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{{trope}}
[[File:Whisper of the heart dream sequence.jpg|frame|link=Whisper of the Heart]]
{{quote|''I want to see you clearly, come closer to this
''But all I remember, are the dreams in the mist
''These dreams, go on when I close my eyes
''Every second of the night, I live another life.''
|'''Heart''', "These Dreams"}}
The images are slightly blurred, the music has harps or ominous over-tones, and might be shot from a first-person perspective. The last word of every sentence echoes (echoes, echoes). Yep, your character is having a Dream Sequence. Expect the action in this dream sequence to be a thinly disguised look at the dreamer's internal dilemmas—their rocky romances, the choices they are facing, the regrets they've left behind, yes, the Dream Sequence is an excellent excuse for a short-term excursion into a character's head.
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* In the manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'', Chrono has a dream in which he's standing on a battlefield littered with bodies, and Aion holds out an outstretched hand and urges him to come. It reflects Chrono's troubled past and foreshadows flashbacks we get to see in later volumes.
* In ''[[Princess Tutu]]'', Ahiru has a dream in the beginning of each season. The first one is later revealed to be a flashback showing how Drosselmeyer chose her to be the titular [[Magical Girl]], while the second season shows her dancing with Mytho—only to be shocked when he performs the ballet mime for "death" and transforms into Fakir. {{spoiler|This foreshadows Fakir slowly becoming her main love interest, and probably relates to his backstory as well.}} There's several other dream sequences that either foreshadow coming events, or relate to a character's current problems.
** ''[[Princess Tutu Abridged]]'' plays the first one (mostly) straight but the second seems [[Erotic Dream|slanted towards the sexy]] and is more blantent with the imagry. In this, Ahiru (Duck) is heading towards Mytho and is about to take his hand before Fakir snatches it, pulls her away, lifts her chin up, runs his finger over her lips and closes them and leans in for the kiss and Duck wakes up. She is quite upset, being the Mytho fangirl she is, about dreaming of Fakir.▼
▲''[[Princess Tutu Abridged]]'' plays the first one (mostly) straight but the second seems [[Erotic Dream|slanted towards the sexy]] and is more blantent with the imagry. In this, Ahiru (Duck) is heading towards Mytho and is about to take his hand before Fakir snatches it, pulls her away, lifts her chin up, runs his finger over her lips and closes them and leans in for the kiss and Duck wakes up. She is quite upset, being the Mytho fangirl she is, about dreaming of Fakir.
* The third episode of the OVA ''[[My Dear Marie]]'' consists entirely of these.
* Yuichi in ''[[Kanon]]'' briefly has one of these while actually still awake after {{spoiler|briefly snapping when Mai appears to have committed suicide. But he can't hold onto it and returns to reality, and things... get better somehow. Magic!}}
* ''[[Mysterious Girlfriend X]]'', at least its earlier issues, would periodically have short dream sequences or immense panoramic dream panels. Fans miss them...
* Not really a dream, but ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' had "Tamaki Inner Mind Theatre". The anime had a straighter example with Haruhi taking a trip [[Alice in Wonderland|Down the Rabbit Hole]] complete with Ouran characters taking the role of various Wonderland characters.
== Comic Books ==
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** The one in ''The Cigars of the Pharaoh'' is downright creepy.
** In ''The Seven Crystal Balls'', Tintin, Haddock and Calculus all dreamed that the mummy one of Calculus's friends had brought back from Peru had come to life and was going to destroy them. The mummy—not all bandage-wrapped, but a arrestingly realistic dessicated corpse—comes to life to throw a glass ball filled with poison gas. The mummy is hallucinatory but the gas is real. Tintin dream sequences had a heckuva lot of disturbing images in them.
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' Haruhi was shown dreaming about flying through the sky, sentai-style, with Kyon the rest of the brigade, to fight evil aliens.
== Film ==
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* In ''[[Dracula: Dead and Loving It]]'', Dracula has a "[[Non Sequitur Scene|daymare]]," where he believes his vampirism is cured and goes out to enjoy the beauty of the light. Then he bursts into flame and wakes up screaming and running.
* Most of [[Inception]] is basically a dream sequence. With [[Dream Within a Dream|dreams within dreams]].
== Literature ==
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* In ''[[Hard Times]]'', Stephen Blackpool's dream of a wedding quickly becomes that of a burial.
▲== Live Action Television ==
* ''[[Northern Exposure]]'': An extended Dream Sequence (in this case actually a hallucination) -- lasting nearly the entire episode—was used to very good effect in "Dinner at Seven-Thirty". As evidenced by this episode, an extended Dream Sequence may perform the function of an [[Alternate Universe]] in series where an [[Alternate Universe]] ''per se'' would not fit with the show's genre.
* The ''[[Golden Girls]]'' episode "questions and answers".Dorothy dozes off while studying for Jeopardy and has dream in which she goes up against a first time opponent and a returning champion,who surprisingly is Rose.
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* ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'' had more than its share of dream sequences.
* ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'': Silly dream sequences were often seen.
* There is also the episode of ''[[
* In ''[[The Tenth Kingdom]]'', Virginia and her father have an extremely bizarre and disturbing example of this, complete with [[Spirit Advisor|the ghost of Snow White]] doing her level best to snap them out of it. Christine's usage of the poisoned comb on her little girl's hair is particularly chilling, while the weird Electra-complex suggested by Virginia being Tony's wife (not to mention Wendell the dog as her brother--{{spoiler|or is that [[Psychic Dreams for Everyone|prophetic?]]}}) are just plain odd. But what do you expect from something inspired by eating magic mushrooms? Of special note (something which appears throughout the miniseries) is the emphasis on the decidedly more grim aspects of fairytales...
* A common form is for the dreamer to slip into the world of whatever they were researching or watching when they nodded off. Expect an [[Identical Grandson]]. ''[[MacGyver]]'' got sent back to the [[The Wild West|Old West]] twice, and to Arthurian Britain.
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'''Blackadder''': Are you sure?
'''Dr. Johnson''': I've never been more sure of anything in my life sir.
'''Blackadder''': I love you, Dr. Johnson, and [[I Want to Bear His Children|I want to have your babies]]. [''Sees Aunt Marjorie''] Sorry, excuse me, Dr. Johnson, but my Auntie Marjorie has just arrived. [''Blackdrick appears with a dog's head instead of his own''] Baldrick! Who gave you permission to turn into an alsatian! Oh god, it's a dream, isn't it? [''Dr. Johnson, Aunt Marjorie and Bladrick starts to dance around the room''] It's a bloody dream! Dr. Johnson doesn't want us to burn his dictionary at all. }}
* ''[[The Sopranos]]'' has some of the best dream sequences in any show or movie. Some of the creepy ones with Tony's mom are much more frightening than your average horror scene.
* Blair on ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' is prone to having these. They are always nightmares, based on her favorite movies, and usually open the episode they appear in.
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* [[The Young Ones]] - "Sick" has a memorable one. A conscience-stricken Rik, believing that he has killed Neil, dreams of being tried and sentenced to death by Mike and Vyvyan, causing the gallery of attractive young women to plead for his life and then start to remove their clothes...
{{quote|'''Rik's Conscience''': Oi! OI! - Stop having a wet dream, you little pervy, you're supposed to be ''racked with remorse''!}}
== Music ==
* In the mid 1980's, [[the Rolling Stones]] produced a compilation of music videos/promo films entitled '''Video Rewind''', which entailed bassist Bill Wyman, disguised as a guard, breaking into a 'lost' exhibit at the British Museum, which consists of various rock artifacts - one of the artifacts being a mid-70's Mick Jagger! They use the artifacts as a springboard to show the various videos, while also making pithy comments about their own career as the Stones (Mick: You ever try sleeping in the same room with Keith? Bill: No but Ive stayed in the same hotel with him!). Near the end, Bill
* Happens in the video to [[Queensrÿche]]'s well-loved [[Black Sheep Hit]], "Silent Lucidity". There's also a [[Nightmare Sequence]] thrown in for good measure between the middle and near the end of the video.
* [[Krokus]]'s ''Screaming In The Night'' plays with this. On a mysterious island, the hero, who is imprisoned, is in love with a beautiful woman, but an evil dictator sentences him to death and kills the woman. {{spoiler|The hero turns out to be the lead singer, and he ends up in a diner, where the beautiful woman is a waitress, the dictator was the chef, and Krokus was on the TV, which the lead singer sings to while standing on the counter that his band-mates were eating at.}}
== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'': Sarge gets a really trippy one about being a food-themed superhero.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.5E supplement ''Heroes of Horror'' includes tips on how to DM a dream or nightmare sequence.
** The free adventure [http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030629a "Fallen Angel"] suggests a dream sequence as a plot hook.
== Theater ==
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** The second act of ''Mamma Mia!'' opens with a warped, strangely echoing reprise of the earlier songs, and then segues into the young heroine's nightmare about who her real father is. The dream involves neon and black colors (with plenty of purple), eerie lighting, snorkels and flippers, and a man in a bridal gown (we do not make this up.)
* The Rodgers and Hart musical ''I'd Rather Be Right'' is almost entirely a dream sequence. The young lovers fall asleep in Central Park, sharing a dream in which they meet President Franklin Roosevelt and various other political figures of the 1930s, then awakening at the end.
== Video Games ==
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** Teammate Gannayev-of-Dreams is an old hand with dream sequences [[Meaningful Name|as his name suggests]]. He shepherds the [[Player Character]] through them all if he's in the party. Yes, he can enter ''other characters''' dream sequences.
▲== Webcomic ==
* ''[[The Chapel Chronicles]]'': season one ends in a four page Dream Sequence entitled [http://www.chapelchronicles.com/comic/28 Chapel in Wonderland] in which Chapel finds herself dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Fred, her archenemy is the Cheshire Cat, Lady Gaga appears having beheaded Justin Bieber, wanting to play chess with flamingos and using Rupert as the ball. Chapel finally leaves and walks off but is still dressed as Alice at the end.
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' has a [[Story Arc]] showing the quite revealing dreams of each major character the night after the fight with [[Big Bad]] Damien [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-08-02\]; this continues into the succeeding arcs with Ellen's dreams, which are particularly significant due to Nioi's [[Plot-Relevant Age-Up|magical intervention]].
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* ''[[Homestuck]]'' uses this trope in many different ways: First, the use of "dreamselves" that reside in Prospit and Derse. Sometimes the story follows all of the main character's dreamselves. Then there is the "dream bubbles," basically the afterlife, in which people relive their memories and stay there for eternity. Sometimes the story follows characters in dream bubbles. These are also used for people who have no dreamselves. Third, there is [[The Woobie|WV's]] nightmare, shedding some light onto his {{spoiler|[[Survivors Guilt]].}}
* ''[[Honey And The Whirlwind]]'' takes place partially in a dreamworld.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180307055557/http://centralcitytower.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-installment.html Project 0] opens with a dream sequence. Doubles as a [[Good Morning, Crono]].
* ''[[Punch an Pie]]'' uses Dream Sequences as a means of contrasting the two main characters' different thought processes. Angela has wacky and meaningless dreams involving her favorites TV shows, video games, and books; Heather has introspective dreams where she reexamines her flimsy [[Freudian Excuse]] and tendency toward projecting her repressed traits onto others.
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Broken Saints]]'' makes frequent use of these, most notably in Acts 2 through 5 of Chapter 20.
* ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' has PLENTY of dream sequences, one of the more memorable recent ones being Maria Graham's dream after her {{spoiler|accidental killing of Francine Moreau}}, which included Nicholas Cage and Robobear 5000. According to the writer, the likely never-to-be-finished endgame of v2 included {{spoiler|Bryan Calvert's highly symbolic dreams on the helicopter ride to meet Danya and while back home, including being back with Tori again}}.
== Western Animation ==
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* The short-lived ''[[Nightmare Ned]]'' built its entire premise around dream sequences.
* The ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' episode "Air Force None" featured two for [[Badass Adorable|Heloise]], both about her being with [[Oblivious to Love|Jimmy]].
* ''[[Archer]]'': seasons 8 and 9 are extended dream sequences for the titular character as he [[Adventures in Coma Land]]. [[wikipedia:Archer_(season_8)|Season 8]] is even sub-titled [[Dream Land|Dreamland]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Dream Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
[[Category:Acting for Two]]
▲[[Category:Dream Sequence]]
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