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Dreaming of Things to Come: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[The Secret Agreement]]'' begins with Yuuichi having dark [[Recurring Dreams]] of a voice saying "No matter what I want to get it, no matter what it takes." It turns out it's been his own voice all along indicating that his predatory shadow side has begun to awaken.
* In ''[[Detonator Orgun]]'', main character Tomoru has dreams about "a strange robot", the eponymous Orgun he ends meeting with, whenever he tries to use the PASFU machine that lets you choose your dreams. In ''[[Super Robot Wars W]]'' his dreams also have ''[[Tekkaman Blade]]'', because the game combines the plot of the two series.
* The manga ''[[
* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'', Heiji becomes disturbed by a recent dream he had of Conan dying, so he lends him a charm. The dream becomes accurate when the suspect manages to stab Conan but Conan's life was saved by [[Pocket Protector|the charm.]]
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* [http://www.icybrian.com/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=1741&textsize=0&chapter=1 A certain novelization] of ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' had the protagonist have dreams of events that wouldn't happen until much later, such as, in the order he had the dreams, the fight with the Mega Mutant in the Black Omen, and {{spoiler|his own death}}.
* The ''[[Homestuck]]'' fanfic [http://archiveofourown.org/works/140219 "And the Two of Us Are Dying"]. It features {{spoiler|Dave's Bro}} having recurring prophetic dreams about his own death in canon.
* In the [[Harry Potter]] fanfics The Black Heir and Vindico Atrum, the protagonist, Orion Black starts having prophetic dreams as his powers develop. His visions of the future are send to him by Gaia, the source of Dark Magic deep in Earth's core.
* This kicks off the ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate]]'' [[Fate/Zero|series]] fanfic ''[[From Fake Dreams]]'', in which Kiritsugu Emiya learns about the 5th Holy Grail War, and how his newly adopted son will be pivotal in the ensuing events. After this, he takes Shiro's magical education seriously, with emphasis on the skills needed to survive the War and destroy the Grail. However, things have already diverged as a result, as the Magi now know Shirou exists and some of his capabilities.
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== Literature ==
* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': Boromir and Faramir's dreams of a riddle which causes Boromir to seek out Rivendell (and arrive just in time for Elrond's council), and numerous characters receiving warnings through dreams in ''[[The Silmarillion]]''. That book also suggests how prophetic dreams occur; Lorien, the Valar who [[Dream Weaver|governs dreams and visions]] is the brother of Mandos, the judge of the Valar who has the best understanding of fate and the future.
* In [[Eleanor Cameron]]'s ''The Court of The Stone Children'', the heroine dreams of a room, and seeing children in it; one says she wants to show her something. Later, she sees the room and tells the dream, resulting in the X-raying of a picture and a discovery about it.
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' uses dreams a lot as a foreshadowing tool, usually those are understood to be magical "green dreams" or otherwise sent by the gods. Perhaps. The system of magic in ASOIAF is anything but functional.
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* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[American Gods]]'' and ''[[Neverwhere]]'' both have protagonists who have recurring bizarre dreams. They don't benefit from the dreams, however, because they forget them as soon as they wake up.
** In ''[[Neverwhere]]'', Richard dreams of the Beast and remembers it.
* ''[[Warhammer
** In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''The Traitor's Hand'', [[Ciaphas Cain]]'s [[Bad Dreams]] about an encounter with a Chaos cult prove to be foreshadowings, {{spoiler|[[Talking in Your Dreams|sent by the daemon]]}}.
** In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Ravenor]]'', Zael has dreams in which something, disguised as his dead sister, tries to get him to let it in; he realizes at the end that it's warnings of the trap they are falling into.
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** In [[James Swallow]]'s ''The Flight of the Eisenstein'', Garro, at Keller's urging, is willing to consider that his dreams may be prophetic; it helps convince him that his [[Old Retainer|housecarl]] Kaleb may have been right, saying that he [[Chosen One|had purpose]].
** In Lee Lightner's ''[[Space Wolf]]'' novel ''Wolf's Honour'', when Ragnar is haunted by dreams, he fears [[Talking in Your Dreams|that his enemy sent them]]; Gabriella dismisses as [[Bad Dreams]]. In reality, he is Dreaming of Things to Come {{spoiler|and the wolf-like creatures are not as bad as he feared}}.
** In Nick Kyme's [[Warhammer
* Fun example in the ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' art and background book ''[[Liber Chaotica]]'': the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|author]], who is slowly [[Sanity Slippage|losing his mind]] while studying Chaos, suffers from prophetic dreams and visions. Nobody in the Empire can make much sense of them, but ''[[Warhammer
* [[The Bible]] of course has a lot of them, most famously in the Book of Genesis with Joseph. These were also a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]: Joseph's recounting of dreams easily interpretable as saying he would one day rule his brothers led them to fake his death and sell him into slavery, starting a chain of events that led to him becoming prime minister of Egypt and their only saviour in a time of famine.
* Wiser characters in ''[[Redwall]]'' tend to get visions of the future or of Martin the Warrior, sometimes in actual dreams, other times in brief trances. Badger Lords are especially prone to visions of their eventual deaths.
** The [[Big Bad]] Cluny has [[Bad Dreams]] about past atrocities—mixed with Dreaming of Things to Come.
* The Road of Dreams is a metaphysical place in [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Visual Novel/Memory Sorrow And Thorn|Memory Sorrow And Thorn]]'' series. Most people only touch on the Dream Road in their sleep, but particularly sensitive individuals may receive portentous dreams, and those familiar with [[Functional Magic|the Art]] can enter it at will or using [[Applied Phlebotinum|magical devices]] called Witnesses. Subverted in that, while the Road will reveal true things, the ''interpretation'' of those things is often [[Prophetic Fallacy|cryptic and misleading]], and [[The Chessmaster|powerful minds]] can manipulate the dreams of others to further their goals. Further, it's possible to lose your way on the Road and/or meet up with things that are not... wholesome, with effects ranging from [[Go Mad
* In ''[[Death Star]]'', a trooper dreams about dying in a brawl against other trooper, with someone fighting and dying at his side, all while desperately [[You Shall Not Pass|buying some time for someone else]]. Later he dreams about pursuing and being shot by a fleeing Han Solo. Turns out he's {{spoiler|mildly Force-Sensitive}}; the second dream almost comes true, but he knew not to chase as fervently. {{spoiler|The first one came completely true.}} In both cases, the narration was almost identical in the dream as in the event.
** Both ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'' and the ''[[Hand of Thrawn]]'' Duology have Luke, early on, voluntarily entering a trance state to try and receive visions of what's to come. He gets them, but they're fragmented and confusing enough that while they do help, he doesn't do this often.
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* A variation: The night before the climactic concert in [[The Taqwacores]], Amazing Ayyub relays a (possible) hadith about how the last widow of the Prophet dreamed of seeing her husband weeping and grief-stricken. She asked why, and his response is is that he had to dig a grave for his grandson and his companions. The next day was the Tragedy of Karbala (of which the Day of Ashura is based), resulting in the massacre of the Prophet's grandson and his companions. The reason this is a variation is that its placement in [[The Taqwacores]] is intended to foreshadow {{spoiler|the concert devolving into a riot, resulting in the lynching of [[Crazy Awesome|Jehangir]] by [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Bilal's Boulder]].}}
* In [[Eleanor Cameron]]'s ''The Court of the Stone Children'', Nina dreams of a time when her home is taken apart and sent to a museum. [[Talking in Your Dreams|Her dead father appears to tell her something]].
* Prophetic dreams are a common trope in all genres of [[The Icelandic Sagas]].
* In ''Such A Pretty Girl'' Andy has a dream that he's walking up to his girlfriend Meredith (he is paraplegic) who is reading a dictionary when she looks up and says "'Now' I get it!" This scene is forgotten until the end of the book, where these events happen.
* Happens alot in [[Haruki Murakami|Haruki Murakami's]] novels and short stories, although many of the dreams are trippy and/or vague.
* "The Stand" by Stephen King is built around this trope, as it is how Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg contact the survivors of the superflu.
* [[Septimus Heap|Septimus]] dreams of his impending kidnapping in ''Physik''.
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* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', only Slayers have prophetic dreams (although the dreams all the Scoobies got in "Restless" were pretty prophetic; that might have just been the influence of the First Slayer).
** One of S3's dreams only makes sense after S5. It's one of those Buffy and Faith dreams, and it actually refers to the coming of Dawn, when Faith not only says, "Little sister is coming," but the more cryptic, "Little Miss Muffet counting down from seven-three-oh." Season five started 730 days later.
*** And given the relative position in both seasons, it could also be taken as Faith looking forward to {{spoiler|Buffy killing herself to save the world}}.
* On ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'': characters frequently dream about the shape of things to come... [[The Chris Carter Effect|whatever that means]].
** Not really fair, as the finale pretty well wrapped up what most, if not all, the dreams were going on about.
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** In ''Hercules and the Circle of Fire'', Hercules dreamed of Deinara before he met her. He also dreamed of it being very cold, with her turning to ice and shattering. This foreshadowed Hera stealing fire from mankind.
** In "Norse by Norsevest," Hercules and Balder both dream of the latter's possible death, which the former has to prevent.
* In ''[[The X-Files]]'', Mulder and Scully both do this while the other is abducted (in seasons 2 and 8, respectively), though it's hard to tell whether these were dreaming of things that were in the future or the present.
** It has also been speculated that Mulder's dream-within-a-dream in "The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati" of a little boy on a beach building a sand space ship with him is prophetic of baby William.
* The titular character in the 1998 ''[[Merlin (TV miniseries)|Merlin]]'' series.
* Alison and her daughters of ''[[Medium]]'' usually get these dreams sent by the dead.
* In the ''[[The Walking Dead (TV series)|Walking Dead]]'' episode "Vatos", Jim (a member of the survivors' camp) goes a distance away from the survivors and starts digging holes. Understandably, this freaks the camp out, and they tie Jim to a tree to cool off before asking him why he was digging. Jim claims he had a dream that he couldn't remember, but he knew that he needed to dig the holes. It turns out that this was justified, because {{spoiler|a number of zombies attack the camp at the end of the episode, and several people (both zombies and survivors alike) are killed}}. Jim comments at the end of the episode that he remembers why he dug the holes: {{spoiler|they're graves}}.
* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', the Centauri race all have a vague ability to see the future, some through dreams. The males often have a completely accurate dream of the circumstances of their own death - although in some cases such as the Centauri main character Londo Molari {{spoiler|who appeared die a violent death at the hands of a rival}}, the reason for their deaths could be misinterpreted: {{spoiler|Londo's old rival had become a close friend by that time and had killed Londo at his own request as Londo was being controlled by a parasite}}.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' has the Dream merit which allows characters to receive prophetic dreams in the form of symbolic hints about coming dangers or how to overcome a problem. If the meditate on a subject prior to sleeping, they can specifically invoke such dreams. The Seers of the Throne are able to acquire an alternate form of the merit, where their dreams are specifically instructions from the Exarchs (although they have one faction which seeks out [[Muggles|sleepers]] who receive apparently prophetic dreams, which they believe are more accurate ways of determining the Exarchs' will).
** Other games in the [[New World of Darkness]] have similar ways of dreaming the future. ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'' has the Elpis Merit, which allows a Promethean to gain information from their dreams of the milestones necessary to [[To Become Human|complete the Pilgrimage]].
** ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' gives ''all'' changelings the innate talent to have oracular dreams as part of their ties to the Wyrd; they just have to realize whether or not a dream really ''is'' prophetic before they can act on it. Some Merits, however, allow them to refine this talent, to the point that they can dream of the past or gain beginner's knowledge of any skill or language from the collective unconscious.
** And finally, all Cahaliths in ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'' have the innate talent of receiving visionary dreams straight from Luna herself. However, as Luna's mercurial as all hell, the dreams are often heavily cloaked in symbolism.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has an inversion with the Yozi Sacheverell, the Abhorrent Prophet Unimagined. While he dreams, he sees everything BUT the future. Were he to wake, he would perfectly see the entirety of what is to come, locking the world into absolute predestination. Pretty much everyone agrees that this would be a Bad Thing, quite possibly even Sacheverell himself.
== Video Games ==
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* [[Agarest Senki|Leonhardt]] gets one in the beginning of the game itself. He then wakes up to reality and goes into two battles. In the third battle, he gets to meet the guy who killed him in his dreams, and it finally does him in. This is the event that starts off the plot.
* "A war is coming, I've seen it in my dreams. Fires sweeping over the earth, bodies in the streets, cities turned to dust. Retaliation...". This being the [[F.E.A.R.]] series those dreams are quite accurate.
* [[Ace Combat: Assault Horizon]]'s first mission is a [[Dream Sequence]] of William Bishop seeing his own death at the hands of a Russian plane with shark mouth markings in the skies over Miami. The mission is chock full of references to [[Villain|Markov]], [[Fantastic Nukes|Trinity]], [[Voice with an Internet Connection|Magic]], and [[A Storm Is Coming|a hurricane]], all things he did not know existed. Guess where one of the '''last''' missions takes place?
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== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Narbonic]]'' did this [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic/series.php?view=archive&chapter=9807&mpe=1&step=1 every] [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic/series.php?view=archive&chapter=9899 year] of its run on the [[Sunday Strip|Sunday]] nearest December 31, with a "Dave in Slumberland" strip, which in addition to being a ''[[Little Nemo]]'' parody, gives a symbolic foreshadowing of the following year. It also [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue|ended on that day of the year]], with a suggestion that the origin of the dreams was that Dave could subconciously create [[Foundation|psychohistory]] algorithms.
* Gwynn from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' has one of these about [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020114 Zoe being burned alive]. Too bad she [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=090707 forgot about it] until seven years later. Torg has also had prophetic dreams about the same event, and possibly an event following them.
* In the ''[[Penny and Aggie]]'' arc "There Are No Rules," Aggie is puzzled by her dream of being in love with a mall mannequin. After an argument with her [[Ambiguously Gay|ambiguously bisexual]] best friend Lisa about [[I Didn't Mean to Turn You On|mixed signals]], complicated by Aggie's feelings of discomfort over two other girlfriends making out in her presence, she makes up with Lisa at the mall and gives her a hug. While doing so, she recalls her prior history of [[Single-Target Sexuality]] with regard to men, having shared the same crush as a now out-gay friend. Then, still in mid-hug, she looks up at a suspiciously familiar mannequin..."Uh oh."
* Karcharoth of [[Cry Havoc]] experiences these occasionally while unconscious.
* Jade from ''[[Homestuck]]'' uses this trope to create [[Stable Time Loop|stable time loops]], and generally do [http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Weird_Time_Shit weird time shit]
** Technically anyone whose dreamself is on Prospit can see these visions, but Jade is the only one shown to use them extensively. They have a tendency to be vague as well.
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* [[Kid Appeal Character|Cheetor]] has a few psychic dreams over the course of ''[[Beast Wars]]''. In ''[[Beast Machines]]'', Optimus Primal has one of these, prophesising of new characters who appear in the second season.
* In ''[[Code Lyoko]]'', Aelita starts having significant dreams once she's materialized in the real world (and thus can sleep and dream). At first, those are about memories of her past life slipping past her [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]. In the penultimate episode, however, she gets a genuinely prophetic dream... {{spoiler|of her father's death.}}
* Subverted in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. While there is much prophecy, spirit walking, and visions of the future, nobody actually has a prophetic dream, but Aang and Katara take Sokka seriously when he warns them that he's had a dream that going into the market is a bad idea. Then he reveals that his dream revolved around "Food eats people!" and they dismissed
** Aang and Appa SHARED a dream once during the time when they were seperated, but that was about the time when they first met.
** Actually, Iroh had a dream about conquering Ba Sing Se in his youth. At the time, he thought it meant that he would conquer it for the Fire Nation, but he ended up ''un''conquering it ''from'' the Fire Nation.
** Zuko's [[Angst Coma]] featured a dream where Azula and Iroh (in the form of dragons) each try to persuade him to follow them. The same thing happens in real life two episodes later, but without the dragons.
** In the swamp, Aang has a vision, although he's awake, of a young girl in a fancy dress with a flying boar. {{spoiler|The girl turns out to be Toph, his earthbending teacher who he will soon meet, and the flying boar is the symbol of her family. Aang actually uses his vision to find her, so it is kind of a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|self-fulfilling prophecy.]]}}
* ''[[Ace Lightning]]'': In one episode [[Supporting Protagonist|Mark]] dreams, in exacting detail, exactly what is going to happen to him by the end of the episode. It occured only once, but ''boy'' did it get the fangirls talking...
* In the ''[[Lite Sprites]]'' pilot, the sprites go off to find their lite wands after Prisma tells them about her dream where they did just that. Played with in that they get stuck a couple of times when they encounter something that wasn't in Prisma's dream (a fork in the path, an unexpected cave-in), but eventually cover everything.
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* A few nights before he was assassinated [[Abraham Lincoln]] claimed to have dreamed that people gathered around his coffin because he had been shot.
* [[Mary Shelley]] was inspired to write ''[[Frankenstein (novel)|Frankenstein]]'' when she dreamt of a pale student who brought a hideous corpse to life.
* [[Elias Howe]] once dreamed that cannibals were preparing to cook him. When he watched their spears he noticed that each head had a small hole through the shaft. This inspired him to the technique he eventually would use to invent the sewing machine.
* [[James Cameron]] once saw a metallic, skeletal monster with a rictus smile and burning red eyes, dragging itself across the floor with kitchen knives during a fever dream. It inspired him to the titular character of [[The Terminator]].
* Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the seemingly impossible chemical structure of benzene when he had a dream of a group of snakes swallowing their tail.
* Similarly, Dmitri Mendeleyev saw the Periodic Table of Elements in his dreams.
* James D. Watson once dreamt of a series of spiral staircases which gave him the idea for the structure of DNA.
* [[Stephenie Meyer]], author of Twilight was inspired to write her books when she dreamt of a vampire and a young girl discussing their mutual attraction.
* [[Paul McCartney]] dreamt the melody of "''Yesterday''" one night and for a long while he thought it was just a vague memory of some song he heard when he was younger. But it turned out he completely thought it up himself.
* [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] dreamed the plot for ''[[The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]''.
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