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1Just like a {{Flashback}} or deja vu, but the suddenly resurfacing memory comes from the character's AlternateSelf in an AlternateUniverse.
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3Often caused by the fact that LoveTranscendsSpacetime.
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5Just like a Flashback or FlashForward, a Flash Sideways can be in a narrow or wide definition. The narrow definition is when a character has one of these three because of a resurfacing memory, some kind of supernatural connection or whatever. The wide definition is when a show or movie itself has one of the three. In the wide definition, they don't have to be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] -- on the contrary, the entire point can be to give the viewers information that the characters don't have access to. Flashbacks and flashsideways have the same name both in the wide and in the narrow definition. Flash-forwards are so called in the wide definition only. In the narrow definition they are known as [[Film/MinorityReport precogs]] or {{Seers}}.
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7This has some overlap RippleEffectProofMemory, the difference being that in this case the characters have no awareness of the split between timelines or universes and are unable to figure out what exactly is going on.
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9The trope codifier is the final season of ''Series/{{Lost}}'', which uses this trope extensively.
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11SplitTimelinesPlot is a sub-trope where a single diverging event creates two (or more) timelines, which the work proceeds to jump between (a la ''Film/SlidingDoors''). Usually, the characters are unaware of any different timelines in that trope.
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13Contrast with AllohistoricalAllusion, where the reference to another universe (usually our own) is more of an in-joke by the writers than anything significant.
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15Also see ItsAWonderfulPlot, where the Alternate Universe they experience is one where they [[RetGone don't exist]].
16----
17!!Examples:
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19[[foldercontrol]]
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21[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
22* In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', the nature of [[spoiler: the arcs]] is revealed when a character briefly flashes back to the first arc, ''Onikakushi-hen'', [[spoiler: which was in an AlternateUniverse]].
23* In ''Manga/Reborn2004'', Byakuran experiences this frequently as a special ability, allowing him to gain knowledge from other timelines where he's taken over the world and use that to conquer the reality that the manga/anime actually takes place in.
24* In ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'', only Okabe has a fully-RippleEffectProofMemory, but others can start to gain memories from alternate timelines when traits of it are described to them.
25* ''Manga/SummerTimeRendering'': During the festival on July 24th, Shinpei is the only one who notices Ushio walking through the crowd in a pink yukata despite the fact that she should be dead. He chases after her, only to instead run into her shadow dressed in the swimsuit she died in. [[spoiler: What he had caught a glimpse of was a vision of the real Ushio from an alternate timeline where she never died because shadows do not exist there.]]
26* ''Manga/TakopisOriginalSin'': [[spoiler:In the final timeline, all three kids still have some memory of Takopi despite him never meeting them. Marina makes fun of Shizuka for not wearing her usual head flower, and both girls tear up at a doodle of Takopi in Shizuka's notebook, imagining it would be an annoying but good friend if it was real. They even think a pen with a cat topper resembles the Saturn Cat Ball Pen, despite both considering it a case of StrangeMindsThinkAlike at the time. Azuma also starts a genuine relationship with his brother by fighting over something petty like he told Takopi to tell his past self.]]
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29[[folder:Audio Plays]]
30* The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho040Jubilee Jubilee]]" has the Sixth Doctor getting in sporadic mental contact with a version of himself from an alternate timeline, who has been through [[AFateWorseThanDeath pure hell]] to put it mildly. He is at first confused by it, and then utterly horrified once he figures out what is going on.
31* Another ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' episode, "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho050Zagreus Zagreus]]", has the Eighth Doctor, due to the influence of an EldritchAbomination, mentally perceiving adventures by his analogue in an alternate timeline, heavily implied to be the ''Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures''. He is quite shaken by the experience.
32[[/folder]]
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34[[folder:Comic Books]]
35* In ''ComicBook/FlashpointDCComics'', the Flashpoint timeline's Traci 13 gets glimpses of her life in the main DCU.
36* In ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' a character has visions of his wife who was erased when the timeline changed.
37* In ''ComicBook/HouseOfM: ComicBook/SpiderMan'', Peter Parker, whose life is perfect, goes mad from the nagging feeling he doesn't deserve it, and obsessively writes an imaginary journal where everyone hates Spider-Man, Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy are dead, and it's ''all his fault''. Setting the self-loathing aside, he appears to be tapping into his "real" history somehow.
38* ''ComicBook/BeforeWatchmen'' says that Doctor Manhattan flashes between multiple realities. It was originally just two: One where he got superpowers and one where he didn't but they eventually split into dozens.
39* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In ''Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man'' #13, as Peter is pulled into the Negative Zone he not only has visions of his AlternateSelf from ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManUnlimited'' but mysteriously acquires his nanite-based anti-symbiote costume for the duration of his misadventures there.
40* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'':
41** During the ''ComicBook/SpiderVerse'' event, Miguel O'Hara is able to witness and feel the deaths of his {{Alternate Sel|f}}ves.
42** In the 2099 reboot, after a reality reset, Miguel has frequent flashbacks of the things that happened to him in the AlternateUniverse where the original comics took place. This can range from minor stuff - like remembering the original ending of a movie despite that version being lost - to full-blown hallucinations. Combined with the old volumes' TimeTravel, the fact he has no control over them, and no knowledge of the reset, Miguel becomes an odd case of FishOutOfTemporalWater, as he's disoriented by his own era.
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45[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
46* In the ''Film/StarTrek2009'' fanfic ''Fanfic/WrittenInTheStars'', Fem!Kirk is shown flash backs of her counterpart's past, showing said counterpart's relationship with Spock. Halfway through the story both counterparts experience a Flash Sideways, showing what's happening in the Alternate Reality of the Mirror Universe.
47* Several characters from the [[MirrorUniverse Negaverse]] in the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' fanfiction, ''Fanfic/NegaverseChronicles'', end up dreaming about the [[MirrorUniverse other universe]] with Darkwing Duck and the Fearsome Five.
48* In ''Fanfic/SplitSecondMyLittlePony'', Twilight and Sparkle (alternate versions of each other) can pull time sideways, allowing the two timelines to intersect and interact. Interesting, in that rather than being a narrative element, it is a physical phenomenon in-universe.
49* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. In order that ''Voyager'' can get back to Earth, Captain Janeway surrenders herself to the Caretaker, who has her [[StrappedToARocket sealed inside a cargo missile]] and fired into the black star, where she has visions of alternate realities where she made different choices like settling down on a planet with Chakotay or GoingDownWithTheShip. There's also a vision of her being [[MegaMawManeuver swallowed up]] by a giant cube-ship, [[CrashingDreams but that turns out to be real]].
50* In the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' story "Empath's Wedding", Empath has one right after he rescues the Smurflings, that he has performed the same rescue, but with Nat, Snappy, and Slouchy being adult Smurfs instead of Smurflings, recalling an event that happened parallel to this story's events, but was more disastrous, involving an infinite number of Smurfs appearing in the Smurf Village. Empath immediately dismisses it by telling the Smurflings that he was just imagining what the Smurflings would look like as older Smurfs.
51* ''Fanfic/LittleHandsBigAttitude'': [[spoiler:Shadow]] keeps getting visions of things that happened to [[spoiler:his [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 videogame counterpart]].]] Nobody has any idea why this keeps happening; [[spoiler:Shadow's]] best guess is that it's another vision caused by [[spoiler:Obsidian]], but the latter's POV disproves this.
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54[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
55* In ''Film/DonnieDarko'', as suggested by the hand waving in the last scene, some characters retained vestigial memories of the parallel timeline.
56* ''Film/EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce'': Alpha Evelyn invented "verse jumping", the capability to temporarily possess your AlternateSelf and obtain all their skills and memories. The characters we see in the film use verse jumping to obtain various abilities that help them in the heat of the moment. For example, Evelyn connects to a version of her who became a martial arts superstar and temporarily becomes a martial artist. Special earpieces are necessary to make and maintain the connection, and making the connection requires one to first do something really weird and unlikely, such as eating a tube of chapstick, to gather the probabilistic momentum necessary to catapult your mind into that alternate universe.
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59[[folder:Literature]]
60* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series:
61** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', a Black-Ribboner vampire suffering from serious coffee withdrawal while serving as a soldier in the Borogravian army suffers "flashsides" of the Vietnam war. As it gets worse people nearby start experiencing these hallucinations too.
62** Invoked in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'', where Sam Vimes and his AlternateSelf grab each other's "Dis-Organizers"; Main TL Sam keeps getting harrowing messages from the Alt-Dis-Organizer of repeated disasters from the ParallelUniverse where he stayed in Ankh-Morpork.
63** Happened to Granny Weatherwax in ''Literature/LordsAndLadies''. Granny spends much of the story worried she's going senile when she keeps recalling false memories, but after a conversation with Ridcully about Ponder's ramblings on {{alternate universe}}s, [[EurekaMoment she realizes what's really going on]]. Due to "circle time" causing the "walls" between alternate realities to become thinner (and threatening Lancre with an invasion of TheFairFolk), she's actually picking up thoughts from alternate versions of herself.
64--->"And here I thought my mind was going! Hah, it was going and fetching!"
65* Also by Creator/TerryPratchett, in ''Literature/TheDarkSideOfTheSun'', journeys through [[SubspaceOrHyperspace Interspace]] cause the traveller to see alternate realities.
66* Happens repeatedly in ''Literature/{{Everworld}},'' where the main protagonists have each been split into two people, one version living in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} and one trapped in the eponymous alternate universe. Whenever their Everworld-selves lose consciousness or fall asleep, their spirits return to their Earth-counterparts, giving a sudden and unexpected flash of memories. Which can be quite disturbing, considering the kinds of things that happen to them in Everworld...
67* In one of the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' books, Jake asks the RealityWarper Drode to make it so that they never learned about the alien invasion and got their powers. It turns out Cassie is a temporal anomaly who can subconsciously remember the original timeline and whose very presence causes the altered one to fall apart. It's heavily implied that this was the reason that the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Ellimist]] arranged for Cassie to become an Animorph in the first place, as the Drode accuses him/it? of "stacking the deck" by her being on the team.
68* In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', saving the life of one of the characters creates a temporal paradox that causes two of the characters to suffer from chronic FlashSideways to the original, unaltered timeline. This is a very negative condition which is slowly driving them both insane.
69* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''[[Literature/NightWatchSeries The Last Watch]]'', Anton once again encounters Yegor, who was central to the first novel. Yegor mentions having a vivid dream of being Anton's son and other things not being quite the same. This was a clever way of the author including the films (which are loosely based on the books) into the canon universe without upsetting anyone. This way, it may appear that the films take place in an AlternateUniverse or a dream. A similar comment is made when Ilya recounts a dream he had, which mirrors [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment one of the most random and over the top scenes]] in the first movie.
70* Murakoks from ''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' live like this -- sometimes the contact with alternate selves intensifying to HiveMind level. The drawback is that actual travel between the worlds is not an option, since moving from one's correct place in the network means immediate insanity. They also [[BlueAndOrangeMorality tend to see things in the different light from most humans]]: Koba from World of the Rod is a Beggars' Foreman who refused to join Secret Investigations in order to keep some sort of balance between his selves, [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy Koba from World of the Spider]]... you know ''[[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin whose]]'' pseudonym it is, right?
71* In the Literature/DiogenesClub story "Literature/{{Swellhead}}", Richard Jeperson gets tangled with an alternate reality in which he died taking down a supervillain in the 1970s. At one point, he starts having flashbacks to things that happened to the alternate Richard -- and then a brief burst of flashbacks from a large number of other alternate Richards (most of them shout-outs to author Creator/KimNewman's many other alternate history stories).
72* Crashing through the barrier at the edge of the universe causes David Brinkley from ''Literature/{{Superfolks}}'' to see possible versions of how his life could have turned out if he'd made different decisions.
73[[/folder]]
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75[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
76* In one episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', Olivia Dunham occasionally has visions of the AlternateUniverse prominent in the series.
77* In the sixth season of ''Series/{{Lost}}'', the characters' {{Alternate Sel|f}}ves in the AlternateTimeline gradually start remembering the lives of their counterparts in the timeline of the first five seasons. [[WordOfGod Team Darlton]] [[TropeNamers coined the trope's name]], although they used it in the wide definition, to describe the idea of intercutting events in different universes (à la [[FlashForward flash-forwards]] and {{flashback}}s). [[spoiler:It turns out to be a big subversion, though: the alternate timeline is, in fact, [[FlashForward just the afterlife]], though it's debatable whether the alternate timeline being the afterlife and a parallel world are mutually exclusive.]]
78* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Guinan seems to be aware of alternate universes, as demonstrated in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E15YesterdaysEnterprise Yesterday's Enterprise]]". [[HandWaved Explained]] in the ExpandedUniverse as a by-product of her leaving a part of herself in the Nexus, which allows a person to access any place or time. In her case, it gives her nothing more than intuition about the way things "should" be.
79* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
80** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft Turn Left]]", an alternate universe gets built around Donna Noble, where because she [[ButterflyOfDoom turned right instead of left one day]], the Doctor is dead, the Earth has gone to Hell, and all of reality is going to be destroyed. She doesn't remember the original timeline, but when she restores things to normal, she has flashes of memory from the Turn-Left universe.
81** After "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang The Big Bang]]", the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River all seem to retain memories of the cracked universe.
82** The next season finale "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong The Wedding of River Song]]" shows yet another alternate universe, where [[spoiler:all of history happens at once. Some people are able to retain ideas of what reality should be like- for example, Amy draws pictures of all of the things she remembers. For example, she knows she has a husband she loves very much, she knows he's Roman... but she can't remember his name or what he looks like, so doesn't realize that he's the soldier "Captain Williams"]].
83* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "[[Recap/SupernaturalS02E20WhatIsAndWhatShouldNeverBe What Is and What Should Never Be]]", Dean has flashes of what is going on in the real world, seeing the djinn's other victims, while he is in the Wishverse.
84* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', Cisco's first vibe is of him being killed by Eobard Thawne, which happened in a previous timeline, changed by Barry running back in time.
85* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonXIISkipper Skipper]]", Rimmer uses a device called a quantum skipper to switch places with versions of himself from alternate universes.
86* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'':
87** In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger has been having what he thinks are dreams in which he is a famous inventor who lives in a more technologically primitive age. After [[DownTheRabbitHole finding a doorway in his basement]], he arrives in a RetroUniverse which resembles the early 1900s. While there, he learns that he had in fact been seeing the life of his AlternateSelf and vice versa.
88** In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff [=McDowell=] begins experiencing what he thinks are hallucinations about being attacked by the Viet Cong during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. He attributes them to SurvivorsGuilt as a result of [[DraftDodging dodging the draft]] in 1971 but he later discovers that they are the memories of his counterpart from an AlternateUniverse who fought in the war. The two Jeffs hold hands, allowing the alternate Jeff to experience the happy moments from his counterpart's life that he missed out on such as his wedding to Denise, their honeymoon and the birth of their daughter Megan. The Jeff of our universe is willing to receive further memories of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} so that the alternate Jeff can see the life that could have been his.
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91[[folder:Video Games]]
92* ''VisualNovel/TokyoDark'': [[spoiler:New Game+ is this trope; Ito's hallucinations allow her to make lucid dreams of other timelines, ie other runs of the game. Also, the Collector and the Historian, both mysterious powerful characters, discuss the implications of multiple timelines after each ending and the results of that ending, all mentioning that they are side paths to the "inevitable end" (that being the Becoming ending).]]
93* The plot of ''{{VideoGame/Marathon}} Infinity'' sees the player-character continually flashing across multiple timelines until he finds one in which an EldritchAbomination can be defeated. By defeating it in one timeline, it gets defeated in all of them. For bonus points, the game begins in a timeline in which the events of the previous game, ''Marathon 2: Durandal'', never happened.
94* Near the end of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesRingOfFates'', Galdes creates [[spoiler:a VillainWorld in which he killed the king and seized the throne of Rebena Te Ra. Most of the townsfolk are either resigned to Lunite rule or trying to convince themselves they are, but a few of them whether the king's death in the Temple is ''really'' what happened]].
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97[[folder:Webcomics]]
98* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', Tedd's dream of himself as Lord Tedd during the "Sleepy Time" mini-arc may be this. Later, [[spoiler:magically enforced]] to Ellen in "Second Life".
99* In ''Webcomic/TheDreamer'' Beatrice tends to get these a lot, especially in the 21st century timeline.
100[[/folder]]
101
102[[folder:Web Original]]
103* One of MediaNotes/JennyEverywhere's abilities is to share thoughts and memories with her alternate selves in other universes.
104* In ''Literature/APracticalGuideToEvil'', Catherine experiences three of these due to the Fourfold Reflection, which demonstrate three potential versions of her which would have occurred as a result of different events in the first chapter of the series.
105[[/folder]]
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107[[folder:Western Animation]]
108* The MythArc of ''WesternAnimation/TwelveOunceMouse'' is kicked off when the protagonist starts having mysterious dreams like this; visions of a whole life and family he doesn’t remember ever having. As he starts looking into the dreams, he [[SpottingTheThread suddenly realizes]] that he has some fairly large gaps in his memory... such as the fact that [[OntologicalMystery he doesn’t even remember ever coming to the city in the first place]]. [[spoiler:The ending seems to suggest that the flashes are his ''real'' memories and everything he’s been experiencing in the city is part of some sort of LotusEaterMachine.]]
109[[/folder]]

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