History Main / DaydreamSurprise

* ''Series/{{Sorry}}'': The episode "Curse of the Mummy" has a scene in the middle of the episode where Timothy falls down the stairs as he's trying to escape from his mother with Muriel. From there, the episode gets more bizarre, ending with a sequence where the train is pulling away with Muriel on it and without Timothy. It is only then that we find that everything since Timothy fell down the stairs had been AllJustADream.

* ''Series/UglyBetty'': When Wilhelmina is privately meeting with Connor and he offers her a drink, she daydreams that he then starts kissing her, jolting back to reality when he asks why she's staring into space.

---> '''Ms Norbury:''' Nothing you wanna apologise for?
---> '''Cady:''' ...No.
---> '''Cady (as narrator):''' And then she said it. The worst thing you can hear from any adult.
---> '''Ms Norbury:''' Your parents have been eaten by cannibals!
---> '''Cady (as narrator):''' ...Uh, OK, the second worst.
---> '''Ms Norbury:''' I'm really disappointed in you, Cady.

* Dave confessing his feelings to Helen in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}''.

* When Gray comes face to face with Teddy in ''Webcomic/WeakHero'', he loses his temper, rushes up the stairs towards him, and ends up getting kicked back down... or that's how it plays out in his imagination. Gray realises that he has to contain his temper, and leaves Teddy alone until he has a better opportunity to fight back.

* ''Series/AndyRichterControlsTheUniverse'' had this almost as a reoccurring theme, to ridiculous lengths. The show even started with an extended one. They were also ''[[LamphadeHanging lampshaded]]'' A LOT.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{The Croods}} , in the sequel "A New Age", Grug is being annoyed by Phil Betterman attempting to get his attention and [[RunningGag hurls a stick into his eye as he screams]]. Then we return to reveal it's just Grug happily daydreaming this event while Phil is still trying to get his attention.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{The Croods:A New Age}} Grug is being annoyed by Phil Betterman and [[RunningGag hurls a stick into his eye as he screams]]. Then we go back to Grug happily daydreaming this.

* This trope is seen several times in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'', mainly by Bunny and Ducky.

* At the end of ''Film/TheChase'', Charlie Sheen gets out of his car and is riddled with bullets...or not. A clue was left for the observant viewers: he lights a cigarette with a lighter that, in reality, was thrown out of the car long ago.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. Sam has a dream where Bella knocks on his hotel room door, lampshades their FoeYay, slips out of her trenchcoat to reveal she's wearing lingerie, and snogs him until Dean snaps him out of his fantasy. Bella then knocks on their door wearing a trenchcoat, causing Sam to go wide-eyed when she takes it off...but she's just wearing her normal clothes.

* A ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' comic features a just-on-the-brink-of-insanity Harvey Dent shooting up a courtroom. Then the judge calls him out for daydreaming. Of course, everything in the daydream is red, so that might tip you off.
** They did it again the the Comic "Penguin Dreams", which details a successful trick where Penguin succeeds in murdering Batman, then [[CementShoes kicks a bound and gagged Bruce Wayne off his yacht]]. To maintain the illusion, the title wasn't shown until the last page, when it was revealed to be Penguin looking out the window daydreaming.

* In one arc of Franchise/{{Superman}}, after Brainiac (who's been re-retconned back into an alien scientist) indirectly kills [[spoiler: Pa Kent]] Superman suddenly takes off, breaks into Brainiac's prison cell and punches his head into a bloody green pulp. Cut to Clark just sitting there in the funeral parlor, with Lois asking if he's all right.
** A similar moment occurs during Superman’s second encounter with Manchester Black. Black reveals that he has killed Lois Lane ([[spoiler:actually an illusion created with his telepathy]]), and Superman evaporates him with heat vision, before snapping back to reality and telling Black that he’s under arrest.
* Used repeatedly in [[{{Series/Firefly}} Serenity: Better Days]] to show what the crew plan to do with their share of the treasure. Because of River's... [[CloudCuckooLander condition,]] the illustration of hers is [[http://fandomania.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/serenity2-003.jpg surreal to say the least.]]

* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': “The Kippies” presents a scenario where Bolt and Mittens have [[HybridMonster mixed-species offspring]]. It is later revealed that this is a recurring daydream fantasy of Mittens.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' does this regularly with [[http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2005/07/24/ "Mike's Summer Daydream."]]
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'':
** Calvin enters a traffic safety poster contest, and is certain that his poster, "Be Careful Or Be Roadkill", is a shoo-in. One strip begins with several newspaper headlines about Calvin winning the contest, and praising him for his greatness. The last panel then has Susie excitedly going up to Calvin, telling him that her poster won.
** One strip has Mom waking Calvin up to get ready for school, so he gets up, goes through his morning routine, and as he's out the door, he hears Mom say, "Calvin, it's time to wake up." It's then revealed Calvin dreamed up the whole morning as Mom tries to get him out of bed. He complains that his dreams are getting too literal.
[[/folder]]

* ''Manga/NininGaShinobuden'' has [[DirtyOldMan Onsokumaru]] and the ninja gang planning to peep on Shinobu and Kaede while they're in the changing room. We then see Shinobu and Kaede in the changing room, and SkinshipGrope begins complete with "seductive" music and some...interesting sound effects. Then Kaede and Shinobu ask [[TokenMiniMoe Miyabi]] to join them... at which point it cuts back to Onsokumaru saying "And that's what I expect it to be like!"

* This tropes is seen several times in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'', mainly by Bunny and Ducky.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Spies in Disguise}}'', as Walter talked to Lance in the airplane and droned on about the facts of being a pigeon, the latter suddenly snaps at Walter and ejects him and his bird Lovey out of the airplane. As Lance does an EvilLaugh after he seemingly killed Walter, we switch back to Lance with both Lovey and Walter still in the same plane with him, the latter still talking about pigeon facts.

* After Alistair Smythe make a crack that he's Spider-Man in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', Max Dillon, obsessed with Spider-Man ever since the wall-crawler saved him, has a daydream where he slams Smythe against a wall, but in reality, he does nothing. A deleted scene has him similarly having a daydream about yelling at [[AbusiveParents his asshat of a mother]] after he mocks his singing [[KickTheDog hen he hummed "Happy Birthday" on his own birthday]].

* Following on the previous film, ''Film/AnalyzeThat'' has Dr. Sobel daydreaming that he finally snaps as he's delivering an euology on his father's funeral and rants about how much of an asshole his father (who was [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter an even more renowned psychologist]] and [[WellDoneSonGuy gave him absolutely jack shit in respect]]) truly was [[HiddenDisdainReveal before making clear that he always hated the guy and he can burn in hell for all he cares]] while in reality he droned out the cookie-cutter kiss-ass speech we wrote down for the occasion.

* At the end of ''Film/TheChase'', Charlie Sheen gets out of his car and is riddled with bullets...or not. A clue was left for the observant viewers: he lights a cigarette with a lighter that, in reality, was thrown off the car long ago.

** Calvin enters traffic safety poster contest, and his certain that his poster, "Be Careful Or Be Roadkill", is a shoo-in. One strip begins with several newspaper headlines about Calvin winning the contest, and praising him for his greatness. The last panel then has Susie excitedly going up to Calvin, telling him that her poster won.
** One strip has Mom waking Calvin up to get ready for school, so he gets up, goes through his morning routine, and as he's out the door, he hears Mom say, "Calvin, it's time to wake up." It's then reveal Calvin dreamed up the whole morning as Mom tries to get him out of bed. He complains that his dreams are getting too literal.

* The first ''VideoGame/FreddiFish'' game has this in the form of an infamous DummiedOut [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwh9iUtX4Fc cutscene]]. (Which can be produced in-game by adding the value "[=EddieEatsLuther=]=1" in the game's ini file.) At one point in the game, Freddi and her friend Luther meet an irritated eel named Eddie, who threatens to eat the two fish if they don't go away. If the value is set in the ini file, clicking Luther will result in Freddi suddenly ''tossing Luther to Eddie'', who gleefully gobbles the poor fish up (and in a way that's fairly graphic for a kid's game no less) and swims off as Freddi smirks at the camera. After this happens, the scene immediately cuts back to before (with Freddi and the still alive-and-well Luther in front of the Eddie) and this exchange occurs:

* In ''Series/TheSopranos'' episode "Long Term Parking", the viewers see Adrianna driving her Ford Thunderbird out of New Jersey with her suitcase, but then a few seconds later we realize that she was daydreaming, and [[spoiler: is back in Silvio's car on the way to her execution.]]

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Workaholics}}'', Adam, high on bath salts, painkillers and alcohol, sings (pretty well, too) a song at Karl's Wedding, dedicated to his new homeless girl, complete with backing from Jakob Dylan of the Wallflowers. Only the song cuts out after a minute, the lighting changes and we're back to reality, with Adam drunkenly moaning and yelling at the wedding guests.

* ''Series/{{Burnistoun}}'': In the first sketch of the first series, Scott is harassed by a pair of thugs who threaten to pull a knife on him. He responds by chucking a bottle of ginger at them and perfectly hits one in the head. This leads to him being featured on a TV programme and making it into the Guinness Book of World Records. At the end of the sequence, this is revealed to be in his imagination, and when he actually tries to chuck the bottle of ginger he spills it all over himself instead.