History Main / YourMindMakesItReal

** We're not sure because we haven't crucified a whole lot of people just to find out, but we now think one's hands really are strong enough for one to be crucified by means of nails through the palms.

* WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons episode "How I Wet Your Mother" has a device that lets homers family go in his dreams. They die in the dream, they die for real.

* The ''[[{{TheX-Files}} X-Files]]'' episode "First Person Shooter", written by William Gibson and played for comedy, like the entire episode. A more serious version is the episode "Pusher", where a man has the ability to ''talk people into'' killing themselves in various ways. Most of the time, it's by making them do something self-injurious, but at least one of his victims dies from being given a graphic verbal description of a heart attack, and then suffering the same.

* Also, ''{{Sliders}}'' did an episode that ripped off ''Nightmare on Elm Street'', but with these evil nerds that called themselves "The Dream Masters". The nerds were defeated once the characters banded together, realizing that it was all just a dream, and overpowered the nerds' minds, resulting in an inability to be harmed.

* ''LoisAndClark'' has an evil genius who traps the main characters in a VR system. In the end, the system is shut down while he is still hooked up (and "downloaded in"), resulting in his mind being separated from his body, and the last shot is him [[AndIMustScream screaming]] [[InsideAComputerSystem inside a computer screen]].

* ''Series/{{Mash}}'' The camp runs out of painkillers. All the doctors get together to convince the pain-wracked patients that these "sugar pills" are very new, very effective painkillers. It works.

There's an old wives' tale which claims that if you die in a dream, you die for real. Although a potential mechanism is suggested in "Other" below, it remains not exactly clear how anyone could have determined this, [[FridgeLogic since the only witness would be unable to confirm it.]] Yet it persists, and a lot of people believe it.

There's an old wives' tale which claims that if you die in a dream, you die for real. It's not exactly clear how anyone could have determined this, [[FridgeLogic since the only witness would be unable to confirm it.]] Yet it persists, and a lot of people believe it.

* This happens in ''{{Gamer}}'' [[spoiler:at the end. "See this knife? Picture me driving it into your stomach. Imagine it and ''make it real''."]]

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Útgarða-Loki is a MasterOfIllusion, fitting for a mage based on the mythological Loki. He's so good at this that he can make someone feel like he is on fire by showing him a picture of a fire.

* Can happen to you in ''MageTheAwakening'' with the [[DreamWorld Astral Realms]]. Under normal circumstance, attacks in the Astral Realms don't harm health, but instead reduce Willpower (a person's reserve of mental and emotional strength). If a person loses all of their Willpower (not necessarily from being attacked) they return to the waking world, unable to maintain their Astral self and completely emotionally drained, but otherwise unharmed. There are however ways in which the person can be damaged or destroyed ''mentally''. For example, being attacked by an ideology until the person's identity is completely buried beneath fanaticism, being drawn into the hold of an insanity realm until one's personality is utterly destroyed from that insanity, or going to the Dreamtime unprotected, where one's mind will be completely washed away by a consciousness which is incompressible to and uninterested in human perspective or individuality (essentially, your sense of identity is lost among the thoughts of something which has existed before there was life). In these cases, the body becomes a completely healthy vegetable. There are also beings capable of inflicting actual damage from the Astral Realms, though this is more to do with magically being able to target your body directly rather than because [[YourMindMakesItReal Their Mind Makes It Real]].

So, if you're in a dream, hallucination, or VR simulation, death can be ''plenty'' lethal. By extension, if you're a hacker in a high-tech futuristic world where {{Cyberspace}} is a realistic simulation, intrusion countermeasures can kill you dead. To be fair, certain depictions of {{Cyberspace}} require users to electronically link their brains to the network, which would provide a relatively obvious threat to incautious intruders. However, even hackers who operate in worlds without such dangers may be vulnerable to [[BrownNote seizure-inducing graphics]].

Let us be very clear: there is no obvious or immediately compelling reason that dying in a dream or hallucination would actually kill you, unless you are ''really'' gullible and you live in a world where the placebo effect is '''much''' more powerful than it is in real life. Obviously, magic spells can do as they like, but the only reason that you would be actually harmed by dying in a VR simulation would be if the VR simulator was intentionally and specifically designed to murder the operator. This makes sense if it's part of a DeathTrap ([[ComplexityAddiction insofar as a death trap ever makes sense]]), but usually this is some commercial, publicly available system, [[WinToExit often meant for ''playing games'']].

Often {{cyberspace}} ICE (intruder countermeasure electronics) is said to work by channeling lethal voltages into the brain of the invading hacker, but any techhead with an ounce of sense would put at least a fuse or circuit breaker, not to mention a voltage regulator, on any line connected directly to his brain. Authors who put a little more thought into the matter who don't come up with some variant of the [[BrownNote motif of harmful sensation]] imply some kind of malicious out-of-band signal which triggers a nasty (usually fatal) seizure in its victims or [[ExplosiveInstrumentation blows up their computer]]. Presumably most users do not know about such things, given their willingness to use an interface that could turn them into a vegetable or corpse at a moment's notice.

As an extension, perhaps to justify this trope, such systems often propose that the user's mind actually ''is'' inside the machine, having been [[BrainUploading literally downloaded]] out of his physical brain. Thus, destroying the machine would leave the user with a blank brain -- but destroying the physical body might leave the mind intact to have a go at [[PuppeteerParasite possessing someone else]].

An increasingly common justification of this trope is {{Synchronization}}; directly wiring your brain to the machine gives you {{Technopath}}ic PowerAtAPrice of a potentially fried brain. Most CyberPunk games -- such as ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' -- use this justification, and lampshade it with safer but far-less effective interfaces which people with [[UnusualUserInterface wires in their heads]] can [[CurbStompBattle destroy with ease]].

* One of the [[DrivingQuestion central mysteries]] in the ''{{Otherland}}'' series, by TadWilliams, is why this trope seems to be occurring. BrownNote effects are known to exist, but they require especially high-quality virtual reality interfaces, and yet the Otherland network somehow manages to deliver sensations that the users' equipment is incapable of generating, and keeping them trapped online even when they ought to be able to simply remove their VR gear. The answer is that the [[spoiler:operating system has PsychicPowers]].

There's an old wives' tale which claims that if you die in a dream, you die for real. It's not exactly clear how anyone could have determined this, since the only witness would be unable to confirm it. Yet it persists, and a lot of people believe it.

* In ''SwordArtOnline'', Virtual [=MMOs=] have pain inhibitors that prevent this from happening: if a player's pain inhibitor is turned down low or completely disabled, they can suffer actual bodily harm in the real world.

* In the season three episode of ''Series/{{House}}'' called "Airborne", [[spoiler:Cuddy becomes sick during a flight from Indonesia to the US, having rashes, nausea and a fever, all because she believes she's been infected with meningitis from another passenger. Who turned out not to have meningitis at all.]]

* An episode of ''{{Medium}}'' has Alison suffer the same injuries in real life as she had in her dreams, making her afraid that she would die in reality if she were to die in her dreams. It didn't help that she was dreaming of a [[spoiler:ZombieApocalypse]].
* In ''{{Dollhouse}}'', if, while in the Attic, you are killed in your mindscape, your body dies. [[spoiler:Used as a means to escape the Attic by Echo, by dying and using the time being unplugged to get out.]]

* ''{{MASH}}'' The camp runs out of painkillers. All the doctors get together to convince the pain-wracked patients that these "sugar pills" are very new, very effective painkillers. It works.

Frequently pops up in a HolodeckMalfunction. See also SelfInflictedHell. When your mind actually changes the physical world, it's ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve. If a computer generated or magical illusion changes the physical world, it's HardLight. When you're trapped in a virtual world, and have to win or die, its WinToExit. For instances where getting killed in a dream actually ''can'' kill you for real, see NeverSleepAgain. Compare PuffOfLogic, MagicFeather.

!!Examples

* The ''BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio adventure "The Mind's Eye" is a textbook example, with the local flora putting Erimem and Peri into a dream-like state (the Doctor isn't ultimately that affected), where they will die for real if they die in their "dream".

* ''{{Paprika}}'' has a moments where the dreams and real life can't be told apart because of this trope... Both for the characters ''and'' the viewers.

* Happens in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima!'', during Negi's test to learn BlackMagic. He has to fight a phantasmic version of Evangeline formed from his memories inside his head; meanwhile Chisame has to take care of him, as wounds start appearing on his body as a result of the test, and a lot of BloodFromTheMouth.

* In ''SwordArtOnline'', Virtual MMOs have pain inhibitors that prevent this from happening: if a player's pain inhibitor is turned down low or completely disabled, they can suffer actual bodily harm in the real world.

* An episode of ''{{The 4400}}'' features all of the main characters being trapped in a shared dream where they had to escape from a building that was trying to kill them. This trope is brought up in that the characters don't know whether it's going to be subverted or played straight. It's [[spoiler:subverted; after Shawn is killed by an exploding window and Meghan is electrocuted, both wake up fine at the same time that the others are released.]]

* The Afterlife in both the book and movie versions of ''WhatDreamsMayCome''.

* The titular virtual reality program in ''[[SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam and Max]]: Reality 2.0'', works like this, and our heroes take advantage of this to solve at least one puzzle.