History Main / RecursiveReality

->'''Hank Pym:''' Do not screw with the regulator. If that regulator is compromised, you would go sub-atomic.\\
'''Scott Lang:''' What does that mean?\\
'''Pym:''' It means that you would enter a quantum realm.\\
'''Scott:''' What does that mean?\\
'''Pym:''' It means that you would enter a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity. Everything that you know, and love, gone forever.
-->-- ''Film/AntMan1''

* ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'' shows Superman, wondering how the world will function without him, creating a miniature Earth in a miniature universe. It grows relatively quickly, and the last panel of the issue shows someone drawing a comic-book character, declaring "This time, I'll change everything..." The character is {{Superman}} - it's our world, the man doing the drawing is Joe Shuster, and we have a loop.

* ''Website/GoodbyeStrangers'' is a NestedStory with three levels. What should be the top is ''Behind the Curtain'' which a fictionalized version of how ''Goodbye Strangers'' was written. The main setting of the story is called North Mural, which is where ''Space Madness'' takes place. ''Zeroworld'' is a FictionalVideoGame that exists in North Mural and depicts the BadFuture world of VHZ. [[MindScrew But somehow, ''Behind the Curtain'' also exists within VHZ.]] The page for the [[https://strangers.atrocityland.com/enter/site/module/elist/s_recurridaize.html recurridrizieri]] (which appropriately [[AsteroidsMonster contains at least two layers of smaller versions of itself]]) also has an advertisement for ''Goodbye Strangers''.

* Let's see the ''{{Webcomic/Buildingverse}}'' (so ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}'', ''Webcomic/GirlsNextDoor'' and ''Webcomic/DownTheStreet'' and their [[RecursiveFanfiction assorted fanwork]]) is a {{Megacrossover}} MetaFic 'verse, where the (for them) real stories of the characters, are fictional (so all the responsible people exist. James already placed Creator/OrlandoBloom as his problem with Legolas), that is fictional in [[RealLife ours]], and the cast [[MediumAwareness knows]] [[NoFourthWall this]]. This isn't even accounting for all the {{Dream Within A|Dream}} {{Dream Land}}s TheFairFolk can create from the inside, or the possibility for stories being MutuallyFictional, or the ability to travel to the worlds of other fiction (Jareth even managed to "fix" ''Film/{{Inception}}''[[note]]So according to this there is a missing scene, where he brings forth the canonical ending, because Saito messing with his love interest's dreams from Limbo annoyed him.[[/note]]). And don't let us get started on the implied possibility to read the comics [[RecursiveCanon in the comics]]. Is there a true reality? Does the chain of fictionality ever end? We don't know. [[BreakingTheFourthWall You reading this]] [[FridgeHorror could be fictional in some other world/story too]]. ... And this isn't a twist ending, this is one of the most basic facts about these comics. Also the authors read each other's work, and some even Wiki/TVTropes. So questions, ideas, characters etc. flow kinda free between the worlds making up the 'verse. At the end it's either AllFictionIsRealSomewhere or an exceptionally pretty [[SchrodingersButterfly Butterfly]]! [[MindScrew Or both]].

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has a page of Website/ThisVeryWiki [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4445-j right here]].

* In the Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} page on "Infinite regression", one of the "See also" items is sometimes "Infinite regression".

* The website Wiki/TVTropes has a page devoted to this concept, called "[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RecursiveReality Recursive Reality]]", along with a long list of examples. Humorously, one of the examples actually links to the TV Tropes page itself.

* Both ''Pinball/{{Deadpool}}'' tables feature this trope.
** The DigitalPinballTable made by Creator/ZenStudios appears to recurse infinitely if you pull back the camera. Deadpool plays a miniature version of the table on the left apron, and it appears that you're playing it on the left apron of an even BIGGER version of the table.
** In the PhysicalPinballTable made by Creator/{{Stern}}, when no modes are running, the main display shows Deadpool playing the table itself.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'': Atomia's "Atom World" can be accessed by being shrunk down to a miniscule microscopic size.

* There are numerous fanfics, mostly badly-written and plagiaristic, in which the characters [[https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Reading%20the%20Books read their own book]], watch their own movie, etc.

* The booklet for Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s ''Nine Lives'' [[http://www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/col4850206 started as this]]: the cover with a "cat krishna" fighting snakes was inside a picture with threatening fish, which was in a fish tank, and so on until a picture with caricatures of the band. Then the picture was found insentitive to Hindu religion, and the replacement had a cat person strapped to a wheel, wearing a shirt with the illustration with the Aerosmith caricatures... [[https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/18/57/14/185714a83d5b5fe853b68da4fd7dc331.jpg and then in the fish art, it had the cover, making the recursion circular as well.]]

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has a page of Wiki/ThisVeryWiki [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4445-j right here]].

* In ''Assassin's Creed Revelations'', Desmond is in the Animus living Ezio's memories, who uses the [[PlotCoupon Masyaf Keys]] to live Altair's memories.

* ''Website/GoodbyeStrangers'' is a NestedStory with three levels. What should be the top is ''Behind the Curtain'' which a fictionalized version of how ''Goodbye Strangers'' was written. The main setting of the story is called North Mural, which is where ''Space Madness'' takes place. ''Zeroworld'' is a FictionalVideoGame that exists in North Mural and depicts the BadFuture world of VHZ. [[MindScrew But somehow, ''Behind the Curtain'' also exists within VHZ.]] The page for the [[https://strangers.atrocityland.com/enter/site/module/elist/s_recurridaize.html recurridrizieri]] also has an advertisement for ''Goodbye Strangers''.

* ''Website/GoodbyeStrangers'' is a NestedStory with three levels. What should be the top is ''Behind the Curtain'' which a fictionalized version of how ''Goodbye Strangers'' was written. The main setting of the story is called North Mural, which is where ''Space Madness'' takes place. ''Zeroworld'' is a FictionalVideoGame that exists in North Mural and depicts the BadFuture world of VHZ. [[MindScrew But somehow, ''Behind the Curtain'' also exists within VHZ.]]

->'''Hank Pym''': Do not screw with the regulator. If that regulator is compromised you would go sub-atomic.\\
'''[[ComicBook/AntMan Scott Lang]]''': What does that mean?\\
'''Pym''': It means that you would enter a quantum realm.\\
'''Scott''': What does that mean?\\
'''Pym''': It means that you would enter a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity. Everything that you know, and love, gone forever.

* ''[[Radio/QuietPlease1947 Quiet, Please]]'': "The Man Who Stole A Planet" has an archaeologist finding an old Mayan underground chamber with an inscription saying "The place where the world lives." Inside he finds a little silver globe the size of a baseball, which is an accurate rendition of the Earth. Only it turns out that ''it is the Earth''. When the man flicks a little bit of water on the northern Africa part of the globe, the radio broadcasts a report of cataclysmic rainfall and flooding in the Sahara Desert. When the man pokes Minnesota on the globe with a needle, the radio broadcasts a second report of a massive earthquake in Minnesota. This raises the question of whether there's a very very very tiny man somewhere on the baseball-sized globe, possibly with a little silver globe of his own.

* ''Radio/QuietPlease'': "The Man Who Stole A Planet" has an archaeologist finding an old Mayan underground chamber with an inscription saying "The place where the world lives." Inside he finds a little silver globe the size of a baseball, which is an accurate rendition of the Earth. Only it turns out that ''it is the Earth''. When the man flicks a little bit of water on the northern Africa part of the globe, the radio broadcasts a report of cataclysmic rainfall and flooding in the Sahara Desert. When the man pokes Minnesota on the globe with a needle, the radio broadcasts a second report of a massive earthquake in Minnesota. This raises the question of whether there's a very very very tiny man somewhere on the baseball-sized globe, possibly with a little silver globe of his own.

* The NestedStory -- One of the [[OlderThanPrint oldest examples]] is ''[[Literature/ArabianNights The Arabian Nights]]''. Scheherazade [[FramingDevice tells stories]] of people who tell stories about people who tell stories, and so on. This is basically a StoryWithinAStory or FramingDevice, taken UpToEleven. (Layers deep, that is.)

*** This is even taken UpToEleven when [=Ph1LzA=] asked Fundy to make ''Minecraft'' inside of ''Minecraft'' inside of ''Minecraft'' [[https://youtu.be/byVMRj9UaQI?t=284 and so on.]]

* This comes up in the UpdatedRerelease of ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' The original game's plot is based around the twist that [[spoiler: characters in it can become aware of being TrappedInTVLand and start interacting with the game as a game and involving the real world [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou and the player]] in the events.]] ''DDLC Plus!'' is compatible with multiple platforms, and because [[spoiler: [[ParadiegeticGameplay the player needs to be able to interact with the game files at some point]] in a way that was designed for the PC]], it comes with its own interface outside the game proper that seems like some weird custom operating system. You can eventually glean hints that this interface is supposed to [[spoiler: be that used by some group of people who are experimenting with sentient and sapient artificial intelligences in a virtual environment, thus explaining how the characters can become MediumAware. However, it's also implied that these people, whoever the heck they are, also suspect they are trapped in a simulation, and that's why they're experimenting with this kind of thing. It's even more of a MindScrew because the original story that this was just a romance game you (yes, you, not some character) bought from Steam or whatever is still strongly present and contradicts the simulation explanation, so it kind of like branches and puts the game's reality both one and two(?) steps away from yours at the same time.]]

* Music/{{Genesis}}' "One For the Vine" is about a charismatic warlord about to lead his tribe into battle. One of those who don't believe in him deserts, and flees up a distant mountain, only to slip and fall into a strange valley... where he encounters a tribe who hail him as their new warlord. To his horror, he realises that he is back in the situation from which he was trying to escape. The song ends with him leading his new tribe into battle -- and seeing a deserter flee up a distant slope, only to slip and fall...

* A sketch in the ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'' episode "Ubergloom" has Ruby and Scaredy Bat baking a gingerbread house, then hearing their speech repeating from an unknown source. It turns out that the house has a smaller Ruby and Scaredy Bat inside it who then run away in fear upon seeing their larger counterparts, the larger Ruby [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight simply calling the phenomenon]] [[{{Understatement}} strange]]. It's then revealed that [[SharedDream they both]] [[AllJustADream dreamed the whole thing]] [[AcidRefluxNightmare as a result of eating gingerbread before bed]].

* ''[[https://spaceflux.net/ Spaceflux]]'' is a FirstPersonShooter set in recursive arenas.
* The upcoming game ''[[https://www.patricksparabox.com/ Patrick's Parabox]]'' is based around recursive block-pushing puzzles.

* This comes up in the UpdatedRerelease of ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub''. The original game's plot is based around the twist that [[spoiler: characters in it can become aware of being TrappedInTVLand and start interacting with the game as a game and involving the real world [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou and the player]] in the events.]] ''DDLC Plus!'' is compatible with multiple platforms, and because [[spoiler: [[ParadiegeticGameplay the player needs to be able to interact with the game files at some point]] in a way that was designed for the PC]], it comes with its own interface outside the game proper that seems like some weird custom operating system. You can eventually glean hints that this interface is supposed to [[spoiler: be that used by some group of people who are experimenting with sentient and sapient artificial intelligences in a virtual environment, thus explaining how the characters can become MediumAware. However, it's also implied that these people, whoever the heck they are, also suspect they are trapped in a simulation, and that's why they're experimenting with this kind of thing. It's even more of a MindScrew because the original story that this was just a romance game you (yes, you, not some character) bought from Steam or whatever is still strongly present and contradicts the simulation explanation, so it kind of like branches and puts the game's reality both one and two steps away from yours at the same time.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Superliminal}}'': Some levels contain rooms contained inside themselves, with you changing size as you exit or enter.

* ''VideoGame/{{Superliminal}}'': Some levels contain these, [[spoiler:especially the chapter "Whitespace," which starts out with you stuck in a room inside itself, as a model on a miniature strip mall.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Superliminal}}'': Some levels contain these, [[spoiler:especially the final level, which starts out with you stuck in a room inside itself. You have to carry ]]

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has a page of Wiki/ThisVeryWiki [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4445-j right here]].