Lotus Eater Machines in Western Animation.
- American Dad!:
- "The Vacation Goo" has the family discover that all of their summer vacations are the result of Stan sticking them in a set of CIA-made Lotus Eater Machines so he can have some "me time". Steve and Hayley decide to do the same, which upsets Francine since she thinks the family can't stand each other; at this point Stan and the kids resolve to give her a real vacation with an ocean cruise. Unfortunately, the cruise is a little too idyllic and Francine assumes they're still in the goo, which results in her personally wrecking everything. After the whole thing turns nightmarish (as in, they were forced to engage in cannibalism to survive), the Smiths unanimously agree "Let Us Never Speak of This Again", and the episode ends with a shot of all four of them in the goo, big smiles on their faces.
- In "Rapture's Delight", just before the Biblical Revelation takes place, Stan and Francine have sex in the church, resulting in Stan not ascending to Heaven. After Stan mistreats her, Francine dumps him for Jesus. After a Time Skip, Earth has become a hellhole with demonic armies fighting the forces of good. In the end, Stan sacrifices himself to save both Francine and the world. This act gets Stan into Heaven, where he's given his greatest wish: being back on Earth with his family as if none of these events had ever happened. Naturally, fan theories abound claiming that every subsequent episode is just Stan "dreaming" in his own personal Heaven.
- Amphibia: In the penultimate episode "All In", Marcy is placed into a never-ending fantasy adventure illusion created by the Core while it's possessing her body. In it, Marcy lives out her desire of not being separated from Anne and Sasha, and is almost taken in by the dream until the illusionary Anne and Sasha mindlessly say they'll agree to do whatever Marcy wants. Upon hearing those words, Marcy realizes what she's experiencing isn't real, and comes to terms with how wrong her actions were before turning against the Core.
- In one episode of The Batman, Poison Ivy traps Batman and Batgirl (along with a lot of other people) in a plant version of one of these, where the victims picture an idyllic lounge in a park as they are slowly digested by the plants they're contained in. In this case, Batman doesn't figure it out or fight it off. Instead, biometric readings in his suit detect his decreased level of brain activity and apply an electric shock to snap him out of it.
- Ben 10:
- The Ben 10 fourth season premiere "Perfect Day": Enoch uses a machine to force the titular character to have a perfect day in his mind while he is being robbed of his Imported Alien Phlebotinum. He is able to escape as he realizes that he is able to control what happens. The episode ends with Enoch trapped in the machine and The Reveal that he is not the true leader of the Forever Knights, and that his boss decides to leave him in the machine as he has failed him for the last time (Cue the Ben 10 Vs. the Negative 10 2-parter).
- There's also the Cassiopean Dream Eater from the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Night of the Living Nightmare", which is a subversion, in which Ben is attacked by Albedo, who latches one such creature onto his face, which starts giving nightmares of his worst enemies attacking him in an empty Bellwood, and Kevin and Gwen demanding the Ultimatrix by force. As it turns out, it's Albedo who's having the nightmare, because he slipped on a smoothie spilt by Ben and let the Dream Eater fall on his own face instead — hence why, in the nightmare, Ben manages to turn the tables on him without resorting to any of the Ultimatrix aliens.
- Ben 10: Omniverse gives us the Hypnotick, a giant flying bug who's wings can ensnare prey into their personal dreams. Also doubles as a Fantastic Drug, as according to Grandpa Max, people in-universe capture the Hypnotick for its hypnotic qualities for a high. When Ben becomes ensnared, he finds himself on stage surrounded by adoring fans. He is able to pull himself out by reminding himself that fame isn't what a hero's about.
- Bounty Hamster. In "Wish You Were Here", Cassie is apparently reunited with her father, and Marion with his parents, but it's only an illusion caused by a being that wants them to stay and keep it company. It isn't happy when Cassie decides to leave, but fortunately a bunch of lotus eaters show up."Is this the place where you can have anything you want?"
[delighted] "Shallow people!" - In one episode of Captain N: The Game Master, the N Team comes across a carnival-themed LEM which makes physical replications of things they like — for Kevin, an endless video game arcade, for Lana, a clothing shop, for Dr. Light, a lab, etc. While these things aren't dangerous in and of themselves, they distract the heroes from their main quest, but with the help of roll, Megaman breaks out of the spell, beats the Carnival's ringmaster, and forces the rest of the N Team out of there.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Chester makes Numbuh One think he's on an island inhabited only by kids and only discovers there's A Glitch in the Matrix during a pool party. Chester planned to put his Happy Headband into mass production and sell it to parents to keep their kids quiet and happy in their dreamlands. In the end, the machine is put on the villain, and, in a rarity for this trope, this villain is left aware of this and miserable. It's later revealed that the KND scientists kept the device to use for a Secret Test of Character.
- In Danny Phantom, this is Nocturne — the Dream Ghost's — specialty, as he has devices that give the dreamers their happy paradise. The beginning portion of the episode is designed with this in mind for Danny, though he quickly snaps out of it after giving himself a Catapult Nightmare.
- Dave the Barbarian: Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy tempts the good guys with literal rose-colored glasses — whoever wears them will see (and somehow, hear) a perfect world. He is quickly defeated by someone putting the glasses on him, causing him to go catatonic and laugh endlessly as he thinks he has finally attained ultimate power and wiped out his quirky enemies.
- DC Animated Universe:
- Batman: The Animated Series: In "Perchance to Dream", the Mad Hatter traps Batman in an idealized world. Bruce even realizes that the illusion is not real from the word "go", but eventually decides to accept it anyway. Then he realizes that it really can't be real when nothing he reads makes any sense and breaks himself out of it.
- Justice League: "For the Man Who Has Everything" adapts the Black Mercy story from the comics (reportedly, this is the only adaptation of any his works that Alan Moore has liked), with a few differences. Superman's homeworld Krypton never decays to the degree it does in the comics, and Batman is freed so quickly that he gets to see his dad beat up Joe Chill... only for the latter to get off a shot anyway just as the plant lets go.
- Batman Beyond:
- In "Hooked Up", Spellbinder operates an illegal virtual reality parlor where the machines can read the users' greatest desires, which he peddles to unhappy teens who steal from their parents or passers-by in order to afford their sessions, even as the machines gradually affect their brains and send them into comas.
- In "Eyewitness", Spellbinder incapacitates Mad Stan by hooking him up to a similar machine that fulfills his greatest dream: blowing up City Hall.
- DuckTales (2017): In the episode "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!", Lena, Webby, and the boys are having a sleepover... and wake up on a tropical island. Turns out Lena's magic is being a bit wiggy. The kids have fun showing each other their dreams... until Magica shows up.
- In one episode of Dragon Hunters, Gwizdo breathes in spores from a dragon and falls into a coma; in his dream, he becomes a hero, Jennyline is a stunning red-haired beauty he falls in love with. This is the dragon's usual hunt MO, as the unsuspecting victim sleepwalks to its lair. Which means for Gwizdo that he abruptly goes from a lovely, romantic island with the woman of his dreams (his fantasy) to an ugly, grim landscape with a dragon about to eat him. Whoops.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In the TV movie Wishology, the Darkness puts Timmy in one of these until his friends come and save him. It is an interesting case because it is quite likely that the Darkness did this because it wanted to make Timmy happy — not because it wanted to trap him.
- In the Family Guy season 6 finale "Stewie Kills Lois/Lois Kills Stewie", Stewie kills Lois (who then comes back) and becomes president of the United States... then, when Lois is on the ropes and all hope is lost, Peter kills him in a Big Damn Heroes moment, and it's revealed to have been a simulation the whole time.
- Fantastic Voyage: In "The Magic Crystal of Kabala", when the protagonists enter the title magic item they are each exposed to a fantasy that fulfills their heart's desire in an attempt to entrap them.
- Final Space:
- In "Chapter 3", the Lazarus trap's final trick is to try and lure Gary and Avocato into the lava with images of Quinn and Little Cato respectively. Gary almost falls for it, but Avocato snaps him out of it just in time.
- In "The Happy Place", all victims of said Happy Place are put in a machine where they get to live out their ultimate fantasy while the machine drains them of their life as fuel for the ship. They die when their happiness runs out.
- Gargoyles:
- A nightmare version is portrayed in "Future Tense" when Avalon finally releases Goliath, Elisa, Bronx, and Angela from their quest and return them to New York, only to find that time had passed differently for them than it had for everybody else and it was now 40 years in the future and Xanatos had become a Shadow Dictator, enslaving the city. It gets worse, just about every plan fails, nearly all the characters die, the world is basically falling down around him, only to find out that the whole thing was an elaborate hallucination created by Puck in order for Goliath to hand him the Phoenix Gate.
- In "For it May Come True" (from the out-of-continuity third season), Goliath wakes up to find that he's human, married to Elisa and has children. Naturally, his fantasy gets worse when he discovers that Xanatos is still a villain, the Quarrymen are still around, and Eliza has joined up with them to kill the rest of the gargoyles.
- In God's Gang this is Sumuslim's superpower, he's such an expert story teller he can distract people by telling stories so interesting they literally see and hear them.
- In Gravity Falls, Mabel begins to fear growing up, especially when it seems like Dipper plans to stay in Gravity Falls when she goes back to California. After accidentally making a Deal with the Devil in exchange for more summer, Bill Cipher puts her in a giant bubble containing "Mabeland," a seemingly wonderful Sugar Bowl where all of Mabel's most ridiculous dreams are real. Unlike most examples, Mabel actually knows this place is fake and wields lucid-dream-like control over it, but it still takes Dipper a very long time to convince her that reality is better than fantasy (not to mention the temptations that present themselves to him, Soos and Wendy when they come in to rescue her).
- In the Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. episode "It's a Wonderful Smash", the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. are put in a Lotus Eater Machine by the Collector, in which they are acclaimed as heroes and have a skyscraper headquarters in New York (taller than Avengers Tower). The Guardians of the Galaxy are also in the machine, where they have successfully brought peace to the galaxy. Rocket Raccoon escapes and rescues the others, because the Collector's idea of his perfect world was based on the assumption that he was actually a raccoon.
- In the Invader Zim episode "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom", Zim traps Dib in a Lotus-Eater Machine just to find out if it was he who threw a muffin at him. After extracting the information, Zim releases his nemesis in a fit of Genre Blindness, instead of finishing him. But not before hitting him with a counter muffin from a cannon.
- The Fantasy Planet in The Jetsons: where you get to live out your fantasies... until your fantasies start unraveling in hilarious ways.
- Kaeloo: One episode has Kaeloo play with a virtual reality game where she can't transform as long as she plays. Having wanted to get rid of this power for a very long time, Kaeloo is finally happy and refuses to stop playing the game. Her friends have to rescue her from the game because it slowly starts to drive her insane. In a variant of the trope, she is fully aware of what it is, she just doesn't want to leave because she now has what she wanted the most.
- In season 3 of Kid Cosmic, The cast is sent to an alternate reality by Fantos that turns out to be Kid's ideal fantasy world. The events play out exactly like his favorite comics, and he gets everything he wants. Papa G knows that none of this is real, but he doesn't tell Kid to spare his feelings.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: In "Mulholland", Tad Mulholland sends his component tardigrades into the gang's brains to knock them out and provide visions of their deepest fantasies in order to feed on their mental energy. Wolf gets a fantasy where she and Kipo are extremely buff Mega-Bunny hunters, Benson and Dave get a poolside mansion where they host dance-offs, Mandu gets an endless supply of cheese puffs, and Kipo reunites with her dead mother, who is also half-Mute. Once one finds out that it's not real, escaping it is as simple as dismissing it as such.
- Magic Adventures of Mumfie: In the movie Mumfie's Quest, the titular character lands in a beautiful meadow after jumping from the Queen of Night's umbrella and talks with one of the pirates. However, this is really a trick by the Black Cat, who actually wants to take him to the Secretary of Night so that he could lock him up in the Secretary of Night's holding cell.
- My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "Somnambula", the titular witch traps her victims using an illusory circus that tailors its attractions to each pony sent there, presenting them with attractions based on their specific interests and which they can't resist partaking and losing track of time in — and, more importantly, where they become engrossed that they don't notice her stealing their life and youth away.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Crystal Empire, Part 2", Twilight encounters a door enchanted by King Sombra which causes whoever enters it to see their worst fears; in reality, the victims are just staring at a wall.
- The Owl House: In "Witches Before Wizards", Adeghast uses his magic to send Luz into one where she can properly become a witch. She appears to almost buy it, but then rejects it anyway to escape and rescue Eda and King.
- Rick and Morty:
- In the episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!":
- Morty's teacher and classmates begin fawning over him in a transparent attempt to learn the secrets of concentrated dark matter, before Rick drags him out of class and explains that they're stuck in a simulation run by scammer aliens. They manage to overload the system by throwing an impromptu rap concert and making increasingly complex demands of the audience, from "All the ladies say yeah!" to "Yo, everyone whose first name begins with an L who isn't Hispanic, walk in a circle the same number of times as the square root of your age times ten!"
- However, after escaping the alien ship with Morty and returning home, Rick finds himself unable to open his safe and then the simulation ends, revealing the aliens who just learned the code to his safe. And that's not even the final twist.
- Meanwhile, a more straightforward instance of this trope is happening to Jerry, who was accidentally abducted. The aliens cap his simulation at 5% processing power, leaving him with three repeating background characters, a boss who only says "yes", and a wife who barely speaks or moves. Jerry doesn't even notice, has the best day (and the best sex) of his life, and is devastated to learn that he didn't really win the Appley award for best apple-related ad campaign.
- In "Mortynight Run", the "Roy" game at the arcade has the player put on a VR helmet and puts them in the shoes of the eponymous Roy, with the goal being to live as long and interesting a life as possible. Morty gets so immersed in it that he initially has trouble remembering who he is when the game ends.
- "The Old Man and the Seat" shows that Rick has a substance called Globaflyn that connects the "want" and "have" sections of one's brain, giving them lifelike illusions of all their desires coming true. Tony, the alien who borrowed Rick's private toilet without permission, ends up in a toilet-filled heaven alongside his late wife, and in The Stinger, Jerry sees himself as a water deliveryman. Rick has a room full of aliens in pods submerged in the stuff.
- In the episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!":
- In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the episodes "Remember" and "The Portal" have the universe form one of these in order to distract everyone from the fact it was being destroyed.
- The Simpsons: In "Days of Future Future", Bart is strapped into one as a treatment to stop obsessing over his ex-wife Jenda.
- Star Trek: The Animated Series: In the episode "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", the animals in Kukulcan's zoo believe that they are living in their natural environment, a hallucination generated by Kukulcan's machines.
- Storm Hawks: In one episode, a Sky Siren traps all the protagonists by showing illusions of what they want most. For Aerrow, a chance to defeat his archenemy, Finn, have hot girls flirt with him, Junko, eat a pile of delicious burgers, Piper, to find an extremely rare and powerful crystal, and Stork, to get a helmet that would protect him from mind control. Radarr is able to save them all by having his wish simply being able to pilot their Aircraft carrier, the Condor.
- Tangled: The Series: In "Rapunzeltopia", Rapunzel falls into a hypnotic deep sleep by Matthews and wakes up in an Alternate Universe where she never encountered the black rocks. The only way to wake up is to find the black rocks and come into contact with them, otherwise she'll be asleep forever.
- The Tick: In "Evil Sits Down for a Moment", the villain traps the Tick in the "World's Comfiest Chair," which is so comfy that nobody ever wants to stand up again after sitting in it. No imaginary worlds or anything are involved; it's just that comfy. The episode ends (like most serious examples of this trope) with the villain getting trapped in her own Lotus-Eater Machine.
- Transformers: Animated had an odd, not-happy, example set up by Soundwave. The virtual world placed the Autobots into a series of increasingly bizarre scenarios. Seeing as the whole thing was a distraction so Soundwave could reprogram the Autobots into his slaves, this makes sense. The Autobots were also able to manipulate the world around them to a certain extent, a la The Matrix.
- In the VeggieTales episode "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple", this is how Bad Apple plans on conquering Bumblyburg. She begins by making the mayor, a reporter, and Larry-Boy believe they're in their dream world (i.e., a room full of fashionable clothes for the mayor) in order to eliminate leadership, communications, and law enforcement, and then creates a fun house for everyone to play at.
- The Venture Bros. has "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!", in which Dr. Venture builds, as he calls it, a "joy can". According to Orpheus it probes the user's mind to create hallucinations based on the user's deepest desires. Of course... with Rusty being Rusty, it's apparently Powered by a Forsaken Child. Brock gets trapped inside with a frightening vision of his apparent deepest desires. Using tinfoil hats, teenage limerence, and a urine-soaked t-shirt, the boys are the ones that get Brock out. It's interesting to note that while the device does make an attempt to fulfill one's desires through hallucination, these fantasies appear to be horribly distorted in some way and all together surreal. Interestingly, Brock knows full well what the machine is capable of, having dived in to throw another to safety. He's apparently enjoying an eternal battle against countless ninjas, dinosaurs, monsters, robots, and ninja robots riding dinosaurs. At least for a while until he yells out "OKAY ALREADY! GEEZ!", at which point they all vanish, and Molotov Cocktease shows up, finally giving herself to him.
- In Wakfu, the Sadida Tree of Life uses this as a defensive mechanism, ensnaring Evangelyne and Amalia in dreams that contain everything that they desire. Eva's dream consists mostly of Sadlygrove being his usual self.
- Wander over Yonder: In "The Void", Wander and Sylvia enter a White Void Room which is enchanted and brings whatever they desire to life; however, the void won't let them leave unless they all want to leave.
- W.I.T.C.H.:
- One character (Princess Elyon, the local Dark Magical Girl) is trapped in a Lotus Eater Machine for nearly half the first season, which is a key plot point, since the victim's actions affected the world outside. Also, the LEM is set by her brother Phobos, the local Evil Prince, in an attempt to manipulate Elyon long enough to steal her powers and seal her away during her crowning ceremony.
- Also, Nerissa in the series finale. Considering that she's a powerful Magnificent Bastard, it's better to make her believe she's gotten everything she wants rather than merely imprisoning her.
