History Main / DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody

* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': "The View from Halfway Down" takes place in a recurring dream of [=BoJack=]'s, where he attends a dinner party and show with his deceased friends. However, there are signs that something is different in this dream, as it doesn't end where it usually does and [=BoJack=] keeps coughing up sludge. [=BoJack=] speaks with Secretariat (who also represents [=BoJack=]'s father), who reveals to [=BoJack=] that [[spoiler:[[DyingDream he's not going to wake up]], flicking a cigarette into a pool...showing [=BoJack=] the floating silhouette of his drowned body]]. However, the next episode reveals this as [[spoiler:a subversion as [=BoJack=] gets found and rescued from the pool]].

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* In the beginning of episode two of ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite: [[BioShockInfinite/BurialAtSea Burial at Sea]]'', Elizabeth finds her own dead body, revealing that her Rapture version was killed by the Big Daddy immediately after the battle at the end of episode one. [[spoiler:Which is a major problem, since by returning to an alternate reality where she had died before, Elizabeth has lost all of her reality-warping and dimension-hopping powers.]]

* Starbuck in ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' finds a crashed Viper with her own body inside it during the final season. She and the Leoben that find are completely freaked out by it. What exactly the Starbuck we've been following actually is never gets made clear, but she's implied to be an AngelUnaware since the crash.
** The same episode has [[spoiler: Chief Tyrol]] wander around a [[spoiler: post-apocalyptic Earth]], drawn to something he can't explain until he comes across a shadow silhouette burnt against the wall of a building. This triggers the memories of his own death as a result of a nuclear holocaust. When the rest of the Final Five catch up with him, he points to the shadow and remarks wistfully this was his past self.
** Somewhat common with Cylons in general due to their ResurrectiveImmortality. Their reactions at coming across their own bodies vary between indifference, annoyance and sadness depending on the circumstances of their deaths.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': A variation of the alternative dimension type. During his "limbo" period in "Near Death," Mac subconsciously visits and converses with each member of his team. When he gets to the M.E., he finds Sid about to remove a sheet from a body. He asks Sid to wait and wants to know if that's himself on the table. Sid says, "Only if you've given up." They continue talking, but the body is never shown.

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E7TheSpaceMuseum The Space Museum]]" the Doctor and his companions land on a planet but they're JustOneSecondOutOfSync. While they're out of sync they wander around the museum and find their own stuffed bodies on display. When the timelines resync they go on the run from the authorities to make sure that they don't wind up dead.

--->'''Doctor:''' When you are a time traveller, there is one place you must never go. One place in all of space and time you must never, ever find yourself.
--->'''Clara:''' Where?
--->'''Doctor:''' You didn't listen, did you? You lot never do. That's the problem. The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered. He wasn't talking about my secret. No, no, no, that's not what's been found. He was talking about my grave. Trenzalore is where I'm buried.
--->'''Clara:''' How can you have a grave?
--->'''Doctor:''' Because we all do, somewhere out there in the future, waiting for us. The trouble with time travel, you can actually end up visiting.
** Happens to the Twelfth Doctor in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]" ''hundreds of millions of times'', although he doesn't realize it's ''his'' skull and dust until it's almost time to die again.
* Happens a couple of times on ''Series/GhostWhisperer'' when someone realizes they're dead.

* ''Series/{{Good Omens|2019}}'': On reading the address for his fourth delivery, the International Express Man steps out into a busy street where he'd previously had a close call, a truck screams past, and for a moment it looks like he made it again. But then the [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Fourth]] [[GrimReaper Horseman]] draws his attention to the mangled body next to him.
* Time travel version in "Series/{{Primeval}}": in Episode 1 Captain Ryan calls Professor Cutter's attention to some remains in a ruined camp. Strangely for this trope, Ryan doesn't realize that one of the sets of remains they found was his own until Episode 6 after Cutter realises that they had just made the camp they encountered the first time.

* ''Series/StargateUniverse'': A variation in "Time". Rush discovers a skull on the jungle planet but does not realise until later that it belongs to a version of himself from an AlternateTimeline.
* What kickstarts the plot of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow Time's Arrow]]" in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is finding android Data's severed head in a cavern beneath UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco, with evidence suggesting it has been there for over five hundred years. When the crew attempts to comfort Data over this, he is instead delighted that he will have a "death" since it means he has a finite time to exist and won't see all of his friends live and die while he continues on forever. Also a notable aversion of LivingForeverIsAwesome. Technically [[spoiler:subverted; after the time-travel accident occurs that leaves Data's head in the nineteenth century, the rest of the crew return to their present with Data's body and are able to reactivate him using the salvaged head.]]
* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E17Visionary Visionary]]", Chief O'Brien has several brief jumps into the future. By the end of the episode, O'Brien -- or, at least, the O'Brien the episode ends with -- has witnessed ''two'' alternate versions of himself die and come upon the sheet-covered corpse of a third. He's understandably somewhat freaked by this.
-->'''O'Brien''': I've had a few brushes with death in my career, but... there was something about watching myself being killed. Feeling my own neck for a pulse that wasn't there.

AttendingYourOwnFuneral may overlap if TheReveal occurs at a character's own memorial service, although that trope does not require the character in question to die first. A more benign version may involve a {{Psychopomp}} arriving to spirit off someone's soul and the recently deceased taking one final look at their discarded body. The more supernatural versions of PrematurelyMarkedGrave may also be related.

When a character turns out to be DeadAllAlong, they often only realize this upon finding their own corpse. Whether they're actually a ghost, have been cloned, time traveled to the future past the time of their death, gone to an [[DeadAlternateCounterpart alternate dimension]] or have since become a robot, the discovery is shocking and traumatizing for a character who was unaware they had actually died. If none of the above applies, and the character is indisputably alive, then it's usually an indication that the character [[StableTimeLoop is destined to travel to the past at some point and die there]]. Almost always results in a HeroicBSOD from the character in question, and often overlaps with TomatoInTheMirror.

* A variation in ''Film/AvengersEndgame''; [[spoiler: time travel causes past Nebula's cyborg systems to pick up and project memories from her present self, allowing past Thanos to watch himself get decapitated.]] Unusually for this trope, he simply smiles in satisfaction and calls it "destiny fulfilled". It's not completely clear whether he is totally uncaring, or guessed it was coming from the context, but either way he takes it much better than most people hit with this trope.

* A variation in ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' during the flashback to Mort's death, young Mort sees his own helmet, bloodied, while he's still wearing one.

* In Episode 1 of "Series/Primeval", Captain Ryan calls Professor Cutter's attention to some remains in a ruined camp. Strangely for this trope, Ryan doesn't realise that one of the sets of remains they found was his own until Episode 6 after Cutter realises that they had just made the camp they encountered the first time.

* In Episode 1 of ''Series/Primeval'', Captain Ryan calls Professor Cutter's attention to some remains in a ruined camp. Strangely for this trope, Ryan doesn't realise that one of the sets of remains they found was his own until Episode 6 after Cutter realises that they had just made the camp they encountered the first time.