History Main / AdventuresInComaLand

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "Near Death", Mac is shot in the back and left, well, near death. While he is being operated on, he journeys through a limbo that looks like the crime lab where he meets and has conversations with his friends (and his dead wife).

Compare JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, VisionQuest, TalkingInYourDreams. Adventure may possibly happen [[OutOfClothesExperience naked]]. See also LotusEaterMachine, SchrodingersButterfly. For the sleep version, see DreamEmergencyExit. For the fictional video game version, see WinToExit. See also AllJustADream, (for the [[ShaggyDogStory unwinnable]] version) DyingDream, and DreamEpisode. If the character dies, this becomes TheJourneyThroughDeath.

Compare JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, VisionQuest, TalkingInYourDreams. Adventure may possibly happen [[OutOfClothesExperience naked]]. See also LotusEaterMachine, SchrodingersButterfly. For the sleep version, see DreamEmergencyExit. For the fictional video game version, see WinToExit. See also AllJustADream, (for the [[ShaggyDogStory unwinnable]] version) DyingDream, and DreamEpisode. If the character dies, this becomes JourneyThroughDeath.

Compare JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, VisionQuest, TalkingInYourDreams. Adventure may possibly happen [[OutOfClothesExperience naked]]. See also LotusEaterMachine, SchrodingersButterfly. For the sleep version, see DreamEmergencyExit. For the fictional video game version, see WinToExit. See also AllJustADream, (for the [[ShaggyDogStory unwinnable]] version) DyingDream, and DreamEpisode.

* In ''Film/{{Awake}}'', while Clayton's doctors plot his death unaware that he can hear them, Clayton can do nothing but relive his memories that led up to this point, scrutinizing every detail to try to understand what's going on. After the transplant "fails" while he remains hooked to the bypass machine, everything in his dream world grows dimmer and dimmer, until finally fading to pitch black.

** Season 10 becomes ''Archer 1999'' with the cast as the crew of said spaceship who are struggling to make ends meet. Towards the end of the season "Captain Archer" starts seeing flashes of his crew as their real-world selves and in the finale [[spoiler: he finally wakes up for real.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': In the episode "The Sting", Leela has a strange experience when where Fry dies from being stung by an alien bee and she has strange dreams and hallucinations about him being alive. [[spoiler: Turns out it was all a dream induced by the venom, because ''she'' was stung as well (he was perfectly OK.)]]

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' invoked this in the ''Aincrad'' arc, trapping thousands of players against their will with no chance to escape from the virtual world unless they beat the 100th floor.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9869044/1/The-Greatest-Betrayal The Greatest Betrayal]], both Amy and Silver end up in a coma where they are in an endless black desert, and have to get out, with the encouragement of 'Shadow', who insists it is real. Amy, suffering from trauma, is given help to leave by Shadow, who pushes her away. Silver, who is implied to be near death, is advised to use his telekinesis, and he flies up and out through the stars - as he does so, in the real world the hospital room goes into turmoil from his telekinesis. The walls have so much glass in them that they shine like starlight, and when he escapes, his breath is condensed with ice crystals and his skin is described as being as cold as the space between the stars. Unlike Amy, he remembers it all.

* While in a coma after his [[Series/TopGear vampire dragster crash]], Creator/RichardHammond experienced a vivid dream of a [[HappyPlace mountain range in Scotland where he'd walked many times]]. He heard his wife crying out to him to wake up (in real life) and turned back at a certain tree, evidently symbolic in the dream of [[NearDeathExperience the boundary between life and death.]] He explains his experience [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BYQLDU9xhI&pp=ygUUcmljaGFyZCBoYW1tb25kIHRyZWU%3D in this video]] while stood next to the very same tree, noting that he finds it comforting to know that such a beautiful place is where his soul will pass [[WeAllDieSomeday when he eventually dies]].

* While in a coma after his [[Series/TopGear vampire dragster crash]], Creator/RichardHammond experienced a vivid dream of a mountain range in Scotland where he'd walked many times. He heard his wife crying out to him to wake up (in real life) and turned back at a certain tree, evidently symbolic in the dream of [[NearDeathExperience the boundary between life and death.]] He explains his experience [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BYQLDU9xhI&pp=ygUUcmljaGFyZCBoYW1tb25kIHRyZWU%3D in this video]] while stood next to the very same tree, noting that he finds it comforting to know that such a beautiful place is where his soul will pass [[WeAllDieSomeday when he eventually dies]].

* In one episode of ''Franchise/StarTrek: [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration ST:TNG]]'' Deanna has to enter her comatose mother's mind.

* [[spoiler:The entirety of]] ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' [[spoiler:is a collective dream of both Link and the Wind Fish]].

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16783748000.42439000
%% See thread to discuss replacement.

[[quoteright:350: [[Anime/SummerGhost https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/summer_ghost_6.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Why would you cling onto the world that only makes you suffer?'']]

* Roadkill's ending in ''[[VideoGame/TwistedMetal Twisted Metal II]]'' has him insisting that the entire tournament isn't real and his wish is to "wake up:". [[spoiler:He's absolutely right: He awakens in a hospital and a doctor (Calypso) tells him he's the only one of the 25 people involved in a massive accident to awaken from their coma, and the camera zooms out to show all the other combatants still unconscious. However, [[OrWasItADream the last shot shows Calypso's eyes and his insane laughter]]...]]

* In the ''[[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse [=BattleTech=]]]'' novel ''Literature/GraveCovenant'', Victor Steiner-Davion has one of these after an assassination attempt on him. He finds himself having a conversation with his father and his father's fiercest rival (both deceased), ends on a note of telling them to their faces that he has his own life to tend to and destiny to make regardless of ''their'' approval or lack thereof, and not too surprisingly wakes up in the hospital for the first time right at the end of the same chapter.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Thundercats2011'' "Trials of Lion-O" arc, the [[MineralMacGuffin Spirit Stone]] forces young hero Lion-O to undertake a VisionQuest in a MentalWorld to prove his worth and overcome his personal issues, [[spoiler: so that he might earn the right to be [[BackFromTheDead resurrected]]]].

* ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'' often makes it seem like [[TheUnderworld Deadland]] is a physical place, with water that Jasper and Agnes can drink, objects they can touch, clothes they can wear, and monsters that can literally rip their hearts out. However, it is shown at the end that Jasper and Agnes never physically entered Deadland, as their bodies are still wearing their original clothes instead of the clothes they changed into while in Deadland.