Dream Within a Dream: Difference between revisions

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Compare [[Droste Image]]. See also [[Nested Story]], [[Schrodinger's Butterfly]], and [[Recursive Reality]]. Not to be confused with [[The Princess Bride (Film)|marriage]]. May require an [[Orphean Rescue]] to finally wake up.

This trope is largely [[Truth in Television]] and is [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/False_awakening~~ a fairly common phenomenon].

This trope is largely [[Truth in Television]] and is [[wikipedia:False awakening|a fairly common phenomenon]].

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* A ''[[Dick Van Dyke Show]]'' episode had Rob obsessing over some hair loss to the point that he went to bed with a towel wrapped around his head. He dreams that his hair is all gone the next morning and wakes up freaking out. Laura comforts him, and then faints in horror when she sees he ''has'' lost all his hair - then ''she'' wakes up from ''her'' nightmare.

* In the 1998 ''[[Merlin (Film)|Merlin]]'' series, the eponymous character describes his journey to Joyous Gard as, "A dream, of a dream."

* In the ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)|~~Doctor Who]]'' episode "Amy's Choice", the Doctor, Amy and Rory were trapped in two separate and equally dangerous scenarios (one on board a powerless and freezing TARDIS and one in a small English village overrun by alien-possessed people) by the Dream Lord, who declared that one was real and the other was a dream, and if they died in the dream they would awaken in reality, but if they died in reality...well, as he said, "That's why it's called reality!" {{spoiler|After they 'died' in the village scenario and awakened in the TARDIS, the Doctor set the TARDIS to self-destruct, realizing that the Dream Lord was his [[Enemy Within]] and could only affect dreams, so ''both'' scenarios were dreams. He was right, of course.}}

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Amy's Choice", the Doctor, Amy and Rory were trapped in two separate and equally dangerous scenarios (one on board a powerless and freezing TARDIS and one in a small English village overrun by alien-possessed people) by the Dream Lord, who declared that one was real and the other was a dream, and if they died in the dream they would awaken in reality, but if they died in reality...well, as he said, "That's why it's called reality!" {{spoiler|After they 'died' in the village scenario and awakened in the TARDIS, the Doctor set the TARDIS to self-destruct, realizing that the Dream Lord was his [[Enemy Within]] and could only affect dreams, so ''both'' scenarios were dreams. He was right, of course.}}

* A Halloween episode of ''[[Family Matters]]'' had Carl suffer a dream-within-a-dream about the evil ventriloquist dummy. He spends most of the episode fighting it, only to discover it was all a dream...only to discover the dummy right next to him. Then he wakes up for real.'

* ''[[The X-Files]]''

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* ''[[The Simpsons]]''

** The first episode after the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" [[Cliff Hanger]] made it look like the shooting incident was a dream (an obvious spoof of the infamous [[All Just a Dream]] moment that [[Retcon|retconned]] away an entire season on ''[[Dallas]]'', the same show whose "Who Shot J.R.?" storyline was what the ''Simpsons'' storyline was spoofing). Turns out that waking up was a dream (Smithers's dream, to be precise), and the shooting did happen.

** An earlier episode of ''The Simpsons'' [[Playing With a Trope|played with]] the trope: The second "Treehouse of Horror" episode had a [[Framing Device]] in which each mini-story is a nightmare being had by one of the Simpsons. At the end, Homer wakes from a nightmare in which Mr Burns's head was grafted onto his shoulder -- to find that Burns's head is still grafted onto his shoulder. He reassures himself that he must have only dreamed that he woke up... and the episode ends, with an [[On the Next]] suggesting that he's stuck with the head for real.

** An earlier episode of ''The Simpsons'' [[Playing With a Trope|played with]] the trope: The second "Treehouse of Horror" episode had a [[Framing Device]] in which each mini-story is a nightmare being had by one of the Simpsons. At the end, Homer wakes from a nightmare in which Mr Burns's head was grafted onto his shoulder -- to find that Burns's head is still grafted onto his shoulder. He reassures himself that he must have only dreamed that he woke up... and the episode ends, with an [["On the Next..."]] suggesting that he's stuck with the head for real.

** Another "Treehouse of Horror" episode shows Lisa and Bart parodying [[Sherlock Holmes]] and Doctor Watson to be part of a Dream within a Dream of Ralphie Wiggum.

** One of the Christmas episodes shows Groundskeeper Willie enjoying a Christmas dinner surrounded by loved ones, which turns out to be a dream he is having while passed out drunk in his shack, which turns out to be a dream he is having while passed out drunk outside in the snow.

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[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Dream Within A Dream]]

[[Category:Trope]]