History Main / DreamApocalypse

* You're not told this at first, but in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', Link's ultimate objective is to ''trigger'' one of these. The entirety of Koholint Island is, in fact, the [[SpaceWhale Wind Fish]]'s dream. Adding insult to injury is that the people of the island are completely oblivious to this truth, but the villainous Nightmares aren't, and they are, in fact, trying to rule the island they took over by tormenting the Wind Fish with nightmares, preventing him from waking up. But when the Dream Apocalypse happens, there are two who leave the dream world with Link: the Wind Fish, whom it turns out Link has been sharing this dream with; and (if you [[NoCasualtiesRun beat the game without dying]]) Marin, who gets her wish of flying to far-off lands and singing... as a seagull.

* In ''Fear Mythos: The RPG'', it is revealed that [[spoiler:all the creatures, Fears, that you thought you were fighting for real, were actually twisted trials by a Fear called THE REVERIE, who placed you in a coma.]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', the universe is essentially a dream made into reality through the manipulations of [[OurAngelsAreDifferent the Host]] and the servitude of a group of [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Dreamers]]. [[spoiler: They're desperately trying to wake up, but are forced to dream and maintain current reality by Gaia Engines, which are explicitly called "lullaby music boxes". And they'll take great pleasure in devouring all the souls in this world and reshaping the universe into something more to their liking once they're awake enough. Oh, and their thoughts, in the form of [[TheVirus the Filth]] are actively [[OhCrap subverting these Engines]]...]]

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fan-game ''VideoGame/ConcealedTheConclusion'', [[spoiler:Gensokyo is a dream of Reimu Hakurei, and will cease to exist when she wakes up]]. In the [[BittersweetEnding Good End]], [[spoiler:it is revealed that the game's protagonist (Marisa Kirisame) is also from outside Gensokyo and is sharing the same dream]].

[[caption-width-right:242:[-"[[AltText Well,]] '''[[AltText I]]''' [[AltText think I'm real. Look at me. Look at my face. Cut me and I'll bleed. What more do you want? Please don't go.]]"-]]]

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay Shadow Play]]", the District Attorney Henry Ritchie and newspaper editor Paul Carson become concerned that Adam Grant is telling the truth and they will cease to exist when he is executed as their reality is nothing more than his dream. [[spoiler: It turns out that their fears are justified as it is all part of his recurring nightmare.]]

* The title character of ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita'' is trapped in a LotusEaterMachine and shown an idyllic alternate world with Ido and a friendly Desty Nova. She breaks free after a while despite regrets about no longer being with Ido. In a twist, the dream affects Desty Nova even more. Alita was able to hold herself together and simply enjoy the break, while Desty Nova [[BecomingTheMask got too absorbed in the father figure role]]. After the dream ends, Desty Nova is in tears and cannot bring himself to shoot Alita.
* Inverted in ''The Melancholy of Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' when [[spoiler: [[RealityWarper Haruhi's dream starts replacing reality]]. Kyon has to convince her that their original world is better than her new dream world ([[NightmareFetishist even though her dream world has such cool giant monsters terrorizing the city]]).]]
* Fate's LotusEaterMachine experience in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' had her realizing that everything's a dream and that she needed to escape to help Nanoha stop TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. It ended with her tearfully hugging the [[CloneAngst dream-Alicia]] while repeatedly asking for forgiveness as the latter slowly disappeared, mentioning how she wished that she had been her older sister in reality too.

* This was the TwistEnding to Creator/BruceJones' horror comic [[spoiler:"You: Illusion"]], where the main antagonist becomes a lucid dreamer of RealityWarper levels as soon as he falls asleep. In a further twist, the protagonist ends up trying to ''complete'' the Apocalypse, because the dreamer in question already briefly woke up, with [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe extremely painful results]] for everything and ''everyone'' in the dream world.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Druuna}}: Aphrodisia'', a mental clone of Druuna is created by Captain Lewis when she travels into his mind to find a cure for the ViralTransformation. She tries to overwrite the original Druuna and [[GrandTheftMe steal her body]] since she doesn't want to cease existing.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'', [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Dream]] destroys an entire dreamscape, but all of the assorted DreamPeople seem resigned to this. It's softened by later revelations that they all go to an afterlife and can be resurrected at will by Dream.
* The ''Mash-Up'' arc in ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' has Batman and Superman mysteriously transported to Gothamopolis, a fusion of their home cities. Eventually, they realize it's one of Doctor Destiny's traps, and though they manage to escape, Gothamopolis and its populace are of course destroyed as they awaken. Bitterly, Batman comments the sheer realism is ''exactly'' what makes Destiny so dangerous - ''"he makes you want to believe"''.

* In the Creator/TimBurton version of ''Film/AliceInWonderland2010'', the Hatter mentions this possibility to Alice, saying that if she is dreaming it all, then he must not truly exist. He doesn't seem ''too'' concerned about it however, even half-jokingly telling her that she must be a little crazy to have imagined someone like him. (Which she doesn't deny.)
* ''Himalaya Singh'' starts off as a screwball comedy where a trio of tourists get mistaken as the grooms of an Indian Princess, but quickly takes a wild turn when at the end of the film, the protagonist encounters Brahma, the Indian creation deity, who's depicted as a mere baby - as it turns out, the movie's entire verse is a dream of Brahma, and then the main character [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally wakes up Brahma]], causing the entire universe to be reset. The film then concludes its last five minutes with every character being reborn as cavemen as the world restarts.

* Implied to be the end for the original ''Film/TotalRecall1990''. The movie is deliberately ambiguous, although hints like "Blue skies on Mars?" before Quaid goes under imply most of the movie has been a trip into a LotusEaterMachine with some very unpleasant brain damage for Quaid (i.e. a "schizoid embolism" according to one of the characters, but even that hint was ambiguous).

* This is one of the many alternative explanations for Colin Whisterfield's experiences in Creator/AlanGarner's ''Literature/{{Boneland}}'': all Colin's experiences of having visited a Narnia-like fantasy land superimposed on his own Cheshire, England, are just a dream brought about by psychosis and treatment for mental illness. This is written in step with the story of a neolithic shaman who fears that if he stops dreaming, his world will end. At the end is an ironic twist--that in one very real sense, the world you dream will inevitably stop and cease to be--at the moment of your own death.
* Some versions of the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' put Azathoth in the role of the dreamer, with the whole universe as his dream. Pray he doesn't wake up.
* ''Literature/TheGodsOfPegana'' are either this or very close--some say that everything comes from Mana-Yood-Sushai's dream, while others say that he created everything and then went to sleep. Either way, once he wakes up, "he will make again new gods and new worlds," having destroyed the old. Skarl the Drummer plays his drum to keep him asleep (which is nice of him, since ''he'll'' actually survive Mana-Yood-Sushai's awakening). Even Mana-Yood-Sushai's own priests don't pray to him, because you know, that might wake him up.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/IceCrown'', Shambry threatens this: he is keeping the queen asleep because if she wakes, they will all vanish as her dream. Imfray's men are frightened, but Imfray himself sees he's lost his mind and stops him, breaking the mind-globe controlling her.
* Well, it's not technically a dream, but ''Literature/{{Otherland}}'' by Tad Williams still employs this. The main characters are trying to [[InsideAComputerSystem destroy a VR simulation from the inside]]. The people inside seem [[DoAndroidsDream awfully real]]--[[spoiler:and some of the main characters are virtual and don't know it. Fortunately, it turns out there's a way to SaveBothWorlds.]]
* Creator/PhilipKDick's short story, ''The Electric Ant'', plays with this. The main character finds that his reality is simulated by punchholes in a magnetic tape reel in his chest. He wonders whether the world would fade away if he cuts the tape. He cuts the tape. [[spoiler:The next scene is narrated by his wife beside his dead body and she discusses how ridiculous his delusion was. [[DoubleSubversion Then she starts fading away]].]]

* In ''Literature/TheAntonioVivaldiCup'' there are several competing worlds, each of them manifesting as the dreams of all the others, and the characters attempt to turn one of them into reality. This inevitably means that all the others are relegated to dreams of the real world and become a lot weaker in consequence.

* Inverted in ''Series/AshesToAshes2008'', where Series 2 ends with [[spoiler:Alex waking up in the real world... but Gene Hunt is still there and trying to wake her back up into the 80]]'s. In Series 3 it is hinted at / revealed (depending on your point of view) that [[spoiler: she never woke up at all, but dreamed it within her dream.]]
* Canadian kid drama ''The Odyssey'' featured the hero falling into a coma and arriving in a dream world that reflected his mental state. Oddly enough, even after he woke up, the parallel world continued on without AND with him, complete with a dream version of himself continuing to live there.
* In ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** When Donna is caught in a LotusEaterMachine in "Forest of the Dead," she starts panicking when she realizes that her two children don't actually exist. Then they start saying, "When you're not looking, we disappear." And then the entire world goes white and she's shown desperately trying to hold onto her husband, who might not be real either. [[spoiler:Turns out, he is real, but she leaves before he's able to tell her.]]
** In "Last Christmas," the face-hugging dream crabs knock people into dreams and then eat their minds...and have the ability to create dreams within dreams to keep people from realizing this, for extra MindScrew. It's slightly different than normal version of the trope, because dying in the dream world means the crabs finished eating your mind. But at one point, the Dream version of Danny Pink realizes what he is, and works to wake her up, even though the real Danny is already dead and he will stop existing if she wakes. He tells her to get on with her life without him.
** In "Extremis," The Veritas reveals a truth so horrible that all who read it are driven to kill themselves: [[spoiler:the knowledge that their world is a simulation and so are they. As the Doctor puts it, if you were aware of your own existence as a character in a video game, doomed to repeat it forever, wouldn't you want to delete yourself?]]

* ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' ended on this trope - wake up from his coma and go back to being chief inspector, or stay with Annie and Gene in the dream world. Sam [[spoiler:wakes up, then changes his mind and jumps off a building, returning to the dream]].
* ''Series/NightGallery'' has the episode "Lone Survivor". The Lusitania picks up a castaway floating in a lifeboat from the Titanic, despite it having sunk three years before. It eventually turns out that the man is actually a sailor who fled the Titanic in the last lifeboat and has been damned for his cowardice to experience disastrous shipwrecks throughout history over and over, and that all the other crewmembers are just phantoms of who they were, something one of them realizes himself. When he points this out to the captain, he realizes he can't actually remember his past in any detail, and just like that, the ship is empty, aside from the castaway.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': In "Lexmas", Lex Luthor is in a coma and dreams about a "perfect" life in which he is married to Lana, with a boy and expecting a girl; Clark is married to Chloe instead, and Clark is perfect about it. He broke off from his father and his ambitions, making them not very rich but very happy. Jonathan Kent becomes senator instead, and announces that Lex is receiving the Kansas Humanitarian Award, and, of all people, says that Lex is the ''finest man he ever knew''. He marvels that he has never felt happier. His mother's ghost informs him that this can be '''reality''' if he makes the right choices. The apocalypse rolls by as Lana starts losing blood heavily after delivering the baby girl. Lex begs his father to let Lana get the best treatment, but he cruelly denies it as in reality Lionel orders a risky operation to be done on Lex. He breaks down in the dream world and wakes up in reality.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In the episode "Nightcrawlers", the characters from a sleeping man's nightmares come to life and wreak havoc. When the monsters accidentally kill the sleeping man, they all vanish.

* In the ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' fanfiction [[http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/13125.html?thread=31767621#t31767621 ''A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes'']], Denmark is put in a LotusEaterMachine dream world, because of the [[ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything Black Mercy plant]] infecting him. [[spoiler:At one point, he becomes vaguely aware that he's in a dream, during a nearly successful attempt by the other nations to remove the plant. When the attempt fails and the dream world is stabilized, the dream version of Iceland pleads with Denmark to stay with him forever, because the plant needs Denmark to stay asleep to continue to feed off of him. Iceland creepily reminds Denmark of this promise towards the end, when the nations dose him with LSD to try to scare him awake, and the dream world gets really freaking terrifying.]]
* In the ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/51205/The-Perfect-Little-Village-of-Ponyville The Perfect Little Village of Ponyville]]'', it’s revealed that the main six (plus Vinyl Scratch) are all stuck in a dream of Twilight Sparkle’s. For them, Twilight waking up is the safest way to get out of the dream, but the actual dream constructs will cease to exist when she wakes. On the other hand, Spike is the only one of these constructs to gain self-awareness—and he’s the first person to figure out it’s all a dream, when Ponyville and its residents begin to fade from existence because none of the dreamers are there. Dream Spike ends up performing an unrelated HeroicSacrifice, so the moral complications of waking up from the dream become a moot point. The same goes for the sequels to this story, which has Vinyl Scratch going through the dreams of the other Mane Six to wake them up as well, as part of an overarching attempt to take down the [[BigBad Dragon Emperor]].

* The ending for the Taiwanese server of ''VideoGame/SINoALICE'' has this happen to [[spoiler:Library itself, as it is destroyed in the process of helping Alice wake up and face reality head-on]]. To drive the point home, the ending [[DeletionAsPunishment forcibly logs you out of your account and never lets you log back on again]].

* You're not told this at first, but in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', your ultimate objective is to ''trigger'' one of these. The entirety of Koholint Island is, in fact, the [[SpaceWhale Wind Fish]]'s dream. Adding insult to injury is that the people of the island are completely oblivious to this truth, but the villainous Nightmares aren't, and they are, in fact, trying to rule the island they took over by tormenting the Wind Fish with nightmares, preventing the him from waking up. But when the Dream Apocalypse happens, there are two who leave the dream world with you: the Wind Fish, whom it turns out you've been sharing this dream with; and (if you [[NoCasualtiesRun beat the game without dying]]) Marin, who gets her wish of flying to far-off lands and singing... as a seagull.

** In the episode "Everything's Jake", Magic Man casts a spell on Jake to make his body shapeshift into an entire world, filled with many characters who may or may not simply be parts of Jake. Either way, Jake still seems upset about having to end their existence by returning.

* You're not told this at first, but in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', your ultimate objective is to ''trigger'' one of these. The entire island is, in fact, the [[SpaceWhale Wind Fish]]'s dream. Adding insult to injury is that the people of the island are completely oblivious to this truth, but the villainous Nightmares aren't, and they are, in fact, trying to save the world they took over. But when the Dream Apocalypse happens, there are two who leave the dream world with you: the Wind Fish, whom it turns out you've been sharing this dream with; and (if you [[NoCasualtiesRun beat the game without dying]]) potential love interest Marin, who gets her wish of flying to far-off lands and singing... as a seagull.

* Fate's LotusEaterMachine experience in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' had her realizing that everything's a dream and that she needed to escape to help Nanoha stop TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. It ended with her tearfully hugging the [[CloningBlues dream-Alicia]] while repeatedly asking for forgiveness as the latter slowly disappeared, mentioning how she wished that she had been her older sister in reality too.

* Inverted in ''The Melancholy of LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' when [[spoiler: [[RealityWarper Haruhi's dream starts replacing reality]]. Kyon has to convince her that their original world is better than her new dream world ([[NightmareFetishist even though her dream world has such cool giant monsters terrorizing the city]]).]]

* The ''Mash-Up'' arc in ''ComicBook/BatmanSuperman'' has Batman and Superman mysteriously transported to Gothamopolis, a fusion of their home cities. Eventually, they realize it's one of Doctor Destiny's traps, and though they manage to escape, Gothamopolis and its populace are of course destroyed as they awaken. Bitterly, Batman comments the sheer realism is ''exactly'' what makes Destiny so dangerous - ''"he makes you want to believe"''.

* ''[[LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon Dan Machi]]: VideoGame/MemoriaFreese'': In the ''Nightmare Academia'' campaign, [[spoiler: the dream world the [[WizardingSchool magic school]] was set in it starts to collapse when the Enchanted Dragon and the Sinister Wolf(a.k.a. Baldo) get slain. The death of the Dream Spirit(a.k.a. Tiones Walpurgis) accelerates the dream world's destruction. In this instance, everyone had to escape before it collapses completely]].

* ''Zoku Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' uses this trope while playing with AllJustADream: the characters realise it's a dream and if Sensei wakes up, they'll all die. [[MurderIsTheBestSolution So they try to kill him instead]]. [[FridgeLogic Don't think too hard about what happens if they succeed]].
** [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} To die, to sleep-- / To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub! / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause. There's the respect / That makes calamity of so long life.]]

* In ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'', Franchise/{{Superman}} is stuck in a LotusEaterMachine where Krypton never exploded. He eventually has to come to terms with that, and the fact that all of his loved ones will cease to be if he escapes. And once he does, he's [[UnstoppableRage not happy]].

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* Some versions of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos put Azathoth in the role of the dreamer, with the whole universe as his dream. Pray he doesn't wake up.

* Played with in ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice Through The Looking Glass]]''. Tweedledum and Tweedledee tell Alice that she (and they) are just characters in the Red King's dream, and that when he wakes she will disappear like a candle flame after it goes out. This in a story that is supposedly ''Alice's'' dream.
** Alice at one point gets fed up with this whole concept, and considers waking him up just to see what will happen. (She doesn't get a chance to.)
** Though she's left idly wondering at the end if her cat Dinah's kitten, the "Red King" behind the looking glass, is still dreaming, and if she and the real world are just part of his dream.
* In a takeoff of the above, there's a cult in [[Literature/SecretHistories The Man With the Golden Torc]] who alter reality by telling the severed, dreaming, drugged up head of their college professor what to dream, calling him The Red King. Though apparently not the whole world was his dream, just the cult, and when he is awakened they all wink out of existence.
* As the [[DreamLand World of Dreams]] is a constant force of Robert Jordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series, it's only natural for this to crop up throughout the story. In fact, it's revealed that every Aes Sedai is forced to undergo this (THREE TIMES, no less!) when progressing from Novice to Accepted of the [[WizardingSchool White Tower.]] Even worse, almost every time we see it happen, [[YourMindMakesItReal the results persist somewhat.]]
* In Literature/TheAntonioVivaldiCup there are several competing worlds, each of them manifesting as the dreams of all the others, and the characters attempt to turn one of them into reality. This inevitably means that all the others are relegated to dreams of the real world and become a lot weaker in consequence.

* There are certain beliefs in Hinduism that the universe is a dream of either Brahma or Vishnu, and if he ever wakes up... To outsiders, it sounds terrifying, but to those who believe this, it isn't scary. Hinduism believes in EternalRecurrence. The god will sleep again, and you will be again.
** This isn't just found in Hinduism, either. Buddhism and Taoism also have similar belief sets. Taoism, for instance, believes in something called the "[[http://itotd.com/articles/227/the-holographic-paradigm/ holograph]]" which is basically a belief that the world is basically a complex illusion based on the self. In Buddhism, this is called the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_realm Desire Realm]].

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation tale [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/so-it-was So It Was]] depicts [[spoiler: the end of the world as a result of Wikidot shutting down]].

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E3ElementaryDearData Elementary, Dear Data]]": This serves as a motivation for the hologram of Professor Moriarty who, upon learning what he is, takes the ship hostage and demands that the crew find a way to make him permanently real. They eventually do, [[SchrodingersButterfly for a certain definition of real]]. Then a character in the real world decides to check if their reality is real by telling the computer to end the program, which causes the episode to end.

** And in [[http://xkcd.com/429/ another strip,]] the dream characters realize that they are in a dream, and decide to go out with a bang.