancient boo-er."

* ''Dreamscape''. Happens to the President of the U.S. twice. He wakes up yelling after having nightmares of his wife running away from a nuclear explosion and being attacked by mutant children in a post-nuclear environment.

* Butch from ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' does it twice.

* Happens several times to Leonardo DiCaprio's character in ''Shutter Island''. On one occasion, however, it is part of a [[Dream Within a Dream]], from which the character later awakens (for real) by simply opening his eyes whilst still lying down.

* At the beginning of ''[[Total Recall]]'', Douglas Quaid wakes up with a jolt from a nightmare about dying of suffocation in the Martian atmosphere.

* ''[[The Fugitive]]''. After escaping, Kimble has a nightmare about the murder of his wife while sleeping in the woods. At the end of the nightmare he wakes up and sits upright.

* ''[[Braveheart]]'': [[Face Heel Turn|After he betrays William Wallace at Falkirk]], the Scottish Noble Mornay has a nightmare in which Wallace is riding towards him, fire blazing all around and the most terrifying [[Death Glare]] ever. He wakes up, but moments later, Wallace actually rides into his bedroom and gives Mornay [[Epic Flail|a face full of flail]].

 

* Lampshaded in Emma Bull's ''[[Border Town|Finder]]'' when the protagonist wakes up violently from [[Another Man's Terror|a dream of someone else's death]]: "They do it in movies. Gunshot on the soundtrack and a fast cut to an actor, sitting up in bed. It's real. I did it."

* [[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]] has done this on occasion. Violently thrashing around, actually. But considering the unusual circumstances....

* Dink in the ''[[A to Z Mysteries]]'' book ''The Deadly Dungeon'', has a nightmare and then "bolt[s] upright in his bed."

 

* Chris Elliot starred in ''Action Family!'', a one-shot detective drama/family sitcom mashup—he has a hollering catapult nightmare wake-up from a dream where he's being spanked by Abe Lincoln.

* ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' is the queen of this trope. In one episode, the title character gets two of these in a row (it was a dream within a dream), then a third one happens to a supporting character (so it was a dream within a dream within somebody else's person's dream!)

** Averted in most of the season one episodes where Sam is having prophetic nightmares.

 

* Occurs [[Dream Within a Dream|three]] [[Rule of Three|times]] at the end of [http://youtu.be/oiMZa8flyYY this] music video of [[OK Go]] and [[The Muppets]].

 

* Used to clever effect in ''[[FoxTrot]]'', where Paige experiences a standard "falling" dream. Midway through, she realizes that it's a dream, and concludes that she'll wake up before hitting the ground. Sure, enough, she does. The last panel has her realizing she was right... as she falls out of bed.

* ''[[Little Nemo]]'': Given how often the title [[Pajama-Clad Hero]] wakes up suddenly from his dreams (sometimes falling from the bed), he's a regular user of this trope.

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' adventure I10 ''Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill''.

** At the beginning of the module, the [[PC]]s each have a terrible nightmare, then wake up sitting bolt upright in bed, screaming and covered in cold sweat.

** After the Creature first appears to the Alchemist in a dream, most of the possible results have the Alchemist bolting upright in bed when he wakes up.

 

* ''[[Miss Saigon]]'': Chris does this upon wakening from his nightmare about Kim. Kim herself often does this (depending on the actress) after her nightmare about how she and Chris were separated during the fall of Saigon.

 

* Combined with a [[Repeat Cut]] in ''[[Haunting Ground]]'', when Fiona wakes up in the castle bedroom after Riccardo (the housekeeper) informs her of the car accident that killed her parents.

* Happens in the Unlimited Blade Works route of ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', after Shirou dreams of walking through a [[Field of Blades]] and looks down at his arm, only to see that it's turned into a sword.

* Shepard starts having these during ''[[Mass Effect 3]]''. They involve {{spoiler|following a kid s/he saw die in the opening through a forest, hearing the voices of dead characters from earlier in the series.}}

 

* In Kirbopher's April Fool's Flash animation ''$eG@'', four versions of Sonic do this in succession. Seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp8CuOgGr8s here].

* Lampshaded in one ''Evil Josh and Billy'' episode. Evil Josh at first does this, but then notes that nobody wakes up like that in real life, then realizes that [[Dream Within a Dream|this is also a dream.]] Sure enough, he's right. {{spoiler|Unfortunately he was asleep in the middle of driving a car and immediately crashes after he wakes up.}}

 

* [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1169 This] ''[[Questionable Content]]'' strip. Happens twice, the first one with a [[Dream Within a Dream]] featuring [[Man, I Feel Like a Woman]].

* Vaarsuvius gets one on [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0623.html this page] of ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''.

** Nightmare? [http://www.menagea3.net/d/20100513.html Here ya go, Yuki] ([[NSFW]]).

** [http://www.menagea3.net/d/20101030.html Make that two].

* [http://www.ainself.net/irony/get_medieval/get_medieval0528.gif This] [[Shout-Out]] in ''[[Get Medieval]]''.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140109073340/http://somethingpositive.net/sp06012010.shtml Davan mistimes his] in ''[[Something*Positive]]''.

** [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004895 It happened again.]

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''

** He actually does it earlier (in 2002) in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140419134032/http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=021119 this strip] when he dreams about a satanic [[Catgirl]] [[Monster Clown]].

* Averted in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'': [http://egscomics.com/?date=2004-08-26 Tedd has a dream] that startles him but is unable to sit up because Grace is sleeping on him (although it's possible that he wouldn't have sat up anyway), and [http://egscomics.com/?date=2005-04-23 Justin has a dream] that wakes him up but doesn't make him sit up immediately.

* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' has an [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1849#comic unending sequence of these].

 

** Subverted in the second ''Treehouse of Horror'' special, where Homer didn't catapult awake because he had a nightmare, but rather because Bart bit him.

*** Also humorously played straight at the end of Bart's nightmare in the same special, not because anything generally scary happened, but to Bart it's a wonderful dream, until Homer kisses him, which causes him to wake up screaming long and loud (complete with the camera zooming into his screaming black mouth.)

* Ron in the ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode "Ill-Suited".

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' where Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all do this... [[Journey to the Center of the Mind|triggered by Danny]] in order to save them from eternal dreaming helmets.

** Episode "Bwah My Nose": Hank wakes up normally after a bad dream.

** Also in the episode "Sug Night" after his second naked Nancy dream he wakes up screaming and Peggy asks what's wrong and he covers it by saying he hears Ladybird whining.

** Adamaï also has such a wake-up in episode 24, after receiving a dream warning from the Tree of Life.

* ''[[The Boondocks]]'' goes here from time to time; most notably Tom's [[Prison Rape]] nightmare.

* The ''[[Rugrats]]'' episode "In the Dreamtime" has two. The first one happens to Chuckie early in the episode, and the second one happens to Chuckie's dad at the end of the episode.

{{quote|"I'm not Stu! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"}}

* This has happened to both of the title characters in ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' at different points, most notably in the episode "Snowball".

* Zachary pulls one of these after a [[Nightmare Sequence]] (revealed later to be [[Mind Rape]]) in the ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "Psychocrypt." Having the [[God Save Us From the Queen|Queen of the Crowns]] invading one's head on a nightly basis for at least a week couldn't have been comfortable.

* In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_TZUepk8u0 the intro] of the first two seasons, ''[[Eek! The Cat]]'' (in his superhero outfit) saves Annabelle from the burning house, but his cape gets caught on fire, so he and Annabelle fall down. This cuts to Eek flinging up in a bed and screaming briefly, and then he looks around, wipes the sweat off his forehead and smiles, before jumping off the bed and falling.

** In the second episode "Bearz 'n the Hood", Eek had a dream in which he is hanging out with one of his owners, Wendy Elizabeth, and has her autograph finally signed. Then they go to the moon, but Eek's head grows bigger because there's no air, and as he screams in horror, [[Your Head Asplode|his head explodes]]. After that, Eek wakes up [[Overly Long Scream|screaming for a long time]], but without flinging up. It turns out that one of the Squishy Bears made Eek wake up, and tries to chew him out, but Eek still screams.

 

{{reflist}}