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3%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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7A convenient way of framing a {{Flashback}} to fit in the narrative flow.
8
9Some people, when they sleep, get [[RealDreamsAreWeirder chased by giant hot dogs]], fall down bottomless pits (where they presumably die of dehydration), see their best friends wearing crowns, or have other disturbing, sometimes Freudian experiences cooked up specially for them by their subconscious.
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11Then there are these people. The subconscious barely has to lift a finger. Their exact real-life experiences can provide plenty of finished material, and their dreams are moment-for-moment replays of something that happened to them before.
12
13Some dreamers may have stretches of Flashback Nightmare in other dreams. As, for instance, dreaming of an encounter with a villain, but at the moment they actually meet, the villain is walking about with the wounds the hero gave him at the end of it.
14
15Subtrope of PastExperienceNightmare and NightmareSequence. See also AlternateIdentityAmnesia, which provides for these nightmares.
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17Technically the opposite of DreamingOfThingsToCome, but they can overlap if the Flashback Nightmare is a portent of the villain from the past events turning up again.
18----
19!!Examples:
20[[foldercontrol]]
21
22[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
23* Guts from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' has a few, both of his [[DarkAndTroubledPast horrific]] [[ChildSoldiers and]] [[ABusiveParents abusive]] [[RapeAsBackstory past]], and later of the [[ForcedToWatch Eclipse]].
24* Ciel from ''Manga/BlackButler'' has a nightmare of him on a table and a shadowed figure with glowing eyes hovering over him. He jerks awake and pulls out a gun from under his pillow and points it at Sebastian who was trying to wake him up. One other instance, although Ciel wasn't asleep, is where he recalls some of his horrific past events [[spoiler: while at Baron Kelvin's estate which was set up like the hellish room Ciel had been taken to before he was supposed to be a child sacrifice. He watches as the [[MadScientist psycho doctor]] working with Kelvin stabs a child who had been laid on a table and he recalls more of his own terrifying past. It's so bad that Ciel vomits and drops to his knees. When he looks up reaching out his hand we see the panels flash from the present to his past of him in a cage and masked figures grinning down at him. Sebastian pulls him out of it and reassures him that he's outside of the cage.]]
25* Used in both versions of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade''. In the manga, Chrono has two nightmares that hint at his past without fully revealing it -- first, a very symbolic dream that mixes a typical nightmare with bits of truth into it, and then a brief flash of a battle that later gets shown in a proper flashback. In the anime, Rosette has a dream about Joshua that starts off normal before turning into a nightmare that symbolically shows how he was kidnapped by the BigBad. This introduced Joshua before the flashback episode that explained Rosette's backstory.
26* Used in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' to show how Lelouch was disowned by the royal family and sent to Japan.
27* Happens to the resident angst factory Ken at least twice in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'': Once in a flashback to his being infected with the Dark Spore during a [[Anime/DigimonTamers Tamer's cameo dream]], the other during a WholeEpisodeFlashback that basically explained his entire rather [[TearJerker tear jerking]] backstory in one go.
28* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', during the Central Library fight between Scar and the homunculi, the camera pans out and shows the glass of the windows shattering as they first start to charge at each other. Later, the fight is shown as part of a nightmare Scar is having, and he wakes up in the Ishvalan refugee camp.
29* In the ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'' OAV, Sho has a nightmare about his fight with Lisker/Guyver 2, and how he subsequently melted/disintegrated.
30* ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'' plays with this. There's a dream showing Cure Moonlight fighting and losing to Cure Dark. For the other Cures, it's a CallToAdventure. For [[spoiler:Yuri]], it's this. And boy does [[spoiler:she]] suffer from it.
31* The entirety of Episode 11 of ''Manga/ICantUnderstandWhatMyHusbandIsSaying'', which covers Kaoru's adult life before she met Hajime (though it ends with an ''incredibly'' heartwarming scene). [[UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode It's rather jarring]] since the rest of the series is a SliceOfLife Comedy.
32* ''Anime/IDInvaded'': Narihisago has one in Episode 9 when witnessing the memory of his wife killing herself at their home.
33* ''Manga/KotouraSan'':
34** Yuriko had one in Episode 2, when she was reminded about [[spoiler:posthumous abuses on her mother's abilities]], complete with a BigNo.
35** Haruka in Episode 6, when she recalled the time when her mother disowned her. [[spoiler:Which {{foreshadow|ing}}s something at the {{stinger}}.]]
36* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'':
37** Agito receives these in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' a few episodes after she was introduced, showing her life as a lab subject in an illegal research facility before she was rescued by Zest and Lutecia.
38** Einhart Stratos also receives these in ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid'', though in her case, it's drawn from the memories of the long dead [[WarriorPrince Ancient Belka King]] [[GeneticMemory whose blood]] [[{{Reincarnation}} had awakened in her]].
39* The first episode of ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'' ends with Tohru having one of her battle against the gods, followed Kobayashi's detached attempt to comfort her.
40* [[NobleDemon Evangeline]] of ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' conveniently remembers her defeat at the hands of Nagi when Negi spies on her dream. Of course, later revelations about Evangeline's [[StoryBreakerPower real power level]] imply that the real battle probably wasn't ''quite'' as one-sided as the one in the dream.
41* ''Anime/TheStoryOfPollyannaGirlOfLove'': Pollyanna dreams about her father's death in Episode 24, and is overcome with guilt about how she never got to see him pro[erly before his passing.
42* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': The titular character receives a particular [[NightmareFuel nightmarish version]] of this trope at the very beginning of the anime and, also, as her introductory scene. Accompanied by an AlienGeometry, wrecked cityscapes, DerangedAnimation, and even an EldritchAbomination. Why is a flashback so technicolor? Due to this anime's endeavor of exploring the subconscious mind via [[{{Surrealism}} surrealist]] animation. This nightmare sequence may not appear at first as something that could've possibly happened to OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Madoka since it shows a (magical) girl Madoka hasn't ever met struggling to defeat the Eldritch abomination (for the record, at that point Madoka doesn't even know magic is real). However, as the plot progresses, not only the Eldritch abomination and deranged animation parts are explained, but it's revealed it was a flashback [[spoiler:from a previous timeline]].
43* In the ''Anime/SaintBeast'' [=OVAs=], both Goh and Shin have dreams of the war in heaven. These are used as a framing device at the beginning and end of the two episodes. Zeus has a flashback daydream in the middle first [=OVA=] as well.
44* ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'': In the first season, Zelgadis has a flashback about when his great-grandfather, the priest Rezo, turned him into a [[CursedWithAwesome chimera]], igniting his HeelFaceTurn.
45* [[spoiler:Filicia]] from ''Anime/SoundOfTheSky'' gets this as part of her package deal as a ShellShockedVeteran. She's become a convincing StepfordSmiler to hide it, but [[NotSoStoic doesn't always work]].
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Comic Books]]
49* ComicBook/{{Batman}} is [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes depicted]] as having recurring nightmares about [[DeathByOriginStory his parents' murder]].
50* ''ComicBook/{{Bone}}'': Thorn has several nightmares throughout each Book, experiencing one when she's surrounded by flames as people hurriedly hand her off to the dragons for protection, which lead up to her ReallyRoyaltyReveal.
51* ''ComicBook/Cyberpunk2077TraumaTeam'': Nadia was in a intimate relationship with her late squadmate Dodds, who she now constantly sees in various Flashback Nightmares and {{Hallucinations}} throughout the graphic novel's events.
52* In ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'', Hannah has a recurring Flashback Nightmare of [[spoiler:her brother forcing her to cut out her own eyes and tongue]], which gets transferred to her girlfriend Sistah Spooky due to telepathic PowerIncontinence.
53* ''ComicBook/HackSlash'': Cassie has a recurring Flashback Nightmare of destroying her undead mother, which she uses to defeat Ashley at their first meeting.
54* ''ComicBook/SpiderManAndBatmanDisorderedMinds'' opens with Bruce and Peter having nightmares about the deaths of the Waynes and Uncle Ben respective, which end with [[spoiler:the Waynes' killer turning into Carnage and the Burglar turning into the Joker]].
55* ''ComicBook/StarTrekEarlyVoyages'': In the two-part story "The Fallen", Gabrielle Carlotti often has nightmares about the destruction of the New Milan colony by the Chakuun.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder:Fan Works]]
59* In ''Fanfic/DotHackGUTheStaircaseToNowhere'', [[spoiler:Haseo has a dream where a friend of his commits suicide right in front of him. He admits that it's a memory]].
60* ''Fanfic/BaitAndSwitchSTO'' opens with one, telling an incident about ten years earlier when now-Captain Kanril Eleya, then an energy weapons noncom, was nearly killed while helping fight off a BoardingParty. Part of it reappears in chapter nine but ends early when she accidentally punches the person she's in bed with and he shakes her awake. It reappears in the {{prequel}} ''Fanfic/ShakedownShenanigans'' and is interrupted this time by Tess, her roommate for the passenger liner trip to Vulcan, yelling for her to shut up.
61* ''Fanfic/BlueSkyWaffles'' has plenty of these, mostly from Wheatley [[spoiler:remembering his time as a WhiteCollarWorker in Aperture Science]]. Early on, [=GlaDOS=] forces Wheatley to relive his worst memory (taking over the Facility, betraying Chell, and pretty much going insane with the need to Test) over and over again via invasive connections into his mind.
62* ''Fanfic/BoundDestiniesTrilogy'': In chapter 15 of ''Blood and Spirit'', [[spoiler:Zelda has one about Hylia finding the corpse of the very first Link. She's so traumatized by said dream that she ends up assuming a TroubledFetalPosition for several moments]].
63* ''Fanfic/BrutalSeries'': [[spoiler:Ania]] is tormented by these towards the end of ''Horrible''.
64%%* ''Fanfic/ACaptiveLight'': One of a sort appears in ''A Fading Hope''.
65* Introduced in the very first "episode" of ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfTime'' with [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] and continues on to [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Holmes]] and Beth in the finale.
66* In ''Fanfic/{{Composure}}'', Princess Celestia keeps dreaming of the moment her sister [[GreenEyedMonster turned evil]] and [[CainAndAbel tried to kill her]].
67* In the ''Fanfic/{{Dangerverse}}'', Harry and Draco have to deal with these after being rescued from their respective "caretakers".
68%% Needs Context * ''Fanfic/DeliverUsFromEvilSeries'': Used several times for Literature/SherlockHolmes in ''Mortality''.
69%% Needs Context * Occurs in ''Fanfic/DemonOfJustice''.
70* In ''Fanfic/ADifferentLesson'', a guilt-ridden Tai Lung has one of these near the beginning of the story, a [[RecurringDreams repetition]] of [[PastExperienceNightmare old dreams]] [[FlashbackNightmare about his rampage]] which has returned to him [[MoralEventHorizon now that he's truly aware of]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the magnitude of what he did]].
71* ''Fanfic/AnEmeraldUnearthed'' opens with Emerald's dream about the BigBad, [[LoanShark Randall Silva]], shooting her mother about a debt her father, Cole, failed to pay. She watches while waiting on the stairs while Cole begs Silva not to do it. She implies that this isn't the first time.
72* Topaz has several of these in ''Fanfic/TheForeverTrilogy'', and it is mentioned the others do as well.
73* {{Discussed|Trope}}, ironically enough, in a {{Flashback}} in ''Fanfic/FriendshipIsOptimalAlwaysSayNo'', when Greg is trying to convince his parents that he isn't suffering from them after his tour in Afghanistan.
74* In ''Fanfic/GhostBoy'', Turbo suffers from {{Past Experience Nightmare}}s chronically throughout the fic. Many are actually [[spoiler:flashback nightmares of the time he spent as King Candy]].
75* In the ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4562981/ Goku's Wish: The Return of Broly]]'', Broly, while knocked out from exhaustion from being revived, sparring with Goku (whom, thanks to his specifying in his wish towards reviving Broly that Broly won't have any of his negative emotions, Broly no longer hates Goku), and then having to fight Vegeta after the latter grew enraged at Goku's decision to revive him after he was sore about his previous wound to his pride from their last encounter, ends up having a nightmare that initially seemed to be flashbacks to his past where he basically was destroying various galaxies, although it then turned more into a premonition nightmare where apparently a duplicate of Broly mocks the current Broly for his growing "soft" from his revival and proceeds to destroy the Earth before Broly wakes up in shock, and it is implied shortly thereafter that Broly was disturbed at the possibility of a duplicate, or worse, that he still has some evil in his heart that somehow avoided purification before revival. Vegeta, while knocked out, also ended up having a flashback to when he fought Broly on New Planet Vegeta, which was enough to actually reopen his wounds.
76* Ursa has many in ''Fanfic/GuideMeHome'', to the point that she actually finds it "refreshing" to have a normal nightmare.
77* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6260492/1/Happy_Families_Are_All_Alike Happy Families Are All Alike]]'', a ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''/''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' crossover, begins with a flashback to a meeting with the Third Hokage.
78* ''Fanfic/KyoshiRising'' has a variation in Chapter 9; it isn't Kyoshi remembering a traumatic experience in her own life, but instead she witnesses Avatar Yangchen executing fifty Waterbenders who had opposed her (she sees this through Yangchen's eyes, and only later learns it was something the earlier Avatar did).
79* Hanyu has one in the first chapter of ''Fanfic/LearningFromNightmares''.
80* ''Fanfic/LittleMoments'': In ''Breaking Point'', [[spoiler:Ben has nightmares where he thinks he lost his cousin that time he finally killed Vilgax]].
81* Opening ''Fanfic/MakeMeYourRadio'' is General Iroh awaking from a nightmare where his ships burned around him, bombarded from aircraft above.
82* In ''Fanfic/MemoriesBornOfFire'', Spock has multiple nightmares about the ''kal-i-fee'' in which Kirk does not survive.
83* In ''Fanfic/TheNewCaptainN'', Bowser's backstory fluctuates back and forth between this, narrative, and his own mind.
84%% Needs Context * Happens in ''Fanfic/NoHoper''.
85* ''Fanfic/TheNuptialverse'': Cadance has one of being captured by Chrysalis in ''Honeymoon''.
86%% Needs Context * Happens in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' [[AlternateUniverse AU]] fic ''Fanfic/{{Paladin}}''.
87* ''Fanfic/{{Paradoxus}}'': Altalune receives one of these in the [[Recap/ParadoxusPrologo prologue]], just before she leaves to start the events of the main plotline. This unpleasant dream of hers is also a PastExperienceNightmare and a GuiltInducedNightmare at the same time -- it was about her childhood trauma when she found her mother and Stella's corpses along with what she thought was her sister's. Truth be told, little Trisha truly was on the brink of death.
88* In ''Fanfic/PokemonBlackandWhiteTaleofaLegend'', Thrin dreams of the time her friends dared her to go into the forest north of Lacunosa Town, where she ran afoul of Kyurem.
89* In ''Fanfic/PrinceOfDarknessNoMore'', Ivan has these in order to foreshadow [[spoiler:Carmilla]]'s return.
90* In ''Fanfic/QueenOfAllOni'', Jade has one in the fifth interlude to her torture by Lung.
91* In ''Fanfic/ShinraHighSOLDIER'', Julia has one related to her time as a prostitute and her rape by Jenova-controlled Sephiroth.
92* In ''Fanfic/SophisticationAndBetrayal'', the protagonist [[RecurringDreams often dreams]] of the disaster that transported him to Equestria, and his near-drowning in the process.
93* The ''Fanfic/StarlightSeries'' starts off with Lilo dreaming about the car crash that kills her parents. A few chapters later, Nani dreams about the day she received the phone call telling her of the outcome.
94* Shepard has one where he remembers dying in ''Fanfic/AStarToSteerHerBy''.
95* Most the younger characters in ''Fanfic/StrangeAndInvisibleHistory'' suffer from these. Viktor sometimes dreams of seeing blood and brains on the floor of the British Ministry, and Draco has the 'chorus of screams' from the various battles he fought in.
96* In ''Fanfic/AStudyInRegret'', this used several times for poor Holmes.
97* In ''Fanfic/TargetAcquired'', Wheatley has one of the core transfer scene, [[spoiler:except he doesn't realize it's a flashback, [[TearJerker but thinks Chell is forcing him to go through the core transfer all over again]]]].
98* Talia has one about being assaulted at a party in ''Fanfic/{{Terrible}}''.
99* Prowl has one in ''Fanfic/ThingsWeDontTellHumans'', revealing what happened when he learned that Jazz had died.
100* The fates of Ienzo's parents are seen in his nightmares in ''Fanfic/TheVioletRoom''.
101* Siren has one in ''Fanfic/{{Vision}}''.
102* ''Fanfic/YouAreNotAtFault'': After the end of the world, Shinji's dreams are plagued by recurring nightmares where he watches again how Asuka's Evangelion was ripped apart and eaten.
103* In ''Fanfic/ZeldaIIITheSecretOfGanon'', much of Link's past is told through his dreams, and helps set up some of the creepier nightmares he later has in the story.
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Film — Animated]]
107* A deleted scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'' had the Giant broadcasting his memories onto Dean's TV in his sleep, showing the Giant and other robots like him laying siege to an alien civilization.
108* In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'', Lilo thinks Stitch is having these about his parents.
109-->'''Lilo:''' I hear you cry at night. Do you dream about them?
110* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'' has Simba remembering Mufasa's death, with Scar preventing him from saving his father. Once Mufasa falls, Scar morphs into Kovu, who then proceeds to toss Simba from the cliff.
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
114* The opening of ''Film/BatmanBegins'' shows Bruce dreaming of falling into a well and being surrounded by bats as a child.
115* ''Film/TheBlindSide'': Michael occasionally has the awake version of these, when thinking about his DarkAndTroubledPast.
116* ''Film/TheBourneSupremacy'' begins with one, with the amnesiac Jason Bourne having a nightmare about a hitherto forgotten assassination mission in Berlin.
117* Martha from ''Film/DancingTrees'' has nightmares of her mother Josephina's murder and wakes up crying and muttering. While she's half asleep, she utters one of her first useful clues, "MS-13," referring to the tattoo on the shooter's neck.
118* ''Film/FiftyShadesDarker'': At the beginning, Christian is disturbed by a nightmare of his past where he was abused by his stepdad.
119* Richard Kimble has recurring nightmares replaying the night of his wife's murder in ''Film/TheFugitive''.
120* ''Film/TheHitList'' opens with Jonas having a flashback nightmare about his service in Desert Storm.
121* In ''Film/HotSpur'', Carlo has nightmares in which he revisits his sister's rape, which he had been ForcedToWatch when he was 11-years-old. Sometimes, he awakes [[CatapultNightmare sitting bolt upright]].
122* In ''Film/{{Hummingbird}}'', Joey has a flashback nightmare to the ambush in Afghanistan which wiped out the rest of his squad.
123* In ''Film/IRobot'' Detective Spooner frequently has a dream where he repeats the phrase "save her, save the girl!" and gets grabbed by a robot that tells him that he is "in danger!" Later, he tells Dr. Calvin, a robot specialist, that he [[spoiler: got his bionic arm implant]] and came to hate robots on the same day. He tells her that when he was driving over a bridge an overworked trucker fell asleep, lost control and crashed into his and another car and pushed them into the lake below. He was seriously wounded, the driver of the other car died on impact, and the young girl in that car had minor injuries, but was trapped. As the cars sank, a robot that was passing by saw the accident and went into rescue mode, and despite Spooner pleading to the the robot "save her, save the girl!" the robot rescued him and left the girl to drown when the car sank. Spooner then tells Calvin that the robot only saved him, a grown man, because it calculated he had a greater chance of survival, while a human would have tried to save a child.
124* ''Film/JasonsLyric'': The main protagonist, Jason, constantly had flashback nightmares of the night he [[spoiler:[[AccidentalMurder fatally shot]] his abusive dad, when intended to stop his old man from potentially killing him and his mother.]] This causes him to put up with his troubled younger brother, Joshua, for years as he feels guilty for [[spoiler:making Joshua witnessed his dad's murder with his very own eyes.]] Thus, this nightmare also becomes the major problem that gets in the way of his relationship with [[LoveInterest Lyric.]]
125* ''Film/TheLastSamurai'': Algren's [=PTSD=] gives him flashbacks to the times he was ordered to slaughter Native Americans. He tries to drown them out with alcohol, but when he is forced to [[GoingColdTurkey quit cold turkey]] he suffers severe nightmares combined with fever dreams caused by his wounds. Later in the film, Algren and Katsumoto discuss them.
126-->'''Nathan Algren:''' Every soldier has nightmares.
127-->'''Katsumoto:''' Only one who is ashamed of what he has done.
128* ''Film/LockjawRiseOfTheKulevSerpent'' opens when Alan and Becky were kids, and shows the events around the theft of the voodoo stick and the death of Alan's father. At the end of this sequence, it is revealed that this is a nightmare that the adult Alan is experiencing, that he [[CatapultNightmare wakes from with a start]].
129* At the beginning of the film version of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheTwoTowers'', Frodo has a dream that [[PreviouslyOn reminds us what happened to Gandalf]], although in this case it continues into a sequence which he [[UnreliableNarrator couldn't possibly have seen]].
130* In ''Film/MacGruber'', the title character is a RetiredBadass who refuses to return and face off against his arch-enemy, who [[WidowedAtTheWedding murdered his spouse during their wedding]]. However, he decides to accept the CallToAdventure after having a nightmare about that fateful day.
131* The villain actually has one in ''Film/ManiacCop'', dreaming about his mutilation in Sing Sing by inmates he put there.
132* The opening of the ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'' movie has Liu Kang dreaming of the murder of his brother Chan Kang at the hands of Shang Tsung. This kicks the events of the movie in motion.
133* In ''Film/Robocop1987'', after his first successful deployment, Robocop is recharging in his chair, when he starts having a nightmare of the day that Bodicker and his gang emptied their guns on him. When the dream ends with [[BoomHeadshot Bodicker shooting him in the head]], Robocop marches out of the room and goes on patrol.
134* In ''Film/SomeGuyWhoKillsPeople'', Ben has a recurring flashback nightmare to when he was BoundAndGagged and tortured by the {{Jerk Jock}}s on the high school basketball team.
135* In ''Film/TheTerminator'', Kyle Reese frequently had nightmares relating to the war against Skynet as well as his hiding from the various [=HK=]s and Terminators.
136* {{Implied}} in one scene of ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' with Wolverine where he is screaming in bed and apparently accidentally injured Fox with his (regular) claws, where he explained that he had nightmares of [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar every]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI single]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII war]] [[UsefulNotes/VietnamWar he fought in]].
137[[/folder]]
138
139[[folder:Literature]]
140* One of the favorite tropes of ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''. Hardly a surprise, considering what they had been through.
141* Russ from ''Literature/AspergerSunset'' witnesses a murder. The morning after, he wakes up sweating and gasping from a nightmare about it.
142* ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'': Ren dreams sometimes about the moments before -- and just after -- a theater exploded. Sometimes they're AnxietyDreams and details are mixed around, new characters added, but other times they're pretty true to life.
143* Holly from ''Literature/{{ByAnyOtherName|2013}}'' has nightmares about the time two men kidnapped her and tried to kill her, and she barely managed to escape.
144* In ''Literature/DarkLife'', Ty has one of these about [[spoiler: his time as a medical research subject.]]
145* Ned Stark in ''Literature/AGameOfThrones'' has had recurrent nightmares about his sister Lyanna's mysterious death, and the (again) mysterious promise he made her.
146* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' has ''The Ghost Next Door'' where Hannah dreams about her house set on fire, [[spoiler:but that was five years ago before the events of the story where she was at a campfire with her family and so they walked to the house where she did not put away the fire, so the house was on fire.]]
147* Literature/HarryPotter mostly had [[http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/dreams.html semi-prophetic and psychological dreams]], but ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' mentioned that his experience in the graveyard in the previous book had supplied a few of these.
148* Katniss and Peeta have them after being in ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', but even before that Katniss had ones about her dad dying in the mine explosion.
149* Eve has these constantly in the ''Literature/InDeath'' series.
150** As she finally begins to deal with her issues her dreams become more surreal, but rarely any less disturbing.
151* Tammy Maheswaran from ''Literature/MARiiMO'' still wakes up crying from nightmares about the car accident that killed her parents and destroyed her right hand seven years ago.
152* In the novel ''Literature/OrdinaryPeople'', Conrad Jarrett has some of his flashbacks to the sailing accident that killed his older brother, during which we gradually learn more about it, while asleep.
153* Scott from ''Literature/ThePowerOfFive'' had several of these, after a nice spell of MindRape and ColdBloodedTorture.
154* Eugenides of ''Literature/TheQueensThief'' is often woken screaming from nightmares of the Queen of Attolia, the woman who [[spoiler: cut off his right hand]] and is also his ''[[spoiler: wife]]''.
155* In ''Literature/{{Touch 2017}},'' James [[FrightInducedBunkmate starts sleeping in his parents' room]] after [[RapeAsBackstory being raped]]. He has one of these the first time that he tries sleeping alone again, and wakes up [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening floating above his bed]].
156* In ''Literature/VampireAcademy'', Lissa has nightmares of the accident that killed her parents and brother. "Fire and blood, the smell of smoke, the twisted metal of a car."
157* ''Literature/VicAndFrankNecromancers'': The Reanimated woman has a nightmare about the Necromancer killing her [[spoiler: after playing the Dead Walketh video game.]]
158* ''Literature/WarriorCats'':
159** Dovepaw has one about [[spoiler:Rippletail]]'s death in ''Fading Echoes''.
160** ''Mothwing's Secret'' begins with Mothwing having one about her littermate Tadpole's death.
161[[/folder]]
162
163[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
164* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E7CanYouHearMe "Can You Hear Me?"]], all of the main characters are forced to experience nightmares of their worst fears. Yaz's is of the time she tried to run away from home.
165* The 2010 season of ''Series/HomeAndAway'' started out with Hugo kidnapping Charlie, meaning these formed a part of her arc for the first few weeks.
166* In ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' Jessica has these sometimes, flashing back to her time under Kilgrave's control.
167* ''{{Series/Legion|2017}}'': In "[[Recap/LegionS3E3Chapter22 Chapter 22]]", when Charles Xavier (a former British army officer) is asleep, his subconscious replays his harrowing memory from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII where he had a scuffle with a Nazi soldier that nearly cost him his life.
168* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': some of the show's characteristic flashbacks are presented as nightmares. One example is Sawyer's flashback in "Outlaws" to his father killing his mother, then himself.
169* ''Series/MaddigansQuest'' used this to illustrate Timon and Eden's backstory, in particular their parents' execution and the boys' subsequent escape from [[CrapsackWorld the future Solis]].
170* In the first part of the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' two parter ''Mr. Monk Is On the Run'', Monk experiences a nightmare of the day Trudy was killed via car bomb, and he couldn't stop it. It was also implied in the same two parter that these nightmares were frequent.
171* ''Series/NirvanaInFire'': The first scene of the series shows the bloody massacre of an army and the young Lin Shu's dying father urging him to survive just before he falls off a cliff... and our adult hero [[CatapultNightmare catapults awake, panting in his bed.]]
172* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'':
173** In "Fear Itself", Bernard Selden is plagued by horrific nightmares about the fire in which his younger sister Mimi died.
174** In "Simon Says", Gideon Banks has a nightmare about the dream of his wife Elise and son Simon in a car accident 20 years earlier.
175** In "Dark Child", Laura Sinclair has been plagued by nightmares about her abduction by aliens for 17 years.
176* Thomas Shelby of ''Series/PeakyBlinders'' has opium-induced nightmares of his time as a sapper in WWI.
177* In the final episode of ''Series/ReturnOfUltraman'', Goh Hideki (human host of [[TheHero Ultraman Jack]]) have a nightmare of how the previous Ultraman was defeated and killed by the kaiju Zetton from the [[Series/{{Ultraman}} previous series']] finale. This ends up being a plot point on how Goh is unable to transform into Ultraman Jack later in the episode.
178* ''Series/TheSandman2022'', "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E03DreamALittleDreamOfMe Dream a Little Dream of Me]]": Johanna Constantine suffers from a recurring nightmare of a failed case where her friend was DraggedOffToHell. Morpheus notices this, and cures her of it [[PetTheDog in thanks]] for her help.
179* In ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', John gets one of these in the first episode, about when he got shot in Afghanistan. [[spoiler: It's also likely he's having them again after the latest.]]
180* ''Series/{{Taken}}'':
181** In "Beyond the Sky", Russell Keys experiences frequent nightmares about being abducted by aliens for the first time in August 1944. He initially sees them as Nazi doctors but they appear in their true form after the blanks in his memory are filled in by his former co-pilot Lt. Lou Johnson.
182** In "God's Equation", Russell's grandson Charlie experiences similar nightmares about his abductions. The same is also true of Mike and Patty, a couple whom Charlie interviews as part of documentary that he is making about the abductions.
183* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
184** Mulder often has flashback nightmares of his sister's abduction. It may explain [[TheInsomniac his insomnia]]. It stands out particularly in the episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS04E10PaperHearts Paper Hearts]]".
185** Scully has a flashback nightmare to her own abduction in "[[Recap/TheXFilesS04E14MementoMori Memento Mori]]".
186[[/folder]]
187
188[[folder:Radio]]
189* Parodied in ''Radio/{{Nebulous}}'', where Nebulous often has horrific flashbacks to his childhood -- working in the circus.
190[[/folder]]
191
192[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
193* The Changelings of ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' suffer from flashbacks to [[FateWorseThanDeath their durance in]] [[EldritchLocation Arcadia]] in their dreams. One downside to gaining [[PowerLevels Wyrd]] is that these dreams become clearer and more powerful, until eventually they can recall Arcadia with absolute clarity -- and their own [[SanityMeter Clarity]] suffers as a result, driving them closer to losing their grip on reality entirely [[spoiler: and, at extremely high Wyrd, [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie potentially becoming]] [[TheFairFolk True Fae]] [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie themselves]]]].
194[[/folder]]
195
196[[folder:Video Games]]
197* Kei of ''VisualNovel/AkaiIto'' gets nightmares of things taking place in the past, including [[spoiler:[[FantasticRacism the last days of Sakuya's people]]]].
198* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': Ann has a DreamIntro of waking up in a town covered in snow and having a [[FreezeFrameBonus brief glimpse]] of walking in an EldritchLocation. [[spoiler:Which was caused by her connection as one of the subjects in the Gatekeeper Project]].
199* Ashley of ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'' has the events of her third birthday come in a dream near the start of both games. Then again, [[spoiler:seeing your mom get shot to death tends to be hard to forget.]]
200* In ''VisualNovel/{{CLANNAD}}'', Tomoya starts to have these as he gets closer to Kotomi, complete with [[FreezeFrameBonus a seemingly random]] [[ArcWords rabbit and deer.]]
201* In ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', Hajime has a dream pertaining to when he [[spoiler:was selected to undergo the procedure to become Izuru Kamukara while surrounded by students in the reserve course.]]
202* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'': Just before Dante fully woke up from a month-long coma, we get treated to a first-person flashback of [[spoiler:the day when demons attacked their home and Eva made him hide in a closet]].
203* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'':
204** Shadow had some revealing that [[spoiler:he was a train robber named Clyde who couldn't MercyKill his wounded partner and spent the rest of his life regretting it. They also underline the implication that he is Relm's DisappearedDad]]. Since the nightmares appear at a very low chance when staying in inns, and even then only if you knew to save his life at the FloatingContinent, many players don't even know of their existence.
205** Terra had something similar in the same game: Shortly after she attempts to escape from Narshe (while amnesiac), and ends up falling down the Narshe Caves, she passes out and then a flashback occurs where it is revealed that she was unwillingly subjected to being outfitted with a Slave Crown by Kefka Palazzo, leaving her brainwashed, and then killing over fifty imperial soldiers completely against her will with Kefka cheering her to continue burning them to a crisp, and then witnessing Emperor Gestahl's war speech, a flashback that would certainly have been very horrifying.
206* ''VideoGame/KatanaZero'': Zero has nightmares showing a child witnessing a scientist being killed by a soldier. [[spoiler:Later nightmares reveal in the end that Zero was the soldier, not the child.]]
207* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsToAzure'', Lloyd has a nightmare during the intermission chapter about the moment when he and the team were nearly killed during the last battle in ''Trails from Zero''. [[spoiler:It's later revealed they ''did'' die in the battle, which caused Kea to awaken her powers to reset time and alter events that would allow Lloyd and the others to survive.]]
208* Riki of ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' has been having recurring nightmares since recently as of the beginning of the game, though it isn't until later that we find out what they're of, and it isn't until much later that we find out that they are this trope. [[spoiler:Specifically, memories of an event that have been repressed when he's awake as long as he exists in the created world.]]
209* ''VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode'': Yuma has one at the start of Chapter 3, seeing a blurry vision of himself passing by Number One carrying the Book of Death while at the World Detective Organization. [[spoiler:Or rather, he sees himself carrying the Book of Death and passing by the real Yuma, [[TomatoInTheMirror because he's actually Number One]]]].
210* Zero has one of these at the start of ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', meeting his creator and standing in front of destroyed Reploids, and it is also implied that this wasn't the first time he had the nightmare.
211* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
212** It is implied in ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'' that Solid Snake frequently experienced nightmares relating to his [[VideoGame/MetalGear1 mission in Outer Heaven]].
213** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'': The severity of Raiden's nightmares about his {{Child Soldier|s}} past is the main reason he won't allow people (like Rosemary) to stay with him when he sleeps because he's afraid of hurting them.
214** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', when Old Snake finds out he has to return to Shadow Moses Island, the setting of the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', he has a playable nightmare flashback complete with [=PS1=] graphics.
215* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Olberic is introduced with him having a nightmare about the fall of his home kingdom Hornburg and the death of his king at the hands of his close friend Erhardt. once he wakes up, he stated this is a recurring nightmare.
216* Marshall Anderson of ''VideoGame/{{Outlaws}}'' has a recurring nightmare of the man who shot his father, and [[CruelMercy left him for dead]]. The nightmare repeats a few times before we finally see the entire scene, and the villain's face is revealed. It isn't until the final confrontation between Anderson and [[BigBad Bob Graham]], that we see a MatchCut of Graham and the assailant that we find out that the two characters are one and the same. [[YouKilledMyFather Que mandatory one-liner]].
217* The regular story chapters of the VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}'' are interspersed with "The Junker's Dream" chapters, which describe the main character's flashback nightmares of his past as a {{Child Soldier|s}}.
218* In ''VideoGame/SierraOps'', Junius Fahrenheit has recurring nightmares of nearly burning to death in an incident from six years before. One such nightmare serves as the game’s tutorial and opening scene.
219* Happens in ''VisualNovel/SongsOfAraiah'', where Jason has dreams in which [[spoiler: he remembers seeing the execution of his best friend by the Reformists]].
220* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'':
221** ''VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Z}}2: Hakai-Hen'' had [[Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS Chirico Cuvie]] experiencing one during the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayezowZz52U prologue of Scenario 39]]. It was about the final battle he had with the Barcoff Squadron and it showed how he was sad at the loss of their lives.
222** In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsMX'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58btwrZOIrA Hugo has a nightmare/flashback of the final moments he had with the Cry Wolves]]. After failing to neutralize the Devil Gundam, the Cry Wolves are taken out one by one. Alberto's son Foglia is turned into a zombie by the Devil Gundam and Hugo tries to reason with Foglia but ultimately gets his Gespenst blown up.
223** In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsV'', [[Anime/Daitarn3 Banjo Haran]] dreams of the time he confronted Koros and Don Sauzer before the mission to infiltrate the Ameterasu. Koros wants Banjo and Daitarn 3 to join them and help them spread humanity across the cosmos, but Banjo refuses because of his hatred of the Meganoids.
224* ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'':
225** In the ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' OAV, Zelos has one of these about [[spoiler:his mother's death]].
226** In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', Emil dreams of [[spoiler:Richter killing him]].
227* Emma gets these in ''VideoGame/TelepathTactics'', to her childhood as a slave in the vibra mines. They are easily among the most chilling scenes in the story.
228[[/folder]]
229
230[[folder:Web Comics]]
231* In ''Webcomic/Archipelago'', most dream sequences are those. In Credenza's case, this is because [[spoiler: she's a DreamWalker - Flashback Nightmares are a common sign of this ability]], but other characters get them, too.
232* ''Webcomic/{{Bastard|2014}}'': Jin has these often, particularly of his father throwing him off a building as a child. [[spoiler: Although it turns out it was his mother who did it in the middle of a breakdown.]]
233* In ''Webcomic/DanTheSnowman'', the eponymous hero seemingly has a nightmare that may or may not be his [[http://danthesnowman.com/comic/liars-scientists-and-thieves/ailleurs origin story]].
234* Susan of ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-08-13 has one]] of finding out about her father's affair.
235* Sarine Elle, central figure in ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'', has a real [[https://www.errantstory.com/?p=519 honker]] of a flashback nightmare about the disastrous birth of her stillborn daughter, which goes far toward explaining her [[LikeASonToMe relationship]] with Meji Hinadori.
236* Jade's second dream in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' after [[spoiler:her dreamself's death]] ends up being this, though to be fair, Jade was going off the rails and Feferi [[spoiler:(who had died)]] probably didn't mean to startle her. She's just kind of [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004894 weird]] like that. In general, Sburb players with dead dream selves experience flashbacks in their dreams, though they are not nightmares most of the time.
237%% Needs Context * Vashiel gets a couple of these in ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}''. Leading to some fans to label him a mass murderer.
238* The seedlings from ''Webcomic/{{Morphe}}'' get [[http://morphe.thewebcomic.com/comics/1790280/chapter-2-page-19-sweet-dreams/ a fully animated one]] in the second chapter which hints to the traumas they each suffered when in captivity. [[http://morphe.thewebcomic.com/comics/1901549/chapter-3-page-18-open-your-eyes/ A second has been made which includes one of the captives waking up and being discovered by the knife-wielding woman from the prologue.]]
239* Vaarsuvius from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' gets flashback nightmares of a certain traumatic experience he/she suffered months earlier. To make it worse, trancing, the equivalent of sleep for elves, actually consists of reviewing memories in minute detail for the sake of self-reflection and committing those events to very long-term memory. This makes V's Flashback Nightmares far more literal than any regular example and handily explains V's reluctance to trance.
240* ''Webcomic/{{Terra}}'' introduces Alexis Hawke in her nightmare of being captured and enslaved by the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy Shadow Cabal]] during the Titan Colony massacre, then segues into the present day when she wakes up.
241* In ''Webcomic/WillSaveWorldForGold'', Mora magically hijacks Ell's dreams and turns them into memories.
242[[/folder]]
243
244[[folder:Web Original]]
245* ''Series/TheCryOfMann'': When Jouglat faints at the end of a scene, the next scene shows him re-experiencing his NearDeathExperience in the warr [[note]]Spelling intentional[[/note]], eventually waking back up in the living room.
246* The main character of the ''Literature/ReconstructionSeries'', Isaac, has these frequently. Often used to establish his backstory, but sometimes just to show his mental state.
247%% Needs Context * Used to establish the backstory in ''Literature/SailorNothing''.
248[[/folder]]
249
250[[folder:Web Animation]]
251* Played with in ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'', for each of the heroes' {{Dark and Troubled Past}}s.
252* In the beginning of the fifth episode of ''WebAnimation/SuperMarioBrosZ'', Sonic is experiencing a nightmare harkening back to the day when Mecha Sonic mercilessly slaughtered his friends, and pretty much every single inhabitant of Planet Mobius while torching a large portion of the planet, while Sonic was knocked out from his fight with the Koopa Bros.
253[[/folder]]
254
255[[folder:Western Animation]]
256* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': The episode "Best Fronds" opens with Anne's dream where she relives how she ended up in Amphibia.
257* In the very first episode of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Aang has one of these about the horrible storm that nearly killed him and led to him becoming a HumanPopsicle.
258* In ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', Lt. Marsh dreams about Alice Noretti's death, [[NewMeat the newest member of his squad who was killed on her very first mission]], and it is implied that he has such nightmares quite often but hides it from everyone.
259* In a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch spoofing [[Franchise/TheBourneSeries the Jason Bourne series]], [[WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967 Baloo]] has nightmares about [[WesternAnimation/TaleSpin his former life as a pilot]].
260* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Toilet Paper", Kyle gets flashback nightmares after [[FelonyMisdemeanor toilet papering a teacher's house]].
261[[/folder]]
262
263[[folder:Real Life]]
264* This can and does happen to people with [[ShellShockedVeteran Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]], including but not limited to combat veterans. While not always in dreams, reliving the traumatic experience in high detail is literally known as a "flashback".
265* People who have experimented heavily in psychotropic drugs also have flashbacks to previous trips.
266[[/folder]]

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