The Goosebumps book where sleeping in the wrong bed has consequences.
Matt Amsterdam hates his life. His older brother and sister constantly bully him, his mom isn't there for him due to having two jobs, and his room's the size of a closet. He'd love to sleep in the guest bedroom instead, but his parents won't let him. One night though, he does. And the next morning, he awakens in a different reality. And then another. And another. Now, Matt's desperate to get back to his original life, and to escape the strange people who've started following him in each of these new worlds, trying to stop him from altering reality.
It was adapted into the fourth episode of the third season of the 1995 TV series.
The book provides examples of:
- Animorphism: The story deals with it in passing; one of the worlds Matt wakes up in has him as a squirrel.
- Big Brother Bully: Greg and Pam to Matt. Inverted in one alternate reality when they switch from older to younger and become Annoying Younger Siblings, while Matt is Greg's original age. He even describes them as "little kids", despite them being around the same age he was in real life.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: At the end of the book, Matt's mother is home to tell him that today is his birthday, and as a gift to him, she turns his old bedroom into a storage closet and the guest bedroom (the one that warps reality of someone who sleeps in it) his new bedroom. Matt is horrified by this revelation.
- Bowdlerise: The ebook changes the scene where Matt wakes up as a fat kid, omitting a line about him being "a real blimp".
- It also changes a line where Matt dismisses a book as "girl's stuff", instead having him say it's simply not interesting.
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Broken Aesop: Appreciate what you have, yet this moral falls apart, because what Matt had made him miserable (a small bedroom, older siblings who pick on him for fun, the family dog who hates only his guts). Really, Matt had NOTHING to appreciate in his regular life. - Butt-Monkey: Matt, who is always being bullied by his older siblings and mom is not around enough to deal with it. It gets worse when the adventure starts, as every reality is unhappy in some way.
- Captain Obvious: Matt, while in monster form, starts eating the inside of a car. When an angry mob comes near, someone in the crowd announces that it's eating a car.Matt: (Thinking) Well, duh. What do you expect a monster to eat? Rice Krispies?
- Cassette Craze: On the day that Matt decides to sleep in the guest bedroom, Greg is doing recordings on a tape recorder as part of a project for school to document his home life. This gets on his mother's nerves when he does this during dinner.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover shows the hand of a monster emerging from under the bed about to reach a sleeping boy, implying that the story is about a monster that lurks under the main character's bed and will attack/kill him if he falls asleep. Again, no such monster appears, and the story is about the main character waking up in different versions of reality whenever he goes to sleep.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Matt admits in his narration that his plan to return to his normal reality by sleeping in his own bedroom was stupid, but it was worth a try.
- Cuckoo Finger Twirl: After returning to his normal reality, Matt is happy with having breakfast with his normal siblings, and he even ignores when Greg shoots a paper wad at him. Pam reacts to this new behavior of his by doing this trope, which Matt recognizes as "the international sign for 'He's nuts.'"
- Failed a Spot Check: While as a squirrel in one reality, Matt comes to his house and is kept as a pet by Pam. She takes him to a cage in her bedroom, and leaves the room with the door wide open. Matt is too busy feasting on nuts to notice it until a few minutes go by.
- Foreshadowing:
- In one reality, Matt's fake father says "What did you think- we were going to the circus?". The very next reality Matt wakes up in has him in a circus family.
- Also, when Greg makes an excuse to his mother about making dinner, he claims that he has homework. Matt protests that he has homework as well, but Greg counters that high school homework is harder than middle school homework, which Matt disagrees with. However, the next day he actually wakes up as a high schooler, and learns that Greg was actually right as he experiences high school homework himself and finds it more tough.
- "Getting My Own Room" Plot: Matt wanted a new room since the one he lived in is small and crowded. He used the guest bedroom as his new room, unaware that if he sleeps in it he'll alter his reality.
- The TV episode features Matt using the attic as his new bedroom. Although the attic never altered Matt's reality when he sleeps in it. He mentions that he hates reality and gets in trouble with the Reality Police for it.
- Hope Spot: The morning after his first new reality as a high schooler, Matt wakes and sees in the mirror that he is back as a preteen, much to his joy. But when he comes downstairs expecting to see his family, he finds none of his siblings nor his mother, but two strangers as his guardians.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Matt's mother. When Matt complains about his siblings to her during dinner, she claims that he has a wonderful brother and sister, despite how obnoxious they are. When Matt continues complaining, she orders him to go upstairs to his room.
- Identical Stranger: After his adventures with the reality warping, Matt goes to school and sees what he thinks is Lacie. He is freaked out, thinking that he has to deal with her and the Reality Police once again. But it turns out that she's a student who looks a lot like her. This relieves Matt.
- Last-Name Basis: While in high school in his first strange reality, one of Matt's teachers refers to her students by their last names. Matt finds this odd, as his teacher in his normal reality doesn't do that with her students. When the new teacher congratulates a student this way for a good grade, Matt tries to praise her this way as well. The girl looks offended by this, presumably believing that the teacher is only allowed to call her by her last name.
- Matter of Life and Death: Matt says this to his mother when trying to get in the house as a fat boy. She does not take him seriously.
- Never Say "Die": When the Reality Police finally get a hold of Matt, they inform him that in order to keep reality stable, they need to put him to sleep forever, much to his horror. And when he overhears them in a nearby room, they are discussing about giving him a sleeping potion, sounding akin to an execution method, and he is further freaked out.
- Never Sleep Again: Matt is shunted to a different alternate universe whenever he falls asleep after using the guest bedroom.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When he finally returns to his normal reality, Matt becomes much happier, and he goes downstairs to hug his siblings and ignore their pranks. This leaves them stunned and confused.
- Shout-Out: Two members of the reality police are named Bruce and Wayne.
- Struggling Single Mother: Matt's mom has to work two jobs after the passing of his father. As a result, she doesn't have much time to look after him, and leaves him in the hands of his abusive older siblings.
- Stumbling in the New Form: Matt has quite a bit of trouble handling his first body, a teenaged version of himself, ranging from tripping down the stairs to bonking heads with Lacie.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When he is informed that he has to be put to sleep forever, Matt tries to beat the Reality Police up. But as he lampshades later on, even though he was in the body of a muscular boy, he is still wimpy in skill, and they easily defeat him.
- The Men in Black: The Reality Police is a group that keeps reality in check whenever someone messes with it. We don't know what they usually do to people who mess with reality, but in the case of Matt they try to put him to sleep forever.
- This Cannot Be!: When waking up one reality-warping morning, Matt is shocked to find out that he transformed into an old man. He immediately goes back to sleep in the guest bedroom to avoid going through a whole day this way.
- Teens Are Monsters: Greg and Pam, who treat their little brother Matt poorly for no good reason.
- Trauma Button Ending: Played for Horror when Matt's mom turns the guest bedroom into his new room for his birthday. He begins to panic at the news he was giving since the room can warp reality if he sleeps in it.
- Weight Woe: In one of the alternate universes that Matt wakes up in, he's morbidly obese. He's apparently so fat his mother doesn't recognize him and refuses to let him in the house.
- Would Rather Suffer: While reading a comic book, Matt thinks to himself that he would rather be living on Pluto with acid-slurping ants than in his own house.
