Schrödinger's Butterfly: Difference between revisions

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This serves as a source of mystery and speculation in a story. Did the heroes really break the spell cast by the [[Master of Illusion]], or are they all imagining it? Did they escape the [[Convenient Coma]] that trapped them in a [[Happy Place]]... or merely trade a perfect illusory world for a more realist one? These doubts may never be resolved until a [[Sequel]] comes out or [[Word of God]] clarifies it. Sometimes, the ambiguity works in favor of the story, leaving it [[Leave the Plot Threads Hanging|open to interpretation.]]

Much like the [[~~Schrodingers~~ Cast|other]] [[~~Schrodingers~~ Gun|Schrodinger]] [[~~Schrodingers~~ Suggestion Box|tropes]], this plot point can also serve as an [[~~Authors~~ Saving Throw]] by retroactively making it [[All Just a Dream]]. Or if the author ''really'' wants to mess with us, end the movie or film on a [[Downer Ending]], with a fading shot of the character's [[Dying Dream|dying]] or still comatose body trapped in the illusion.

Much like the [[Schrodinger's Cast|other]] [[Schrodinger's Gun|Schrodinger]] [[Schrodinger's Suggestion Box|tropes]], this plot point can also serve as an [[Author's Saving Throw]] by retroactively making it [[All Just a Dream]]. Or if the author ''really'' wants to mess with us, end the movie or film on a [[Downer Ending]], with a fading shot of the character's [[Dying Dream|dying]] or still comatose body trapped in the illusion.

The trope name is a reference to a poem by the 4th century BC Chinese philosopher [[Zhuangzi]], a Taoist philosopher who influenced Chinese Buddhism. It refers also to [[Useful Notes/~~Schrodingers~~ Cat|Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment relating to quantum uncertainty]]. If you can't tell, we like to be well balanced in our [[Geek|geekery]] on this wiki.

The trope name is a reference to a poem by the 4th century BC Chinese philosopher [[Zhuangzi]], a Taoist philosopher who influenced Chinese Buddhism. It refers also to [[Useful Notes/Schrodinger's Cat|Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment relating to quantum uncertainty]]. If you can't tell, we like to be well balanced in our [[Geek|geekery]] on this wiki.

Compare: [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory]] and [[Dream Apocalypse]]. Compare also [[Opening a Can of Clones]], which has this effect regarding a character's 'originality'. Contrast [[Or Was It a Dream]]. See also: [[Cuckoo Nest]], [[Dying Dream]], [[Through the Eyes of Madness]], [[Masquerade]], and [[Brainwashed]].

Compare: [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory]] and [[Dream Apocalypse]]. Compare also [[Opening a Can of Clones]], which has this effect regarding a character's 'originality'. Contrast [[Or Was It a Dream?]]. See also: [[Cuckoo Nest]], [[Dying Dream]], [[Through the Eyes of Madness]], [[Masquerade]], and [[Brainwashed]].

== Anime & Manga ==

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* [[.hack Sign|.hack//SIGN]] ends with {{spoiler|Helba forcibly deleting Net Slum in a desperate effort to stop Skeith, causing everyone to be ejected from the game as the server crashes. This results in Tsukasa finally logging out of the game for the first time in the entire series and having a heartwarming meeting with Subaru in the real world...but when their hands touch, a distinctly cyberspace-y hexagon grid appears, and it then cuts to a scene of what appears to be the ruins of Net Slum (which is very similar to the very start of the first episode), with a mysterious monologue from Morganna. It doesn't help either that the "real world" segment of Tsukasa leaving the hospital and meeting Subaru has a somewhat surreal tone to it, what with the whole silent movie style and all. Ultimately, it's not really clear until later installments in the .hack series whether or not Tsukasa actually ever managed to log out.}}

* {{spoiler|Aizen}}'s zanpakutou ability in ''[[Bleach]]'' Its very essence is to [[Master of Illusion|warp a victim's perception of reality]].

* [[Jo ~~Jos~~ Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]: Gold Experience Requiem's powers is like this, specifically the endless chain of "waking" only to be in another fabricated scenario. The victim catches on after about three times that he's no longer alive, but that doesn't change the fact that he'll [[Fate Worse Than Death|never die, either.]]

* [[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]: Gold Experience Requiem's powers is like this, specifically the endless chain of "waking" only to be in another fabricated scenario. The victim catches on after about three times that he's no longer alive, but that doesn't change the fact that he'll [[Fate Worse Than Death|never die, either.]]

* Never really happens in [[El Hazard]], but at one point Makoto wakes up after having a weird dream. Since he's not entirely sure that [[El Hazard]] itself isn't a dream, he gets a bit confused on the subject.

{{quote| '''Makoto:''' What a weird dream. Within a dream. Or is this the dream?}}

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* At the end of [[Grant Morrison]]'s run on ''[[Doom Patrol]]'', Crazy Jane finds herself trapped on a mundane [[Alternate Universe|alternate Earth]], being treated by Marcia, a psychologist who regards her strange memories and dreams as delusions. The vividness of Jane's stories and the ineffectiveness of psychotherapy in explaining them away leads Marcia to doubt whether she's doing the right thing. After another doctor forcibly subjects Jane to electro-convulsive therapy, Jane appears to be cured of her delusions and her multiple personalities, but she gives Marcia the "Mystery Coin" she described in her stories, confirming Marcia's suspicion that Jane was not simply mentally ill.

** Morrison uses it again in ''[[The Invisibles]]'', when Jack Frost tries to engage in one-on-one psychic combat with [[Eldritch Abomination|the King-of-All-Tears]]. Among the various tactics it uses (such as [[Mind Rape]]) is having illusions of his teammates show up, telling him that they've managed to win, and he can break that warding circle now...

* ''[[The Invisibles]]'' actually provides several alternative explanations of how everything that happens in it may be a case of [[Recursive Reality]]: the whole story might have been a {{spoiler|drug hallucination}} experienced by one of the characters, or an {{spoiler|in-universe example of [[Self Insert Fic]]}} by another character, or a {{spoiler|futuristic video game}} produced by a third character, or...

* ''[[The Invisibles]]'' actually provides several alternative explanations of how everything that happens in it may be a case of [[Recursive Reality]]: the whole story might have been a {{spoiler|drug hallucination}} experienced by one of the characters, or an {{spoiler|in-universe example of [[Self-Insert Fic]]}} by another character, or a {{spoiler|futuristic video game}} produced by a third character, or...

* One [[Donald Duck]] comic revolves around the world being the dream of an ancient cephalophoid monster slumbering in a city at the bottom of the sea. Yes, there exists ''a Donald Duck [[Cosmic Horror Story]]''.

* In Neil Gaiman's ''[[The Sandman]]'', Dream subjects a character (who'd accidentally captured Dream in an attempt to seal Death and gain immortality) to a punishment of "eternal waking". The character in question continually dreams that he's woken up, only to see some nightmarish thing that tells him he's still dreaming, only to wake up from that dream... {{spoiler|For five real-time years!}}

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* The final [[Mind Screw]] of ''[[American Psycho]]'' is that {{spoiler|[[Unreliable Narrator|Bateman himself is unsure how many of his experiences are real or imagined.]] }}

* The big [[Mind Screw|brain hump]] of ''[[Mulholland Drive]]'' is you don't know which is real; the last half hour, or everything preceding it?

** Considering that the former is surreal and bizarre, while the latter is mundane and somewhat explains why {{spoiler|a disturbed person might dream up the former to escape her reality}}, [[~~Occams~~ Razor]] says the last half-hour.

** Considering that the former is surreal and bizarre, while the latter is mundane and somewhat explains why {{spoiler|a disturbed person might dream up the former to escape her reality}}, [[Occam's Razor]] says the last half-hour.

* ''[[The Fly]]'': Far into his physical transformation Seth Brundle starts to think that he had always been an insect, and only imagined that he was a human being. Only in his mind though.

{{quote| '''Seth''': I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake.}}

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* The ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book ''I Live In Your Basement'', to the point of being a [[Mind Screw]].

* Stanislaw Lem did this in his novel ''The Futurological Congress''. With hallucinogens being used as a war weapon, neither the protagonist or the reader is really sure when or if things get back to reality.

* Some [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] books had the results of really bad screw-ups followed by "it was all a dream". An [[TV Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|egregious]] exanple is ''Space and Beyond''; one ending has it be [[All Just a Dream]]; the rest of the endings say that it is not.

* Some [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] books had the results of really bad screw-ups followed by "it was all a dream". An [[All The Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|egregious]] exanple is ''Space and Beyond''; one ending has it be [[All Just a Dream]]; the rest of the endings say that it is not.

* Several times during the course of ''[[The Circle Series]]'', Thomas Hunter actually asks himself whether he's dreaming or not. {{spoiler|He never does figure out which he's actually living in.}}

* [[Stephen King|Stephen King's]] ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' includes a heart-wrenching scene in which the protagonist has exactly this kind of dream.

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== Live Action TV ==

* One ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode has her [[Cuckoo Nest|"wake up" in an insane asylum]], having dreamt the last few seasons in a fugue. In the end, Buffy decides that Sunnydale is real and saves her friends... and then we see her psychologist pronounce her too far gone to save. Presumably the rest of the series is her continued hallucinations; how [[Angel]] fits in is anybody's guess.

* The ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' episode The Real World ends with the heroes briefly wondering if the reality they're in is real or another Asuran deception, then quickly deciding [[~~Bellisarios~~ Maxim|they'd rather not know]].

* The ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' episode The Real World ends with the heroes briefly wondering if the reality they're in is real or another Asuran deception, then quickly deciding [[Bellisario's Maxim|they'd rather not know]].

** Another episode ends with McKay asking if they were really relased from the fake mental world projected to them by a cloud of sentient gas. The gas then yells at him that it's real.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Blatant Lies|never used this trope]].

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* There was a ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' episode in which the entire story consisted of a woman's repeatedly waking up from nightmares, only to find each time that [[Dream Within a Dream|she was still dreaming]].

* Played with in [[Chuck]] but only for a moment. After an episode putting Chuck's mental health in question the end of the episode shows that Chuck is not crazy. However, then he wakes up back in the mental ward. However, the mental ward scene is only for a moment before it becomes clear that it is another vivid dream, and not!crazy Chuck is in fact reality.

* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' plays with this in the episode ''Amy's Choice'', when the "Dream Lord" traps the Doctor and his two companions in two deadly situations which they switch between by falling asleep every five minutes or so, claiming one of them to be real and one of them to be a dream, and that if you die in the dream you wake up in reality, while if you die in reality, "[[Deadpan Snarker|you die, stupid, that's why it's called reality]]". {{spoiler|In the end, the Doctor, in a twist of genius, realises that the Dream Lord gave them a choice between two dreams, because he "conceded defeat" and revived the dead TARDIS, while the Dream Lord is supposed to have no power over reality. He subsequently blows up the TARDIS to [[Kill Em All|kill them all]], and they all get returned to reality, where they were brought into a collective hallucination by a few grammes of psychotropic dust, and the Dream Lord is just an inner demon within the Doctor.}}

* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' plays with this in the episode ''Amy's Choice'', when the "Dream Lord" traps the Doctor and his two companions in two deadly situations which they switch between by falling asleep every five minutes or so, claiming one of them to be real and one of them to be a dream, and that if you die in the dream you wake up in reality, while if you die in reality, "[[Deadpan Snarker|you die, stupid, that's why it's called reality]]". {{spoiler|In the end, the Doctor, in a twist of genius, realises that the Dream Lord gave them a choice between two dreams, because he "conceded defeat" and revived the dead TARDIS, while the Dream Lord is supposed to have no power over reality. He subsequently blows up the TARDIS to [[Kill'Em All|kill them all]], and they all get returned to reality, where they were brought into a collective hallucination by a few grammes of psychotropic dust, and the Dream Lord is just an inner demon within the Doctor.}}

* ''[[Lost]]'': Hurley spent an episode believing that the Island was a hallucination and that he was still back at Santa Rosa Hospital. Desmond seems to have these reality doubts sometimes too.

* ''[[Angel]]'' has a mini-version of this in a Season 4 episode. {{spoiler|1=Angel is seen to defeat the demon and (finally) go to bed with Cordelia. Then we realize it was a dream designed to make Angel lose his soul in a moment of perfect happiness (understandably, sleeping with Charisma Carpenter = perfect happiness).}} It intersects with [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]; it qualifies here because the audience doesn't realize it's a dream until it's over, and this event blurs the lines between (in-show) reality and dream.

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* Zhuangzi's poem is the source of all the butterfly symbolism in the ''[[Persona (Video Game)|Persona]]'' games, as referenced by ''Megami Ibunroku Persona's'' intro. The remake even references this in the opening lyrics.

{{quote| ''Dream of butterfly / Or is life a dream? / Don't wanna wake up / [[Spoiler Opening|Cause I'm happy here]]'''}}

* On a similar note, [[Persona 3|Persona 3 Portable]] is implied to be this, because though one can choose either a female or male protagonist, the story is the same ([[~~Schrodingers~~ Player Character|save for one or changes in social links]]).

* On a similar note, [[Persona 3|Persona 3 Portable]] is implied to be this, because though one can choose either a female or male protagonist, the story is the same ([[Schrodinger's Player Character|save for one or changes in social links]]).

* ''[[Silent Hill 1]]'s'' Bad Ending shows us the protagonist dying in his broken car; apparently all the game was just [[Dying Dream|a dream he had between the car crash and his death]]. Other endings are less unhappy, though... except for the one where he kills his daughter and he and an [[Innocent Bystander]] get roasted alive in a collapsing [[Dark World|hell-dimension]]. Oh, and there are four sequels; he's revealed to have survived in the third {{spoiler|[[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome|only to be killed off-screen]]}}.

* Part of the ending of the Ciel route in ''[[Tsukihime]]'' involves Shiki in a mental dream world where there are no vampires, Ciel is just a normal girl and he doesn't have his [[Evil Eye|Eyes of Death Perception.]] He catches on pretty quick and has a little chat with his Nanaya side over whether he wants to leave or not, because leaving most likely means death.