->"It was only an illusion, but the more you believed in it... the more real it became."\\
-- '''Dr. Vink''', ''{{Are You Afraid of the Dark}}?''

->'''Neo:''' I thought this wasn't real.\\
'''Morpheus:''' Your mind makes it real.\\
'''Neo:''' So if you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?\\
'''Morpheus:''' [[GhostInTheMachine The body cannot live without the mind.]]\\
-- ''TheMatrix''

You'd think that it being AllJustADream would let you do lots of cool and risky things, since it's not real anyway, and you therefore can't get hurt. Not so.

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.

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 ([[WhyDontYaJustShootHim 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 throught 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 blows up their computer (which is presumably, MadeOfExplodium). 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 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 [[ThePuppetmasters possessing someone else]]. The former is, frankly, just silly; downloading doesn't work that way. The latter... eh.

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 ''ShadowRun'' -- use this justification, and lampshade it with far-less effective interfaces which people with [[UnusualUserInterface wires in their heads]] can [[CurbStompBattle destroy with ease]].

This tends to apply to video game levels that are AllJustADream or a virtual reality simulation. You don't wake up when you die; death is still a Game Over.

When you are TalkingInYourDreams with someone else and they go to kill you -- this may come into play.

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. Compare PuffOfLogic.

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[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* The series [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldr_Force_Exe BALDR Force .exe]] is based around this concept.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'', as part of the whole [[spoiler:Haruhi is an unknowing God]] thing: [[spoiler:whatever she wishes to experience comes true. In fact, it is the primary reason she's attracted aliens, time travelers, and espers, and its also the reason why they keep her entertained: so she doesn't accidentally wish for the destruction of the world.]]
* Averted and then played straight in ''{{Ghost in the Shell}}''. There is no cyberspace, and one can consequently not die in it. However, since brains are computerized, minds can be deleted, partly on in whole. As a countermeasure, brains can be disconnected, and firewalls and counter-viruses ("Attack Barriers") are used and released to prevent deletion. However, deep synchronization with the brain of a dying person runs the risk of dying with it.
* Anime subversion: In ''ScrappedPrincess'', the titular character enters a VR program to save her brother from being brainwashed, only to be promptly impaled by him when he fails to recognize her. There is a moment of shock, and then she slaps him in the face and continues to shout at him with his sword still stuck through her.
* This is probably how the Tsukuyomi power of the Mangekyo Sharingan is supposed to work in ''{{Naruto}}''. Itachi Uchiha uses it to pretty much overwhelm the victim's mind.
* ''GetBackers'' is fond of this trope, and used it in the IL and Divine Design arcs.
* In the [[DotHack .hack series]], characters hit by the ''Data Drain'' attack within ''The World'' are usually sent into a coma in the real world, and are temporarily knocked unconscious at the very least.
** Some characters eventually realize that somehow their minds are taken ''inside'' the game world, experiencing it with their character's own senses instead of being at home with a headset and gamepad. Naturally, they become deeply concerned about what's going on with their physical bodies, and what happens if their characters are "killed" in this state.
* ''DigimonAdventure'': Towards the end of the second StoryArc, Local Boy Genius Izzy figures out the Digital World is a world made out of the data of the world's network infrastructure and hence all the human protagonists are more than likely made of data in that world. Although he tells everyone to be careful in spite of this new development it doesn't sink in with Tai, the goggle boy leader of the group, and he starts acting like a jackass under the flawed logic that he'll somehow survive regardless of what happens. It takes Izzy telling him that he would more than likely die in both worlds if he messed up to put a stop to his nonsense. Unfortunately, this happens just after a member of the team is kidnapped and they're about to cross an electrified gate to go after her. He, of course, loses his bravado right there and the kidnapper gets away more or less scott-free, leading to a short term HeroicBSOD for Tai.
* ''DigimonFrontier'': SixthRanger Kouichi's consciousness was pulled into the Digital World by the would-be BigBad Cherubimon. Because of this, he's technically not there, he only ''believes'' he's there. It begins to dawn on him that this might be the case when survives several [[CurbStompBattle curb stomp battles]] virtually unscathed while his friends get more and more roughed up.
* Subverted somewhat in ''{{Hunter X Hunter}}'''s Greed Island arc, in that the game's titular island IS in fact a real island that the players are teleported to when they start playing the "game", rather than a virtual world.
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''[=~Jojo's Bizarre Adventure~=]'', where this is the power of the Stand Death 13: it pulls its victims into a dream of an amusement park and then kills them while they're trying to figure it out.
** In a later example in the same series, the trope is used to make people believe [[spoiler:that they are snails due to subliminal messaging]]. Yeah, didn't make all that much sense in context either.
* Half of the {{Story Arc}}s in ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}!'' are about soul-sucking Virtual Reality games. The other half are about soul-sucking millennium items.
** Attempts of the writers to give a scientific explanation for this ([[VirtualGhost Noah's brains were kept alive in a feeding, protective sphere, and directly connected to the VR world he existed in]]) were mercilessly shot down by the same writers when Noah happily walked off in Mokuba's body, without ever considering taking his brains with him.
* One of the many plot points in ''[[ChaosHead Chaos;Head]]'' is based completely around this trope.
* Happens in ''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, not to mention a lot of BloodFromTheMouth.
* Inverted in ''HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi''. Most of the delusions appear to be very real, even [[MindScrew tricking]] the [[AnimatedAdaptation watchers]]/[[{{Manga}} readers]]/[[AllThereInTheManual players]], when they aren't.
* Justified in {{Yu Yu Hakusho}}. During the Chapter Black arc, the team comes against a young boy named Amanuma who has the ability to create a psychic "Territory" where any video game he wants becomes real, and the heroes have to play in it to survive. In his territory, everyone (Including himself) are forced to rigidly follow the rules of the game, so much so that they are forced to have Seven "players" to even enter the room. (As the game has seven playable characters) Kurama deduces that the rules are so rigidly followed, that your fate in this territory will mirror the fate of the character you represent, however this particular game supplies the player with a "Continue?" screen just before depicting the player's death, meaning as long as they continue playing, they will never die. However, he realizes Amanuma must also follow his own rules, and if they beat him and go on, then the scene where the "Goblin Master" is depicted as Dying will actually happen to the boy, forcing the group to chose whether or not to kill this one boy to save the world. [[spoiler: Kurama comes to the conclusion that the life of One Boy does not outweigh the lives of everyone in the world, and tells Amanuma what he's discovered, and that if he loses then he himself will die. Due to his newfound fear at finding that he too may die, Amanuma begins to make several mistakes until Kurama beats him. Immediately after losing, the boy slumps over dead. However, Koenma, leader of the Spirit world doesn't let it stand, and resurrects the boy later.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* Subversion: In the ''Doc Samson'' miniseries, Tina Punnett is trapped in a VR game that's been modified to cause psychosomatic damage to the player. To get out, she runs herself through with a sword, causing lots of pain but also causing the game to end.
* An interesting variation occurs in the ''{{Sleepwalker}}'' comics from the early 1990s. When Sleepwalker, [[FantasticFour Mr. Fantastic]], or the villainous Thought Police are in Rick Sheridan's mind, they can be attacked by anything Rick can imagine, in a case of literally making things real with his mind.
* ''[[{{X-Men}} Uncanny X-Men]]'' #133: Cyclops and Mastermind have a sword fight on an "Astral Plane", concluding with Mastermind stabbing Cyclops through the heart. In the real world Cyclops' body slumps over and Nightcrawler loudly announces "Cyclops is Dead!" [[IGotBetter He got better by the next issue.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
* In ''{{Brainstorm}}'', a character dies while hooked up to a tape that records thoughts and experiences. Someone else "watches" it, and has the exact same heart attack, dying in the process because they didn't disable the pain generators.
** The tape also records brainwaves and some physical indicators. So playing that tape unmodified literally gave the watcher the same heart arrhythmia.
* David Cronenberg's ''TheBrood'' starts off with a doctor whose therapy involves making mentally ill patients make their illness a physical one, which he would then cure, hey presto reverse placebo! The titular brood is the result of a woman who had motherhood or something as part of her many issues...
* ''{{Dreamscape}}'', which includes a guy entering the president's dream in order to kill him.
* ''TheMatrix'' is the trope namer. Possibly justified, since the sentient [=AIs=] who are running the place have every reason to want the rebels to die for real, and probably can't have it both ways.
** However, in ''TheMatrixOnline'', safeguards have apparently been put into place that when a redpill is killed in the Matrix, an emergency switch jacks them out of the Matrix, forcing them to re-enter at a hardline after some recovery time.
** In the original [[TheMatrix movie]], Neo subverts the trope. [[spoiler:When his mind stops making the matrix real, it can't hurt him anymore.]] The rest of the franchise changes the rules, to [[DisContinuity mixed reviews]].
* ''{{A Nightmare on Elm Street}}''
* In ''StayAlive'', a group of beta testers realize that they are slowly dying off one by one in the exact same fashion that their avatars in the game they are testing die. It is later revealed that playing this game summons the ghost of a sociopathic killer who delights in killing you in the most horrendous ways possible.
* ''TheThirteenthFloor'' was sneakier: you enter a virtual world by possessing one of its inhabitants, and if killed in this state, YOUR mind dies and the possessee's mind is transferred to your body instead.
** It was more a case that simply entering the virtual world caused the swap, with the virtual person's mind entering your real world body even as your mind entered their virtual body. No one realized this, however, because the real body usually remained completely unconscious during the process. Virtual death merely broke the connection and jarred the real world body with the virtual mind inside it awake.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] when used several times in CSLewis's ''[[{{Narnia}} The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' as a metaphor for how people "only see what they want to see" or "only believe what they want to believe." In ''The Magician's Nephew'', said magician, Uncle Andrew, so thoroughly convinces himself animals can't talk, he really can't hear the animals talk. In ''The Last Battle'', after being tricked along with all of Narnia into believing in a false Aslan, a band of dwarves are so determined not to be tricked again, they refuse to believe they're in Aslan's Country (Heaven), and therefore can't see it.
** The big question in the first example is how Uncle Albert, a man both intelligent and imaginative enough to believe that magic works, and prove it experimentally suddenly forget about the "different world" thing. Magic rings from Atlantis that transport people between dimensions? Sure, why not? Talking animals? [[ArbitrarySkepticism Now you're just being silly.]]
*** It's implied that it isn't just a case of skepticism, but a deliberate act of incredibly powerful denial. Essentially, the sheer fact of Aslan's song (which creates Narnia) and everything that goes with it disturbs Uncle Andrew severely (keeping in mind this is metaphysical allegory, here), so he closes his mind to the idea that he heard singing at all. Or that any of the animals can talk. Or any of the wonders that are right there for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. He doesn't want to believe, so he ceases to see or hear anything that would force him to have to accept the truth. In a way, his mind made it all [=UNreal=].
* The ''{{Wheel of Time}}'' books include a special dream world that can be accessed through special artifacts, training, or blind luck. Injuries and death carry over.
** In fact, it actually explains people dying in their sleep for no apparent cause as them accidentally dreaming themselves temporarily into the dream world long enough for something fatal to happen to them.
* In ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~=]'' series' fifth book, ''Mostly Harmless'', Ford enters a virtual world in which some inhabitants carry laser guns. If they shoot you, you're dead, as you're "as dead as you think you are."
* In Piers Anthony's ''Killobyte'', two VR players are trapped in the game and the trope is justified by having one character with a weak heart which gets shocked by the mild feedback used in the game to simulate virtual pain and one character who is wasting away due to real-life diabetes.
** The feedback in question was only for dying ingame, and while it's been a while, this troper vaguely recalls the problem as having been a pacemaker. So long as he didn't die, he was fine. The second was an inversion of some sort, as the diabetic's virtual persona was being affected by the real one, the opposite of this trope's point.
* In ''ThePendragonAdventure'', the territory of Veelox has a virtual reality system called Lifelight that initially averts this trope. It is stated that if you die during a Lifelight "jump", you simply wake up from it. However, once the Reality Bug is introduced into Lifelight in an attempt to make it less perfect and addicting, this trope gets taken to absurd levels. Not only do you die in real life if you die during a jump, but any injuries you get appear on your real body, even ''damaging your clothing''. And after the Reality Bug manifests in a jump as a giant shapeshifting monster, it is somehow able to enter physical reality by burrowing down through the ground. Bobby even [[LampshadeHanging admits]] that all this violates the laws of physics as he understands them.
* In G. A. Effinger's ''When Gravity Fails'', eight people lie down at a Virtual Reality couch, and only seven get up. One of them figured a way to make one of the others fail to go back to their body, causing their "soul" to be purged when the machine shuts down.
* In William Gibson's ''{{Neuromancer}}'', and other stories set in the same world, [[HollywoodHacking console cowboys]] interact with computing environments through virtual reality on a deep enough level that they risk brain damage or death from tangling with the wrong entities.
* In ''TekWar'', failing to hack a computer system results in real injuries ranging from brain damage to death. Fortunately, most hackers can spare the brain cells lost in minor skirmishes.
* In TerryPratchett's ''[[{{Discworld}} Maskerade]]'', the villain is killed in a sword-fight, but it was ''stage fighting'', and the sword is just held under his arm. However, he (and everyone else in the opera house) has been so immersed in drama and fiction for so long that it kills him because he expected it to.
** But then again, sort of [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that one of the explicit rules of the Discworld is that [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve belief itself is a powerful enough force]] that enough people believing in something can [[RewritingReality make it true]].
** As a matter of fact, using "Headology" (basically ''directed'' [=YMMIR=]) is a large part of being a witch. Granny Weatherwax makes liberal use of it and promotes its use in her pupils over the use of actual magic.
** Susan also uses this trope to its maximum effect, developing her wards' belief in a poker she uses to beat up the monsters that hide under the bed, rather than telling them these monsters don't exist. That is, while she realizes nothing will make them stop believing in monsters, it's much easier to make them believe she's enough of a badass to take them.
*** Well, she ''is'' badass enough to take them.
*** And, to be fair, not only is she badass enough to take them, there's significant in-story evidence that the monsters actually ''are'' real; it is another explicit rule of Discworld that most people's brains deceive them, especially in adults, because they ''know'' whatever they've just seen can't possibly be real. Kids don't have that. That's why the kids can see Death -- and the monsters; and Susan is a special case because, well, her ''grandfather'' is Death himself.
** In Terry Pratchett's ''[[{{Discworld}} Equal Rites]]'', Esk [[TalkingInYourDreams meets the Things from the Dungeon Dimension in her dreams]], and they assure her they can kill her there.
* Averted in Pratchett's ''OnlyYouCanSaveMankind''. There's a reason why Johnny Maxwell was referred to as "The Hero with a Thousand Lives" by the inhabitants of the computer game...
* A variation: In the Ben Elton novel ''This Other Eden'' a character is killed in real life while playing a VR game; inside the game his fellow player sees his dying thoughts.
* In ''Hyperion'', a cyberspace hacker's head explodes when he is exposed to a section of cyberspace inhabited by [=AIs=], which is normally inaccessible to humans. However, it's more a case of being exposed to the computer version of StrangeGeometries than his mind making it real.
** That was a completely real security sistem which caused his implants to boil his brain. When people are Mind Wiped during a network crash, however, that's the trope played straight.
* Subverted in a book of short mysteries ThisTroper read, and the subversion was key to the solution. A man, accused of murdering his (morbidly obese) wife, claims she died in her sleep, and gives a vivid description of how she had repeatedly dreamed she was being pursued by a truck. He then goes on to describe how in this night's dream, the truck caught her, and she suffered a fatal heart attack as a result. [[spoiler:The cop has him arrested -- if she did die in her sleep, how on Earth would ''he'' know what she was dreaming?]]
* Russian cyberpunk literary classic ''Labyrinth of Reflections'' (part of a trilogy, though this troper hasn't read the others) used a massive VR world... based on ''DOOM''. Considering the state of the nigh-post-Soviet information network in 1991, that makes some sense.... The trick was a hypnosis program of sorts known as Deep that put the user in a trancelike state; the relatively limited visuals they were given were filled in by the brain's natural ability to add extra data (akin to limited side effects of sensory deprivation) and an immersive world was created. The trick was a very small, professional group of "Divers" who could bring themselves out of the trance-state at will, and interface with the system as it actually existed.
** Also there has been made a certain virus in the Deep that actually kills the users. And one that traps divers.
* In the third ''Hellgate: London'' novel, a demon used a device which made the target relive his/her past in the dream, which will go horribly wrong and kill them, or make them go crazy.
* One of the central mysteries in the ''{{Otherland}}'' series, by TadWilliams, is why this trope seems to be in effect. BrownNote effects are known to exist, but they require especially high-quality virtual reality interfaces, yet the Otherland network somehow manages to deliver sensations that the users' equipment is literally not capable of generating, not to mention keeping them trapped online even when they ought to be able to simply remove their VR gear.
* In ''The Saint'' short story "The Darker Drink", Templar encounters in the High Sierras a man named "Big Bill" Holbrook who claims to represent the dream avatar of Andrew Faulks of Glendale, California. Holbrook notes that Faulks had started to have an increasingly vivid recurring dream, such that smell and tactile sensation emerged. It appears that the personages in Faulk's dream (such as a woman named Dawn Winter) had started to manifest in the waking world. Templar notices curious phenomenon which seem to support Holbrook's claim: Simon sees his own reflection fine in a small mirror, but Dawn's features are "blurred, run together, an amorphous mass"; when every single character repeats the same cluster of honorific catch phrases when they first meet the Saint; and the phenomenon of time compression that Holbrook identifies as an aspect of dream (a group of thugs searching for Holbrook and Winter say they will travel a long distance to fetch their boss from the town return in less than thirty minutes). Though one of the thugs opens fire on Templar, he has no wounds in the morning. However, when he visits Glendale California to look up Andrew Faulks, Faulks has died after slipping into a coma.
* The main gist of the supposedly nonfiction book, ''TheSecret''.
* One of Dumbledore's famous quotes from ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' seems to address this trope. "Of course it's all inside your head, Harry. But why on earth should that mean it isn't real?"
** English professor John Granger, in his book ''Harry Potter's Bookshelf'', delves into the anagogical meaning of this and concludes that Rowling is paralleling the mythic power of TheBible: Jesus, as ''Logos'' or the Word, causes all existence to be simply by willing it (or carrying out his Father's will). Similarly, the [[MeaningfulName "King's Cross"]] Harry visits is malleable to his will because he is in a plane where existence is predicated on belief. Therefore, what happens in his head IS real because reality is not dependent merely on sensory information or objective, empirical knowledge. And through his experiences, Harry has gained the understanding necessary to act as a spiritual faculty, or [[IncrediblyLamePun "mental"]] as Ron likes to call him. Rather Gnostic in flavor ([[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible and therefore esoteric]]), considering it implies levels and layers beyond the physical world that can only be achieved through reading beyond the surface to truly know the substance of all existence, but awesome nonetheless.
* The Afterlife in both the book and movie versions of ''WhatDreamsMayCome''.
* The theme of the book (and film based on it) ''The Secret''. It claims that a whole line of famous people know the Secret, and the Secret is that if you think positively, good things will happen to you.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* See also the ''[[TheXFiles X-Files]]'' episode "First Person Shooter", written by William Gibson. Played for comedy, like the entire episode.
** Let's not forget the episode "Pusher", where a man has the ability to ''talk people into'' killing themselves in various ways, including dying from a heart attack.
* 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.
* The classic episode of the ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', "Spectre of the Gun", has the landing party trapped in a surreal nightmare that recreates the Shootout at the OK Corral. Spock realizes the whole experience is an illusion that is only as real as their minds accept it to be, but, as [=McCoy=] says, only someone as emotionless as a Vulcan could have the [[HeroicWillpower iron-hard certainty]] required -- even a shadow of doubt would be lethal. Spock [[PsychicPowers mindmelds]] with the others to make them just as sure of the illusion as he is, making them invulnerable to it.
* The ever present holodeck in the ''StarTrek'' universe is a bizarre combination of YourMindMakesItReal, TimTaylorTechnology and SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids. It's a ''[[{{Hologram}} holographic]]'' simulator, with enough power to make the holograms real to the point you could be actually killed by them. Safety protocols are supposed to "throttle back" the simulation so that it can't really hurt you, but these fail so often (or are easily subverted by someone) that you wonder why any sane person would use one. No real compelling reason is ever given ''why'' the technology was designed with a "kill" setting in the first place.
** The holodeck has the ability to make real items, the safety protocols are designed so that the real items don't damage you. The problem is the name holodeck implies something that uses {{Hologram}}, which are just light and can't create objects, while the actual holodeck can create material objects. As seen in one movie where Picard shoots some Borg with real bullets that the holodeck created.
*** Handwaved as the specific application of forcefields in combination with holography. This is fascinating of course as it seems to imply that forcefields can penetrate other forcefields (as the Borg were well known for a form of personal shielding). Another handwave comes when they mention replicator technology. (Replicated food and such is used, safety protocols prevent replicating bullets... oops.)
**** I think the idea was that "holodeck bullets" was a completely new weapon to the Borg, and like every new weapon, it's good for bypassing their protective fields and taking down a couple drones before they fully adapt to it. Whether something is a hologram or replicated seems to depend only on whether or not the characters need to leave the holodeck with an item or not.
***** As mentioned, the holodeck does actually create real objects. Just that safety protocols prevent anything coming of it. Before shooting the Borg, Picard had to disable the safety protocols. It can be gathered then, that the holodeck replicates some things like, say, water and glass, produces a shell which is then strengthened by forcefields, and/or handwaves it (a gun may not normally shoot anything at all but the holodeck mimicks the effects for entertainment).
*** Canonically, the holodeck uses replicator technology to create objects and forcefields combined with holograms to create living things. So that tommy gun was ''real''. As the bullets. Safety protocols simply disintegrate materials before they could do harm to anything from outside the holodeck.
** In one instance ("The Thaw") an alien simulator had working safety protocols, but still turned deadly because a malicious digital entity has discovered it could terrify users into having (real) heart attacks.
*** "The Thaw" is also an exception in that it is established early in the episode that the trick Spock used in "Spectre of the Gun" wouldn't work. Actually ''acknowledging'' and ''explaining'' a difference from the rest of ''StarTrek'' {{Canon}}? How uncharacteristic of ''StarTrekVoyager''.
** The whole holodeck mess is slightly subverted in ''Voyager''. A long-dead traitor had established several fallback "booby traps" on the ship; in one instance it is a holodeck program that turns real. In another instance involves the Hirogen. They live for the hunt, so the endlessly adaptable reality of the Holodeck is just the bee's knees to them. Of course, the hunt is no fun if there is no risk....
* A subversion from ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the episode "Move Along Home", several of the main characters appear to die in an alien game, to the point where other characters are panicked. Just when it appears that the game is over and all of the characters trapped in the game have "died" they appear back on the ship, much to the shock and relief of the other characters. On seeing this shock, the alien says "... Of course [they survived]. It was only a game."
** The holodeck's tendency towards malfunction led to a LampShading in one episode of ''Deep Space Nine'': Worf (who had just joined the cast) laments that he misses the ''Enterprise'', saying "there was nothing we could not do," to which O'Brien cannily replies "Except keep the holodecks working right."
** Another episode features Odo being trapped with Sisko, Dax, and Garak in his memories. Bashir comments that while imaginary injuries don't translate straight to real one, it ''could'' be still deadly.[[spoiler: Naturally in the end nobody of real characters dies in a dream, instead they watch those whom they impersonated die]].
** Also in episode "Our Man Bashir", transporter data of characters mixes with Holodeck data... turning it into a spy show.
* One episode of the original ''TwilightZone'', "Perchance to Dream", [[JustifiedTrope justified this]]: the character at risk of death was suffering from a severe heart condition, bad enough that having a particularly scary nightmare would give him a lethal heart attack. Unfortunately for him, his last few dreams appear specifically designed to ''give'' him said heart attack...
* One episode of the most recent version (2003 series) of the ''TwilightZone,'' aptly titled "Placebo Effect", featured a doctor dealing with a chronic hypochondriac patient. Normally keen on giving him placebos, she's horrified to find he actually IS showing signs of a terrible, previously unheard-of disease. [[spoiler: It turns out that the disease was fictional, and after reading about it in an old sci-fi novel, the hypochondriac somehow "made it real" by believing he suffered from it. Soon, everyone in the hospital has caught the disease and appear to be near death. The doctor manages to cure him, and thus everyone, by telling him that a meteorite crashed which contained an antidote for the "space virus." By believing her, he is cured. However, pessimistic thoughts overwhelm him, and he believes the crashed meteorite will create a new Ice Age and destroy humanity. The final shot shows the nurse motioning the doctor outside, to see the the city besieged by a massive blizzard.]] SoYeah...
* Near-subversion: One episode of ''{{Farscape}}'' had VR "game blobs". Dying inside of the game only returns you to the start of the level -- the real problem was getting out of the game. Chiana does mention, though, that brain damage resulting from the games is not unheard of.
* ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'' episode ''Avatar'': Teal'c gets trapped in a VR simulation that shocks him every time he dies in the game. While the simulation itself can't harm him, the continual shocks force his body to produce extra adrenaline, which eventually ''can'' kill him.
* ''StargateAtlantis'' episode "Doppelganger". [[spoiler:Dr. Heightmeyer dies in her sleep after dreaming that she fell off a balcony onto a pier below.]]
** Of course there were other factors involved in that death....
* ''{{Lois and Clark}}'' had an evil genius who trapped the main characters in a VR system. In the end, the system was shut down while he was still hooked up (and "downloaded in"), resulting in his mind being separated from his body, and the last shot is him screaming [[InsideAComputerSystem inside a computer screen]].
** Another episode had a [[MasterOfIllusion master hypnotist]] (the second master hypnotist, not the first one) whose hypnotic illusions were so real that Jimmy bumped his head on an imaginary desk and got a real life bruise. The hypnotist used this power to cause people to die from illusions.
* Subverted in ''{{Eureka}}''. During an episode of shared dreams, one RedShirt died in reality and in the shared dream at the same time... but it turned out to be coincidencial.
* In ''{{VR5}}'', dying in VR does not literally kill you, but it leaves you brain-dead. (In fact, it's claimed that dying in something as primitive as a ''flight simulator'' will have this effect!)
* ''{{Lexx}}'': "Patches in the Sky". We're told, offhand, that "If you die in a dream, you die for real," as if it's obvious.
* ''Series/{{War of the Worlds}}'': "Totally Real", the loser of the VR game lost his life -- though this turned out to be the entire point of the simulator's design.
* ''FirstWave'', a number of times.
* In the ''DoctorWho'' serial "The Deadly Assassin", the Gallifreyan Matrix works like this, as death in the virtual reality overloads the person's mind. (In "The Trial of a Time Lord", on the other hand, the Doctor and his opponents ''physically'' enter the Matrix. Don't ask.)
* ''{{Supernatural}}'' did this twice. The first was a demon born out of a {{Deadly Prank}} and who kept existing because people believing in him and the second was this dream-trope in a nutshell.
* Season 2 of ''{{Torchwood}}'' had a villain who only existed in the altered memories of the staff. He faded from existence when they used the humorously named drug RetCon to erase their memories of the time he'd been interacting with them (all of two days, though he himself had retconned the staff's memories to include him further back. it only required 2 days erasure to get rid of him, though.).
* Both the TV series and the two novels of ''RedDwarf'' justify the trope with the virtual reality game Better Than Life, which reads the user's subconscious and creates a perfect world where all their desires are realised. In-game effects won't harm you or kill you, it's just [[LotusEaterMachine so convincing that most players don't even realise that they're playing a game]], and stay plugged in until they starve to death.
** Sub/averted in the episode ''Back to Reality'', in which the crew ''think'' they've just been booted out of a game for dying, but have actually survived and are now suffering a hallucination which is designed to make them suicidal. Their hallucinating behaviour maps into real-world actions well enough that they almost kill themselves simultaneously in both worlds before the ship's computer pulls off a literal DeusExMachina. Tasty, tasty tropes!
* An episode of ''{{Charmed}}'' featured a man who could enter dreams, and when women rejected him he killed them there.
* In a recent episode of ''{{Heroes}}'', Matt telepathically enters Angela's mind to free her from her comatose state. [[spoiler: Arthur]] uses HIS telepathy to put an image of Daphne in Matt and Angela's shared mind world thingy. This imaginary Daphne stabs Matt in the stomach. When this happens, the real world Daphne, who's right next to Matt, realizes that Matt has a stab wound right where mind-Daphne stabbed him. However, when Angela (trapped in her own mind) convinces [[spoiler: Arthur]] (who personally entered her mind near the end) to free her and Matt, Matt awakes and the stab wound is gone.
* ''M.A.S.H.''. 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.
** It is called placebo effect.
* ''{{Fringe}}'' had an episode where a man was killed when a drug convinced him that an assassin was slicing his throat causing a slash through his neck to appear in real time.
* In the season three episode of ''{{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 passanger. Who turned out not to have meningitis at all.]]
* 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.]]
* An episode of ''{{Medium}}'' had 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 [[spoiler: {{a zombie apocalypse}}]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/{{Adventures in Odyssey}}'': This seems to apply to all of Whit's virtual reality inventions, the Imagination Station being the most frequently used. At least, if a hacker got a hold of the controls and changed the adventure to put you in the crossfire of cannonballs, the threat was very real, just like threats during the adventure from, say, a ruler who would have you executed for refusing to bow to false gods.
* The ''DoctorWho'' BigFinish 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".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The RPG ''{{Shadowrun}}'' uses the "lethal biofeedback" version in its cyberspace; however, a hacker can avoid the feedback by using what's referred to as a Cold ASIST interface (as opposed to the Hot ASIST interface that most deckers use). However, not only does Cold ASIST [[{{Nerf}} forego all the massive bonuses to your die rolls]] that Hot ASIST grants, (which is why hackers use Hot ASIST, despite Cold ASIST being the default user mode for all legitimate users of neural interface technology), but all the other deckers will [[EasyModeMockery mock you viciously]] before they [[CurbStompBattle Curb Stomp]] your {{Nerf}}ed tookus. One of the major events of the metaplot had the Matrix crashing, which resulted in people either dying or suffering irreparable brain damage when their cyberpersonas were cut off from their bodies.
** Considering the fact that deckers directly connect their brains to the Matrix, this is at least somewhat more acceptable than other reasons.
* ''[[DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has several illusion spells (most notably of the Shadow sub-school) that function this way, e.g. ''[[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowConjuration.htm Shadow Conjuration]]'' and ''[[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shades.htm Shades]]''. These spells create illusory constructs or facsimiles of spells from other schools, and have reduced effects on characters that successfully "disbelieve" them. Naturally, they always have this reduced effect on objects and creatures with low intelligence, such as constructs.
** Arguably, some Phantasm spells like Weird could also fall under this trope.
** Let's not forget the whole ''Planescape-- campaign setting which uses this trope as its very basis.
** The Nightmare Lands domain and boxed set for ''{{Ravenloft}}'' has creepy fun with this, too.
** One of the first ''{{Dragonlance}}'' game modules had the player characters travel into a living nightmare to end its hold over an elven kingdom. Many of the monsters the players encounter are in fact creations of the dream, and can be made harmless if players state they don't believe in them. Unfortunately, quite a few of those monsters are very real, and will attack the players anyway, and it's very difficult to tell the difference.
* Mostly averted in ''[=~Mage: The Awakening~=]'' with the [[DreamWorld Astral Realms]]. 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 ones'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 incomprensible 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. It's not entirely averted, since there are beings capable of inflicting actual damage from the Astral Realms (though this could be more to do with magically being able to target their body directly, rather than because [[YourMindMakesItReal Their Mind Makes It Real]]).
* For its predecessor, ''[[WorldOfDarkness Mage: The Ascension]]'', this was the very basis of the game. Reality was defined by a popular consensus. Mages were just people who realized this and as a result could do crazy 'magic'... [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome like build spaceships and have kung fu that breaks your mind.]]
* Subverted by two small-press RPGs, ''Shattered Dreams'' and ''Dreamwalker'': while dreaming in either game can kill you -- and probably will, in the former -- the danger comes from actual predatory creatures infesting the dreamworld, not from your own mind.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* A side quest in ''{{Oblivion}}'' deals with this concept.
* The game[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldr_Force_Exe BALDR Force .exe]] is based around this concept.
* Inverted in ''{{Psychonauts}}''. You don't have lives, you have "astral layers", and if you run out of them, you're kicked out whatever mind you occupied back into the real world and need to restart the level. Great idea, except that it works the same in the real world, so now ''that'' [[VoodooShark doesn't make sense]] (EpilepticTrees say Ford Cruller did it).
* 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.
* Arguably used in the ''SilentHill'' series. How much of the games is real and how much is illusion is hotly debated. It's implied that the twisted, blood-and-rust-soaked [[DarkWorld Otherworld]], at least, is a kind of hallucination, especially in the first game, where it's stated that several police officers who went to investigate the titular burg mysteriously died of heart attacks. Most likely they wandered into the Otherworld and fell victim to this trope. What people are actually doing while trapped in the nightmare, however, is [[MindScrew another matter entirely...]]
* In ''Fatal Frame/Project ZERO 3'', "The Tormented": Rei, Miku and Kei travel into the House of Sleep when they dream. If they lose all their spiritual health in the dream-world, they are confined there forever; leaving nothing in the physical world but a bunch of scorch-marks.
* Central to the gameplay in the Source Mod ''Dystopia'', where players work with each other between Meatspace (the solid world) and Headspace (Cyberspace). Headspace obstacles such as encryptions, passwords, or [=ICEs=] are ''physical'' to the player's avatar, and entire fights wage on in Headspace. If one ''dies'' in Headspace, they are yanked back to their physical bodies with [[InterfaceScrew disorientation]] and bodily damage (HP loss). It is also possible to sneak behind a jacked-in player in Meatspace and kill them. The player's avatar is told that their Meatsack (body) is taking damage, and death simply deletes the Headspace avatar in the middle of whatever it was it was doing.
* Mostly averted in ''{{Fallout}} 3''. The "Tranquility Lane" quest takes place in a virtual simulation where a MadScientist [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] the other inhabitants of the simulation, frequently killing and resurrecting them without serious harm to their bodies... aside from the crippling physical atrophy acquired after [[strike:decades]] ''centuries'' in virtual reality. However, the player can [[spoiler: turn off the "fail safes", allowing the scientist's victims to die for real and thus be put out of their misery.]]
** Played straight as an arrow in the recently released DLC, Operation: Anchorage. If the Lone Wanderer dies in the Anchorage simulation, his body goes into fatal cardiac arrest in the real world. This probably has something to do with the pod simulating pain as though it was real, but that's {{FanWank}}. This is partially justified, as the game specifically states that the "safeties" are off, which led this troper to believe that if the facility was fully staffed and operational (as it was 200 years prior to the game), there would be some means of preventing death.
* In the PC adventure game ''{{Ripper}}'', the killer known as the "Ripper" has the ability to kill anybody who once played the online game ''Ripper'' (the "Ripper" is one of the original players, the protagonist has to figure out which one of the surviving players it is). The Ripper's ability takes the form of a "software rewrite" of the victim's "brain software": the hormonal and electrical layers of the human brain. When triggered (through use of a BrownNote telephone call), the fluid and air pressure within the victim increases rapidly causing them to violently explode. The protagonist has to have his own "software" modified with an immunisation so that the Ripper can't use the "long range doohicky" any longer. (He is still vulnerable if the Ripper chooses to attack him "face to face" in the virtual world.)
** Later, the Ripper calls all of the surviving characters into the virtual world, and demands the protagonist choose who they think it is. The protagonist at this point has armed himself with a single-use "virtual weapon" in the form of a pulsing orb of energy. Each of the characters make their case to the player, and the player must use the virtual weapon on the character they think is the Ripper, presumably killing them, as the ending narration is spoken in the past tense. Choose badly and not only have you killed an innocent person, the Ripper attacks the protagonist directly and kills him as well.
* In ''Iji'', you can "crack" computers and even enemies with your nanofield, but if you fail the crack you are booted out by your target's security system with negative effects depending on the difficulty of the crack. Especially odd since it's not virtual reality. I assume the computer interface is just that realistic.
** {{This Troper}} assumed it was a physical countermeasure, since if you could be killed by hacking, you would want some sort of protection.
* Weirdly played with in ''SystemShock'': being kicked out of cyberspace doesn't cause much injury, but does max out fatigue (physical exertion).
* ''MaxPayne'' and its sequel have "dream sequences" which can kill you. Inverted somewhat in that they're caused by various {{NoOneCouldSurviveThat}} poisonings and injuries, so ''surviving'' them is the YourMindMakesItReal.
* ''{{Shadow the Hedgehog}}'' has two levels that take place in Shadow's memories, trying to help people aboard the space colony ARK, which went out of commission fifty years ago.
* In ''[[{{Tsukihime}} Kagetsu Tohya]]'', Shiki faces two opponents. The first is his personal nightmare of his Nanaya side, a psychotic killer who is also much stronger than him. So he can't beat it because he believes Nanaya is simply better at fighting than he is. [[spoiler:Then his image of death drops a bridge on Nanaya and is even stronger... until it fails at killing Shiki too long and he therefore decides subconsciously that his image of death would never be so weak as to fail like this and stops being invincible, so he kills it.]] Quite justified in that the entire story is a [[{{OrIsIt}} dream of sorts]] that doesn't necessarily follow the {{Nasuverse}} laws of physics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* A subversion: In a ''{{Metroid}}''-based webcomic called ''Metroid: Third Derivative'', Samus is "uploaded" to the Space Pirates' main computer, and put into a training simulation by a mostly-friendly pirate. Samus asks the Pirate, "And I suppose if I die here I die in the real world too?" The Pirate answers, "What? No. That's stupid and completely defeats the point of virtual training." To which she replies, "Chalk up a rare victory for common sense then."
** Double Subverted when [[spoiler: Mother Brain hijacks the simulation. While she can't physically hurt Samus, she can subject her to horrible MindRape. When that didn't work, she tried to shut down the simulation with Samus still in it, which would have left her brain dead.]]
* A webcomics example from ''[[http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF134-Game_System.gif Perry Bible Fellowship]]''
* Parodied on ''{{xkcd}}'' (of course): [[http://xkcd.com/180/ If you die in Canada, you die in real life!]]
** The absolutely crazy thing is... that's 100% true.
* ''IrregularWebcomic'' does it too. [[spoiler: It's the cause of death for one of the characters in the sci-fi theme]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Obligatory ''WhateleyUniverse'' example: this is the core of the trap laid for Fey and Chaka in "It's All in the Timing", mixed with a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
** But [[AvertedTrope averted]] that one time (''Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy'') in the holographic simulators, which only injure them because someone has tampered with the system: it's the system and the simulator suits that are injuring them.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* First and foremost: every older cartoon (MerryMelodies, LooneyTunes, etc.) in which a character runs off a cliff and defies gravity... until they notice they no longer have anything to walk on.
* ''TheFairlyOddparents'', "Power Mad", also hinges on a similar plotline, though this is because the main character has [[LiteralGenie wished himself]] [[TrappedInTVLand fully into the game]].
* ''KimPossible'' has an ep involving a VR system, where its malfunction resulted in extreme aggression if the players were removed without winning the game.
* Subverted in ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', "Perchance to Dream", as Bruce escapes from the Mad Hatter's dream world by deliberately leaping to his "death" from a tower, causing himself to wake up in the real world. However, in the exact same series, The Riddler hooked Commissioner Gordon up to a virtual reality computer program that could do such a realistic ''simulation'' of high-G loads, that Gordon's physical body would think it really ''was'' happening and suffer cardiac arrest. In the same episode, Riddler himself gets his brain fried when the computer crashes while he's still hooked to it.
** In fairness, Batman had an unfair advantage; the Mad Hatter's dream world was so perfect Bruce knew it for a dream, and one too painful to continue living in. The Riddler was HoistByHisOwnPetard, since the Batman villains [[GenreBlind never expect]] their own devices and plots to backfire on them.
** Also, the Riddler's device was ''designed'' as an assassination tool. Mad Hatter, at least the animated version, is much less quick to kill.
* ''CodeLyoko'' is an exception, sometimes; when Ulrich, Yumi, or Odd lose all their lifepoints, they are merely rematerialized into the real world. If this happens, they simply return to the material world too weak to stand up. Also, thre's a twelve-hour cooldown between respawns. However, this return only works when the scanners that allow access to Lyoko are functional. Also, Aelita, who was tied to the computer for the first two seasons, would have been lost forever if she ran out of lifepoints. Unsurprisingly, she was never actually devirtualized until the tie was broken, but plenty of times after that. Also, it appears that no matter who you are, falling into any of the {{Bottomless Pits}} surrounding the areas appears to prevent you from ever coming back. On several occasions, someone attacks their own ally to prevent this from happening.
* Used in the climax of a ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' arc in which the four are trapped in a memory virtual reality program. Complete with a ShoutOut delivered by Michelangelo to ''TheMatrix''.
* Parodied and possibly subverted in the ''{{Futurama}}'' episode "Parasites Lost." When most of the Planet Express crew take a FantasticVoyage through Fry's body, it isn't the actual chacters who go on the trip. The ship really did get hit with the shrink ray, but the people inside it are actually [[{{Nanomachines}} nanobots]] remotely controlled by the crew interacting with a VR simulation of Fry's innards. Toward the end of the episode, Leela chops the other characters to bits with an axe while they're all still in tiny robot mode. Immediately afterwards, we see the actual characters taking off their virtual reality equipment back at the office. When someone asks if everyone is okay, they cheerfully agree that they are.
** Foreshadowed in a previous episode; the internet is fully VR and dying in the 'video game' section just causes extreme annoyance.
* ''{{ReBoot}}'': "Game Cubes" (no relation to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube that other game cube]]) randomly come down onto Mainframe and start up a game; if a Mainframe character dies in a game, they're dead. On the other hand, considering that everyone in Mainframe is a "program" in the first place, and ReBoot plays fast and loose with how much of a metaphor the whole thing is, this may make perfect sense. Or not. Why would anybody play games on a computer that annihilates the programs? Who the hell programmed that thing?
** Someone created an operating system using Doom as a template. Processes were turned into monsters and killing them using a kill command was turned in shooting them with your shotgun. Perhaps being killed in a ReBoot game wasn't death so much as well... killing and rebooting that program so that it used up a different part of memory.
* In ''TeenTitans'', Robin is [[spoiler:exposed to a hallucinogen that causes him to see and fight Slade]], and received real injuries as a result. Whether or not those injuries were an example of this, or merely him beating himself up while hallucinating, is not entirely explained.
** Also, in an earlier episode, Raven causes monsters to spawn in Titans Tower because she's trying to bottle up the fear brought by a recently watched horror movie
* ''TransformersAnimated'', "Human Error Part 2": The Autobots [[spoiler:realizing that they're in a computer simulation set up by Soundwave, manage to change their human bodies back to their Cybertronian ones by thinking about it. Amusingly, Bulkhead can't until he makes the transforming noise with his mouth.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Some Buddhist monks are said to have been capable of willing themselves to death.
** Probably true, but not quite falling under this trope. Some people have demonstrated ability to consciously slow down their heartbeat to a crawl. The logical conclusion is to consciously stop your heart from beating, which is what these monks typically aim to do.
*** You can also consciously stop breathing. The problem is you can't consciously do anything once you're unconscious.
* Certain Indigenous Australian tribes have a death curse for criminals that involves wrapping a piece of the cursed person's hair around a kangaroo bone and performing rituals over it. A special shaman hunter then finds the person and points the bone at them. Whether this is actual magic or just a deep cultural conviction is debated, but Indigenous people subjected to this curse usually keel over and die in a matter of days, for no apparent reason.
** Similar claims have been made of some believers of Vodoun in Haiti and Africa. Christianity has affected some people strongly enough to cause psychosomatic stigmata to form on their palms, as well (the real wounds of cruxifiction would be on the wrists, by the way).
* And the Placebo and Nocebo effects in general both give this trope a very strong real life basis. A famous case involved a man given experimental medicine to get rid of cancerous tumors, which worked well, until he read an article which said that the medicine was supposed to not work, which caused him to relapse. His GenreSavvy doctor, realizing what was going on, told him he was being given a special brand of the medicine, which caused his tumors to go away again... until he read another article saying that the entire line of medication was absolutely useless, upon which he had a fatal relapse. And there are dozens upon dozens of cases of people curing themselves of diseases, that doctors claimed were surely going to kill them, by sheer force of will and optimism.
** To be honest, the Placebo effect's effectiveness has been documented alot, and it is more powerful than most people give it credit for. So much that most experiments nowadays are expected to put controls and protocols in place to account for the placebo effect.
* Hypnotic suggestions work this way. It is possible for somebody in a deep hypnotic trance to feel things that are not present, which leads to some real-life PowerPerversionPotential.
* ThisTroper read the story of a man who was accidentally locked in a freezer of a merchandise boat for the whole length of the trip. He died of cold, but took the time to describe what was happening to him the whole time in the hope that it would help science or something. He accurately described the whole freezing to death process he was going through. The catch? [[spoiler: the freezer was actually off and the temperature in there never even reached the freezing point. His mind did it all.]]
** [[spoiler: One needs note be at or below freezing to "freeze" to death. Dropping the core body temperature can be pretty hazardous to one's health as the body attempts to maintain it.]] Fortunately for the sake of his mental health during the ordeal, he likely didn't realize that the Nazis actually really did freeze people to death in order to study the effects of the cold on the human body.
* This view seems to be a more and more popular view of religion today: that God does not exist until we make Him exist by faith, which brings about the question of why would anyone worship something that only exists if it is believed to. Or at least consider it greater than themselves when they made it.
** Well, once we believe Him into existence, He can do everything else imaginable. Seems like a sweet deal to me.
** Unfortunately this doesn't take into an account the logical conclusion: if we are capable of willing an omnipotent being into existence, why not cut out the middle man? Becoming a God is far sweeter still than just making one.
*** Sweeter? Having to make sure that existence doesn't go out of whack and that evil doesn't take over for the beings you made that you love more than they could possibly love anything? If the universe was run by a single human, he/she would probably go insane. Good luck just keeping physics in order, much less anything else.
* There's an old Urban Legend that if you have a dream in which you are falling, you must wake up before you hit the ground or else you die. Obviously doesn't hold water because anyone who did hit the ground wouldn't be able to relate the experience.
** This troper died in dreams more than once and is there to tell the tale. Although it was not by falling.
** This Troper often feels pain in his dreams. Once he dreamed he got his hand sawed off, and actually woke up because of pain. It works in the opposite way when he has those "other" dreams, IfYouKnowWhatIMean.
*** Based on some current theories about how dreams work, having a dream about a violent injury and waking up with pain may not actually be a case of your mind making it real, as much as reality telling your mind what to make. In such a case, you may have rolled over on your arm and hurt it, or simply twisted it wrong, and the pain generated by that action is translated by your brain into the dream image of the injury. People who have dreams of fire alarms going off only to wake up and realize their clock is ringing are experiencing the same phenomenon.
[[/folder]]

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