History Main / UnstuckInTime

* ComicBook/CaptainAmerica during the ''Captain America Reborn'' miniseries.

* Happens twice to Dr. Manhattan in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''. As a result of the accident that creates him, he's able to perceive the entirety of his life at once. [[spoiler: In the climax, the BigBad bombards him with Tachyons, rendering him unable to see present events. Since the character can exist in multiple places and times simultaneously, this is confusing, even for him.]] As he describes it (before the tachyon surge), it's like a barrier he can't see past from his current position. But then, once the event takes place, he doesn't seem to have any problem still seeing/remembering the past...
* ''ComicBook/TheFlash'': Hunter Zolomon's powers do this to him, which is reflected by his VerbalTic of alternating between drawing out his words and speaking incredibly fast without any spaces or breaks.

* ''Film/MonsterAGoGo'' seemed to imply that this happened to Frank Douglas, or maybe not. The film is so poorly made that it's completely incomprehensible. The only thing that happened was they ran out of budget for the final confrontation, and only spent about 15 seconds thinking of an alternate ending.
* The 2007 American movie ''Film/{{Premonition}}'' revolves around this concept.
* Happens in ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'' in that the time machine used is very unreliable and unpredictable.

* The main character in ''Shuffle'' experiences this.

* Near the climax of ''Film/{{Arrival}}'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:comprehending the alien language causes one to experience one's entire life holistically]]. Accordingly, Louise [[spoiler:uses information she will receive in a conversation the next year]].

* The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the opening line [[note]]Of Chapter 2/the main narrative; Chapter 1 is a prologue, from the author's first-person perspective, as opposed to Billy Pilgrim's third-person adventure[[/note]] to Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'', referring to main character Billy Pilgrim. It may be worth noting that there is a common AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that he is ''not'' in fact an actual example of this trope, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane and is instead experiencing PTSD flashbacks]] (and also hallucinating aliens as a coping measure).
* Creator/PhilipKDick's ''Now Wait For Last Year'' is an example of this. The main character's wife obtains an illegal drug from an alien society. The aliens supposedly use the drug to hallucinate, re-living past happy experiences. When she takes the drug she finds out that the drug [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin works as described]], except that you aren't hallucinating... You should probably stop taking the drug so that you don't mess with the timeline, but [[spoiler:the drug is highly addictive so no matter how hard you try to stop you'll keep feeling compelled to go back to further mess up your own past]].
* Old Mother Dismass in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books has "a detached retina in her second sight." From the perspective of the other characters she's on the correct timeline and seems fine apart from a tendency to talk in non sequiturs. From ''her'' perspective however, she's experiencing exactly what the trope describes.
** Some ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' characters specialize in time manipulation and have become briefly Unstuck In Time as a result of stressful situations. Involuntary time travel has been seen in characters plummeting to their death or giving birth, for example.
* The Clayr in the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' series have this as a form of clairvoyance. As they grow older their visions become smaller and more frequent until they are unable to function independently. All Clayr have a fragment of the sight but at any given time 49 of them are on duty as the "Nine Day Watch". When trying see somethng that eludes them, they will call a gathering of up to 1538, almost all the Awakened Clayr.
* The short story "Searching for January," from W.P. Kinsella's book ''The Dixon Cornbelt League,'' is about a man who finds baseball star Roberto Clemente rowing up to a beach in 1987, 14 years after he was [[http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0818.html lost in a plane crash.]] At the end [[spoiler: Roberto decides to keep rowing on, to search for January 2, 1973]]
--> "I watch him drift, trapped. Or am I trapped, here in 1987, while he, through some malfunction of the universe is borne into timelessness?"
* Henry from ''Literature/TheTimeTravelersWife'', who gets it worse than a lot of other people mentioned here. Henry suffers from a genetic disease which is eventually named Chrono Displacement Disorder. Like epilepsy, it can initially manifest as a seizure, and be brought on by things like flashing lights, television images, or stress. Unlike epilepsy, the end result is Henry finding himself [[CantTakeAnythingWithYou completely naked]] in an unknown time in a place he's likely (but not guaranteed) to have been before. [[spoiler: And since it's a genetic disease, Henry manages to pass it to his daughter Alba. Fortunately for her, she seems to have developed a bit more control about where and when she ends up.]]
* Happens in a more limited form to several characters in ''Literature/TheIlluminatusTrilogy''; due to the effects of heavy use of psychoactive drugs, combined with the multiple enlightenment-inducing {{Mind Screw}}s and {{Batman Gambit}}s perpetrated by the leaders of the various competing factions.
* In ''Literature/JohnDiesAtTheEnd'', upon taking the [[spoiler:soy sauce]] for the first time, both John and David become unstuck.
* The Great Zambini is the physical version in Creator/JasperFforde's ''Dragonslayer'' trilogy.

* The Creator/TaisTeng duology ''The Wolves of Rome'' and ''The Pharaoh's Gold'' centers on a man who has been traveling through time randomly, and is accidentally followed by a brother and sister who become his companions. Somehow, people from different periods also react with hostility towards any time travelers since they're foreign to that time.
* ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'': Mother Rell, a 300-year old witch of Dathomir with prophetic dreams, often forgets which decade it is when she wakes up. When Luke first meets her she greets him as if he was an old acquaintance and asks how Yoda is doing.
* The titular character of ''Literature/OonaOutOfOrder'' jumps to a different random year of her life each birthday, starting with her 19th birthday in 1982 jumping to her 51st. Among other things she [[TimeTravelForFunAndProfit invests heavily in Apple]].

* Illyria in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "[[Recap/AngelS05E19TimeBomb Time Bomb]]" is like this. Her human vessel proves unable to contain her full godlike powers and will eventually explode. This also causes her time travel abilities to go haywire, repeatedly shifting her back and forth throughout the timeline leading up to her death. In the ''[[ComicBook/AngelIDW After the Fall]]'' comics, [[spoiler:whenever Angel gets near Illyria, he gets like this, going back and forth in his own life]].
* Samuel Beckett in ''Series/QuantumLeap'', as the whole premise. Part of the journey was trying to figure out what was controlling his leaps, sending him to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. Is it God? Time itself? Fate? In the GrandFinale, it turns out it's [[spoiler: Sam's own ChronicHeroSyndrome]].
* A frequent occurrence in ''Franchise/StarTrek''.
** Captain Picard in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E24AllGoodThings the last episode]] of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. A variation happens to Worf in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E10Parallels Parallels]]": instead of being Unstuck in Time, he keeps traveling between [[AlternateUniverse parallel universes]]. (Unstuck in timelines?)
** Miles O'Brien in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E17Visionary Visionary]]". It's not random -- he always jumps 6 hours ahead, every 6 hours, landing a short distance from his future self.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E03TheVisitor The Visitor]]", a weird accident involving the ''Defiant'''s warp core and the wormhole results in Sisko getting caught in subspace, experiencing minutes where the outside experiences decades. The episode revolves around Jake's efforts to figure out what happened and get him back.
** Kes, in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E20BeforeAndAfter Before and After]]", except she's traveling backwards in time from the end of her life, and the timeline that is shown never actually comes to be, since Kes gets off the ship long before then. It does, however, provide some {{foreshadowing}} for the upcoming "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E8YearOfHell Year of Hell]]" storyline.
** The beginning of the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E14Coda Coda]]" ''appears'' to involve this, with Janeway and Chakotay reliving a conversation and shuttle crash more than once... but by mid-season 3, they're old hands at this and just start scanning for the tachyons. [[spoiler:It's actually an elaborate illusion by a creature that feeds on life force.]]
* Another unstuck-in-timelines character like Worf that one time? ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' has the villainous Dr. Oberon Geiger. Also, Colin was PutOnABus by suffering the same fate as Geiger; the show ends on a cliffhanger so we'll never know if he can be rescued.
* Variation: In the ''Series/{{Lost}}'' episode "The Constant", Desmond jumps back and forth between two points, but he doesn't know [[NarniaTime how long he has in each time period]] before he will jump again.
** In the beginning of the fifth season, [[spoiler: the survivors left on the island begin to jump through time]].
** Most time travel here is physical teleportation, but Desmond's is mental.
** Side effects of being Unstuck In Time is probably what Daniel was suffering before coming to the Island. He seems to improve once arriving, either due to the Island's healing properties, or because [[spoiler:Desmond is his constant]].
* Happens to [[UnfazedEveryman Crichton]] in ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' after he accidentally touched the containment shield on a homemade quantum singularity, allowing him to pick out the only timeline that didn't end with him dead, [[LivingShip Moya]] disintegrated, or the singularity's power in the hands of the Scorvians.

** Captain Sheridan, as explained by Zathras in ''War Without End''. He even says "unstuck in time" to explain Sheridan's condition.
** In the earlier episode ''Babylon Squared'', it is revealed that this was the fate of Babylon 4. [[spoiler: ''War Without End'' would reveal that the heroes actually went back in time to steal it.]]

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Robin, an Inhuman with the ability to see the future, perceives all of time at once. This results in oddities like desperately warning Daisy that the man she's fighting has a knife... eighty years before she will even meet him.
* In ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse2018'', it turns out that the Bent-Neck Lady was actually [[spoiler: Nell's hanging body after Hill House forces her into [[PsychicAssistedSuicide "suicide"]], falling through time and space. ]]
* On ''Series/{{Haven}}'' an old man has the power to do this to other people when he gets upset. He accidentally sends Duke and Nathan to 1955 by looking at them. There, they find out that while fighting in World War II he sent his whole platoon several years into the future, when the war had ended.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S7E16Abduction Abduction]]". Jason speculates that he, Cody Phillips, Ray, Brianna and Danielle may have become unstuck in time.

* According to one of the [[MentalTimeTravel noncorporeal time travelers]] in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army]]'', ''corporeal'' time travelers run the risk of precisely this happening to them. [[spoiler:This is what happens to the BigBad, who due to mucking with the timeline, apparently destroys the timeline that leads to the events of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' and ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'', negating his own existence and only remaining extant due to his possession of his ancestress, Kaya Daidouji. When the bond is severed, he's thrown into a TimeAbyss.]]
* In ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' Axl Low keeps travelling back in time, apparently due to there being another version of him, so the universe tries to force [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet the two from existing at the same time]].
** {{Jossed}}. Axl keeps travelling in time because has a parallel self, Raven (who is actually a sadomasochistic viking of some kind). Raven willingly moves through dimensions, and this has the side-effect of causing Axl to slip through time. [[MindScrew We don't fully understand it, either]].
* In the InteractiveFiction game ''[[http://adamcadre.ac/if.html Shrapnel]]'', [[spoiler:the player is left Unstuck In Time as the result of a TimeCrash caused by the accidental destruction of a time traveler's time machine.]]
* Viki from the ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' series is well known for this: each time she sneezes (typically during a victory banquet), she ends up teleporting herself somewhere else, at a different time. It makes extremely confusing to guess if the Viki of one game jumped from the preceding one or the following one into the current game you are playing.

* [[spoiler: Rosalind and Robert Lutece]] from ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'' are implied to have become this as a result of [[spoiler:Jeremiah Fink sabotaging their equipment under the orders of Comstock]]. It would explain [[spoiler: how [[ThoseTwoGuys they keep showing up everywhere]].]]
* A major plot point in ''VideoGame/SecondSight'', with the protagonist lurching back and forth between being part of a Special Forces mission GoneHorriblyWrong, and the aftermath of waking up in a mental hospital with IdentityAmnesia and PsychicPowers. [[spoiler: The twist comes when you find out which scenario is actually the present.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'', you find yourself entering the Vault of Glass, an entire cave system that is Unstuck In Time, to rescue a Guardian from it. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: there was nothing you could have done]]; because of the Vault and the strange things it does to time, [[spoiler:even though the Guardian you're looking for is speaking to you in real time, he's also been dead for centuries and all you find is his bones]].
* Tracer, the mascot character of ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', suffers from this. Due to a failed experiment with an teleporting jet, she became unstuck, shifting forward in time semi-randomly. It is only with a special chronal accelerator built into her armor that she was able to become a functioning human again. This is the source of her in-game abilities, which include the ability to briefly reverse time and teleport short distances.

* Dave Davenport in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' "Dave Davenport Has Come Unstuck in Time" story. But it wasn't entirely random: he continually lurched between three key moments in his life... all of which involved women.
* George, near the end of ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', as a WholePlotReference to the last episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler: John Egbert]] manages to get unstuck from the story itself, bouncing around all of time and space until they finally manage to gain some control over it.

* One of [[WhatCouldHaveBeen several intended spinoffs]] for ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' was going to have the rogue Phoenix Gate do this to Brooklyn, then return him seconds later, with him having experienced around 40 years, subjectively (Having found a mate and had kids, as well as picked up a "[[FurryConfusion dog]]" along the way). It was going to be called ''Time Dancer''.
** One issue of the comic covers his first stop (still relevant to the main plot) and then skips straight to his return.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Time Keeps on Slippin'" was hinted to have this in a one-directional, universal scale, where random jumps in time would happen anywhere, anywhen, and to anyone. Fortunately, [[StatusQuoIsGod the regular characters were only hit by small jumps]].
* Professor Paradox from ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' is a scientist who, back in the Cold War, was working on an experiment to achieve TimeTravel. The experiment went horribly wrong and he ended up unstuck in reality, [[FateWorseThanDeath randomly warping through time and space while unable to die or age, being driven completely insane]]. Then he got BoredWithInsanity. Now he has control of his warping and has become an incredibly powerful TimeMaster who protects the universe by quietly making alterations to the timeline.
* The original pilot for ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has a very silly case of this, with Pen's mind being briefly sent "back in time...and to Mars" where he meets Abraham Lincoln. No, it [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext doesn't make any more sense in context]].
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Razz initially appears to be senile, constantly calling Adora "Mara," the previous She-Ra from a thousand years ago. Then an episode from Razz's perspective reveals that she is constantly bouncing around in time, so she was constantly calling Mara "Adora," a thousand years before Adora would even be born. On their first meeting, Razz already knows Mara's name, and apologizes for forgetting that they hadn't met yet. Further complicating matters is the fact that Razz ''is'' senile, and thus has a lot of trouble remembering things that, from her perspective, she was just doing right that second, even when they were a thousand years in the future.

->[-Poo-tee-weet?-]

* In ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse'', it turns out that the Bent-Neck Lady was actually [[spoiler: Nell's hanging body after Hill House forces her into [[PsychicAssistedSuicide "suicide"]], falling through time and space. ]]

* Tracer, the mascot character of VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}, suffers from this. Due to a failed experiment with an teleporting jet, she became unstuck, shifting forward in time semi-randomly. It is only with a special chronal accelerator built into her armor that she was able to become a functioning human again. This is the source of her in-game abilities, which include the ability to briefly reverse time and teleport short distances.

* ''ComicBook/Venom2022'': After getting his body destroyed, Eddie bounces up and down the timeline, until an encounter with Kang helps stabilize him. [[spoiler:However, Kang's only doing it to help the BigBad, not out of the kindness of his heart.]]

* Illyria in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "[[Recap/AngelS05E19TimeBomb Time Bomb]]" is like this. In the ''[[ComicBook/AngelIDW After the Fall]]'' comics, [[spoiler:whenever Angel gets near Illyria, he gets like this, going back and forth in his own life]].

-->-- '''Kurt Vonnegut''', ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'' (the TropeNamer)

* The TropeNamer is the opening line [[note]]Of Chapter 2/the main narrative; Chapter 1 is a prologue, from the author's first-person perspective, as opposed to Billy Pilgrim's third-person adventure[[/note]] to Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'', referring to main character Billy Pilgrim. It may be worth noting that there is a common AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that he is ''not'' in fact an actual example of this trope, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane and is instead experiencing PTSD flashbacks]] (and also hallucinating aliens as a coping measure).

* Illyria in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "Time Bomb" is like this. In the ''After The Fall'' comics, [[spoiler:whenever Angel gets near Illyria, he gets like this, going back and forth in his own life]].

** Captain Picard in the last episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. A variation happened to Worf in one episode, where instead of being Unstuck In Time, he keeps traveling between [[AlternateUniverse parallel universes]]. (Unstuck in timelines?)
** Miles O'Brien in the episode "Visionary" of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. It was not random--he always jumped 6 hours ahead, every 6 hours, landing a short distance from his future self.
** In "The Visitor", a weird accident involving the ''Defiant's'' warp core and the wormhole results in Sisko getting caught in subspace, experiencing minutes where the outside experiences decades. The episode revolves around Jake's efforts to figure out what happened and get him back.
** Kes, in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', except she was traveling backwards in time from the end of her life, and the timeline that was shown never actually came to be, since Kes got off the ship long before then. It did, however, provide some foreshadowing for the upcoming Year of Hell storyline.
** The beginning of "Coda" ''appears'' to involve this, with Janeway and Chakotay reliving a conversation and shuttle crash more than once. But by mid-season 3 they're old hands at this and just start scanning for the tachyons. [[spoiler:It's actually an elaborate illusion by a creature that feeds on life force.]]

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': {{Discussed|Trope}} in "Abduction". Jason speculates that he, Cody Phillips, Ray, Brianna and Danielle may have become unstuck in time.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Poo-tee-weet?

* The titular character of ''Oona Out of Order'' jumps to a different random year of her life each birthday, starting with her 19th birthday in 1982 jumping to her 51st. Among other things she [[TimeTravelForFunAndProfit invests heavily in Apple]].

* The TropeNamer is the opening line to Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'', referring to main character Billy Pilgrim. It may be worth noting that there is a common AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that he is ''not'' in fact an actual example of this trope, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane and is instead experiencing PTSD flashbacks]] (and also hallucinating aliens as a coping measure).

* Dave Davenport in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}''. But it wasn't entirely random: he continually lurched between three key moments in his life... all of which involved women.

A form of MentalTimeTravel,
the person who is Unstuck in Time not only travels through time in his own body, (and [[BodySurf possibly in others]]) but he does so randomly. Without any knowledge of where he will wake up... or when.

Compare [[AnachronicOrder Non Linear Storytelling]], NonLinearCharacter and RandomTransportation.

* Henry from ''Literature/TheTimeTravellersWife'', who gets it worse than a lot of other people mentioned here. Henry suffers from a genetic disease which is eventually named Chrono Displacement Disorder. Like epilepsy, it can initially manifest as a seizure, and be brought on by things like flashing lights, television images, or stress. Unlike epilepsy, the end result is Henry finding himself [[CantTakeAnythingWithYou completely naked]] in an unknown time in a place he's likely (but not guaranteed) to have been before. [[spoiler: And since it's a genetic disease, Henry manages to pass it to his daughter Alba. Fortunately for her, she seems to have developed a bit more control about where and when she ends up.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Raz initially appears to be senile, constantly calling Adora "Mara," the previous She-Ra from a thousand years ago. Then an episode from Raz's perspective reveals that she is constantly bouncing around in time, so she was constantly calling Mara "Adora," a thousand years before Adora would even be born. On their first meeting, Raz already knows Mara's name, and apologizes for forgetting that they hadn't met yet. Further complicating matters is the fact that Raz ''is'' senile, and thus has a lot of trouble remembering things that, from her perspective, she was just doing right that second, even when they were a thousand years in the future.