History Main / PlatonicCave

* In the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' novel "A Thousand Sons, Thousand Sons" primarch Magnus the Red retells the story in an effort to convince the Emperor that he should allow continued exploration into sorcery. [[spoiler:He fails, and although his legion is censured for its use, they continue to use it with disastrous results.]] In this case the Emperor is trying his damnedest to keep the cave in place, since he knows what's lurking outside the cave is utterly horrific. [[spoiler: And Magnus has long since made a bargain with one of those horrors, which is precisely what shoots his case in the foot.]] And to complete the symbolism, the fate of the Thousand Sons and Magnus is foreshadowed when Ahriman points out Magnus didn't tell the story correctly: [[spoiler: in this universe's version of the tale, the other men killed the man who escaped when he returned and told them about the light.]]

* ''Film/MyLittlePonyANewGeneration'': The cave is the earth pony settlement of Maretime Bay. With the exception of Sunny Starscout, all residents believe that unicorns and pegasi are "the enemy" and that they possess dangerous magical abilities, even though they lost those powers long ago. The primary perpetrator is Canterlogic, a supplier of defensive gear that holds an annual presentation showcasing its items while emphasizing the danger that unicorns and pegasi pose. Sunny is able to interrupt the presentation and deliver a pro-unity speech but is unsuccessful in persuading the crowd. A possible culprit could be the implied lack of travel in or out of Maretime Bay that left it unexposed to differing viewpoints.

%%* The setting of ''Series/{{Life on Mars|2006}}''... maybe.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': In "Back to Reality", the characters wake up to find they have apparently been in an immersive computer game and when outside the game, they have very different identities. However, they later discover this itself is an alternative reality created by a predatory despair squid in an attempt to drive them to suicide.

A Platonic Cave setting is one in which the cave is shown to be artificial. It doesn't have to be a cave; the person could be trapped in a dark dreamland, a drugged trance, or shrouded in an illusory alternate reality. Stories in this setting frequently have to do with peeling back layers of darkness, trying to get closer to reality.

A Platonic Cave setting is one in which the cave is shown to be artificial. Stories in this setting frequently have to do with peeling back layers, trying to get closer to reality.

In Creator/{{Plato}}'s [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave famous allegory]] from ''Literature/TheRepublic'', reality is not directly perceived. We are tied down, in a cave, in front of a fire, unable to see ourselves or anyone else, only their shadows; and as we see the shadows dance and interact, we believe the shadows to be ourselves, and the walls of the cave to be the world.

* Rin, the main heroine of ''Anime/{{Shelter}}'', spends the rest of her days in a room where she can change her surroundings with a drawing tablet. However, in reality [[spoiler:her brain is hooked up to a simulator while her motionless physical body is trapped in a spaceship after a world-ending event.]]

[[folder:Films - Animation]]

** While being interrogated in "And a sky full of stars", Sinclair is [[spoiler:trapped in a cybernet chair in which he experience an alternate reality]].
** In "Spider in the Web", Abel Horn is turned into a cybernetically controlled assassin by telepathically locking his mind at his moment of death, so this becomes his reality.

** In a "Race through Dark Places", Bester is telepathically tricked into thinking he has completed his mission.
** Londo is trapped in a telepathic drug induced reality by G'Kar in "Dust to Dust".

** Professor Moriarty discovers that he's a character in a holodeck fantasy, and it even gets down to the point where he is questioning the memories and personality he was programmed with, rejecting them for a chance at a new identity and existence. When Picard fails to live up to his promise, a follow-up episode has Moriarty trapping Picard and Data in one of these briefly leading Picard to muse that [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall their own reality might be a Platonic Cave]].
** Picard is trapped in another in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E25TheInnerLight The Inner Light]]," experiencing an entire lifetime of a [[spoiler:long-dead]] alien named Kaylen, believing it to be reality.
** Riker is trapped in a two-layer cave in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E8FutureImperfect Future Imperfect]]," first being made to think he's in the future and suffering from amnesia, and then being made to believe that '''that''' was a holodeck simulation by his captors, the Romulans. In reality, it was a dual-cave created by [[spoiler:a child alien who took up a role in both cave simulations]]
** Riker finds himself in yet another in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E19FrameOfMind Frame of Mind]]," as he is constantly shifting between two separate realities. In one he is on the ship acting in a play, in the other he is a patient/prisoner on an alien world. The episode centers on Riker slowly losing grip on reality as he tries to figure out which reality is real and which is a Platonic Cave.
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E19HardTime Hard Time]]" deals with the fallout of O'Brien having been forced into a Platonic Cave as punishment by an alien species. In his cave, he was forced to experience 20 years worth of memories of being a prisoner.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''

* ''Film/MyLittlePony:ANewGeneration'': The cave is the earth pony settlement of Maretime Bay. With the exception of Sunny Starscout, all residents believe that unicorns and pegasi are "the enemy" and that they possess dangerous magical abilities, even though they lost those powers long ago. The primary perpetrator is Canterlogic, a supplier of defensive gear that holds an annual presentation showcasing its items while emphasizing the danger that unicorns and pegasi pose. Sunny is able to interrupt the presentation and deliver a pro-unity speech but is unsuccessful in persuading the crowd. A possible culprit could be the implied lack of travel in or out of Maretime Bay that left it unexposed to differing viewpoints.

* ''Film/MyLittlePonyANewGeneration'': The cave is the earth pony settlement of Maretime Bay. With the exception of Sunny Starscout, all residents believe that unicorns and pegasi are "the enemy" and that they possess dangerous magical abilities, even though they lost those powers long ago. The primary perpetrator is Canterlogic, a supplier of defensive gear that holds an annual presentation showcasing its items while emphasizing the danger that unicorns and pegasi pose. Sunny is able to interrupt the presentation and deliver a pro-unity speech but is unsuccessful in persuading the crowd. A possible culprit could be the implied lack of travel in or out of Maretime Bay that left it unexposed to differing viewpoints.

** It was discovered in quantum mechanics that fundamental particles (quarks, electrons, photons etc.) are "point particles", particles which have no physical extension in 3D space and consequently occupy none. This would make atomic structures no longer mostly empty space, but entirely empty space. One proposed solution is that the basis of reality is not matter but information, and that the basis of a particle is a quantity of tiny empty space that has been given certain properties and parameters that effect a spherical radius of miniscule empty space. Who or what is "programming" the universe is naturally [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement very]] open for debate.

[[folder:Religion]]
* Broadly speaking, this trope can easily be seen as one of the tenets of the beliefs held by the adherents of most religions: The material universe where we dwell is merely a part of our reality. Beyond the observations and comprehension of mankind and its hard sciences, there exist God, gods, spirits, and other cosmic forces that influence physical events. Anyone who deny this are typically seen as people groping in the darkness, relying on their limited senses. Gnosticism in particular takes this to another level by likening physical reality as a ''prison'' that humanity, whose true form are believed to be spiritual in nature, must escape. A notable exception is UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}}, which sees the physical world as sacred and people giving it up as seriously deluded.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', it is heavily implied that the entire world is merely a [[spoiler: dream world created by entities called [[EldritchAbomination "Great Ones"]]. The "Yharnam Sunrise" ending flat out reveals that it is this trope.]]

* In ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'', the scientist responsible for the whole plot did the experiment because he believed in this theory, and wanted to expose part of the "real" reality to ours. Whereas this is true or not is not specified, but given the fact that an EldritchAbomination is running around it is likely so.

* Many tales by Creator/HPLovecraft in the Franchise/CthulhuMythos are about humans not being truly aware of the power of the cosmos before us, and all of us living in a pseudo reality apart of the truth of existence, and that learning that existence will drive you insane, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation as the human mind cannot comprehend what is outside of the allegorical cave]]. In one story, it is revealed that the world we know could actually be a Cave within a Cave, as the whole universe is the dream of Azathoth. He is kept asleep by aliens playing music, if he were to ever wake up even the [[EldritchAbomination EldritchAbominations]] don't know what would happen.

* Many tales by Creator/HPLovecraft in the Franchise/CthulhuMythos are about humans not being truly aware of the power of the cosmos before us, and all of us living in a pseudo reality apart of the truth of existence, and that learning that existence will drive you insane, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation as the human mind cannot comprehend what is outside of the allegorical cave]]. In one story, it is revealed that the world we know could actually be a Cave within a Cave, as the whole universe is the dream of Azathoth. He is kept asleep by aliens playing music, if he were to ever wake up even the EldritchAbomination don't know what would happen.

* Many tales by Creator/HPLovecraft in the Franchise/CthulhuMythos are about humans not being truly aware of the power of the cosmos before us, and all of us living in a pseudo reality apart of the truth of existence, and that learning that existence will drive you insane, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation as the human mind cannot comprehend what is outside of the allegorical cave]]. In one story, it is revealed that the world we know could actually be a Cave within a Cave, as the whole universe is the dream of Azathoth. He is kept asleep by aliens playing music, if he were to ever wake up even the EldritchAbominations don't know what would happen.

* The term ''woke'' refers to this, using the metaphor of "waking up" to see the world the way it truly is to describe gaining the full-awareness regarding the social injustices present in the world. "Woke" is an African-American variant of "woken" and was coined in its present use in the 2010s by activists trying to promote awareness of police brutality against Black people and other injustice toward the African-American community.

* Independent film ''Café'' has people spending most of the film inside the café. It turns out the café (and possibly the world outside) is a computer program, with a [[LittleMissAlmighty quirky little girl]] as the program's avatar. It's a [[{{Pun}} Platonic Café]], if you will.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/IRobot'', the story "Reason" revolves around a robot who becomes convinced that the space station on which he works is his entire universe, and the duties he performs on the station [[CargoCult are rites for a deity]]. The humans who oversee the station are unable to convince him otherwise, and their stories of a large planet with billions of people are dismissed as delusions they were given by 'the Master' to make their own lives seem meaningful. At the end of the story their relief workers reassure them that Earth is in fact still there, but the story ends before they physically leave its confines.

* Broadly speaking, this trope can easily be seen as one of the tenets of the beliefs held by the adherents of most religions: The material universe where we dwell is merely a part of our reality. Beyond the observations and comprehension of mankind and its hard sciences, there exist God, gods, spirits, and other cosmic forces that influence physical events. Anyone who deny this are typically seen as people groping in the darkness, relying on their limited senses. Gnosticism in particular takes this to another level by likening physical reality as a ''prison'' that humanity, whose true form are believed to be spiritual in nature, must escape.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' the [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2823 tour of Hell includes this cave.]]

The video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj7O8mrO_wY&lc=UgxXeQIzvx4ZnWUCDOp4AaABAg "White Walls"]] reimagines this trope through the lens of the Cthulhu Mythos. One guess as to how it ends.