Dream Melody

Sort of a cross between a Leitmotif and Arc Words, this is a short melodic fragment a character is aware of, and tends to hum or sing. Unfortunately, it's something of a mystery to them; its origin, meaning, and/or ending will not be revealed quickly. In a musical, this melodic fragment will eventually develop into a song.

Not to be confused with Dream Ballet.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• The Nostalgic Music Box tune "Lacie" in PandoraHearts.
• Amazing Freaking Grace in Sound of the Sky.
• Lucy in Elfen Lied hums the Theme Tune of the show in her first scene, it's simple melody contrasting sharply with her homicidal tendencies. Later it's revealed that Kouta's music box plays the song, and Lucy and he were friends in their youth.
• Ranka in Macross Frontier frequently sings a distinctive melody she can't remember where or from who she heard... until Brera plays it on his harmonica, explaining that he heard it in his childhood but can't remember either. It's finally explained in the last episode that the melody is actually a Vajra mating song.
• In 07-Ghost; At one point, Teito is the only one who can hear a song playing in the background, and eventually he sings it to himself. Frau tells him it's called the Raggs Requiem which alludes to the fact that Teito is the only surviving member of the former Raggs Kingdom's royal family.
• Tamako of Tamako Market repeatedly visits a nearby record store hoping to find the name of the melody she always hums. When she overhears her father playing the song on a guitar, she drags him to the record store and finds out that the melody is actually a song her father wrote for her late mother. But since Tamako's mother was tone-deaf, the melody Tamako heard from her turned out to be very different from that of the original song.

Film - Animated

• In Anastasia, Anastasia and the Dowager Empress have a special lullaby, which plays on a music box the Empress gives her. The song later has a more well-known reprise in 'Once Upon A December', which Anya sings when remembering traces of her past. Anastasia, upon remembering the Empress, sings it with her, and the Empress realizes it is really her.
• In The Prince of Egypt, Moses casually whistles his true mother's lullaby - we've actually seen said lullaby on screen, but it sets things up for his sister Miriam's reveal.

Film - Live-Action

• The five-note theme from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind: "Start with a tone, up a full tone, down a major third, drop an octave, up a perfect fifth."
• Inception has a cleverly hidden one. The song Non, je ne regrette rien has an obvious use of being played to sleepers and be heard in their dreams, warning them that they will be woken up soon. However the music from the opening is the first part of that tune slowed down to one third speed and the very iconic bass horn from the films climax is the same tune slowed down again.
• "Three Little Words" in the MGM songwriter-Biopic musical Three Little Words.
• Peter Lorre's character from M whistles In the Hall of the Mountain King. Interestingly, Lorre himself couldn't whistle; the sound was provided by director Fritz Lang.
  • All the more effective because it's the only music in the film.
• In the Alfred Hitchcock version of The 39 Steps, Hannay spends most of the movie with a tune stuck in his head, but can't remember what it is. Near the end, he hears it again and realises that the first time he heard it was just before he met Annabella and got tangled in the plot, which lets him figure out what the spy ring's plan is.
• In Alfred Hitchcock's film Shadow of a Doubt, young Charlie has The Merry Widow Waltz stuck in her head for the first little bit of the film, but can't remember the title or origin of the tune. This is to illustrate the almost-telepathic connection she has with her Uncle Charlie, who is later revealed to be the Merry Widow Murderer, a serial killer who murders and robs rich old widows. At one point she almost remembers the title of the melody, but Uncle Charlie spills a glass of water, distracting her from figuring it, and him, out.
• In the Barbie movie 'Barbie As The Island Princess', Ro has always sung a lullaby to her animal friends, 'Right Here In My Arms', all the words of which she doesn't remember. At the end of the film, Ro realizes that Queen Marissa is her mother, and they sing the lullaby together, the missing lyrics being the Queen's part.
• Enola hums one of these tunes in Waterworld.
• In Night of the Demon, scientist-skeptic Holden hears an eerie tune in his head after the cult leader he's investigating puts a curse on him. Later he hums the tune to his associates, who recognize it as a component of demonic spells. The tune is a recurring theme in the soundtrack music itself.
• Burnt by the Sun has "Utomlyonnoye solntse (The Weary Sun)", a Russian Translated Cover Version of the Polish tango "To ostatnia niedziela (This is the Last Sunday)", sung or whistled by Nadia, Mitya, and a few others throughout the film.
• Tuck Everlasting features a haunting music box melody that several characters hum or whistle. The actual music box belonged to the family (now-deceased, due to not being immortal) granddaughter Anna, and it's a major Oh, Crap! moment when the villain starts humming it, indicating he is aware of the Tucks' secret.

Literature

• In Night Watch, Vimes spends the first part of the book being reminded of the failed revolution by the sight/smell of lilac and a tune called "All The Little Angels". Due to Time Travel, he gets to hear it again later.
• This is a minor plot point in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Winston can only remember the first two lines of a song about churches in London.
  • There's also Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me...
• Atlas Shrugged has Dagny hearing a few whistled notes of "Halley's Fifth Concerto" (from a composer who only wrote four concertos before disappearing).
• There is the Miorita of My Swordhand Is Singing. At first Peter hates it and believes that it doesn't make any sense. His father, Tomas, tells him that some people do understand it, while Sofia tells him that he has to simply understand it.
• In the Goosebumps book Beware, the Snowman, the protagonist suddenly remembers the opening lyrics to a nursery rhyme from her childhood. The protagonist doesn't know the meaning of the lyrics or the second half of the poem.

Live-Action TV

• The drumbeat inside the Master's head in Doctor Who, which he's had rattling in his head ever since he looked into the Untempered Schism at the age of eight. This apparently drove him insane. The End of Time reveals the sound is actually the sound of a Time Lord's beating hearts. Also, Rassilon himself put the beating into the Master's head in order to use him to free himself and all of Gallifrey from the Time Lock they were in from the last day of the Time War.
  • The rhythm is also prominent in the show's theme music.
• In Supernatural, Benny whistles "In the Hall of the Mountain King" in Dean's Purgatory flashbacks.
• In Battlestar Galactica, four major characters discover themselves to be Cylons after they realize they've all been hearing the same unearthly music playing throughout the ship - an indie-rock cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". It later shows up in the minds of Kara Thrace and Hera Agathon.
• The melody Dax keeps humming in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Equilibrium," which eventually turns out to have been written by a mentally-unstable host whom she didn't remember because those memories were suppressed.
• "Never Leave Me," from Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7 (the song, not the episode) which is the trigger The First uses to make Spike kill.

  Early one morning,

  Just when the sun was shining.

  I heard a maid sing

  from the valley below.

  "Oh, don't deceive me,

  Oh, never leave me

  How could you use a poor maiden so?"

Theater

• The name comes from the ancient (1910) musical Naughty Marietta; its Dream Melody is better known as "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life."
• Another Musical Theatre example is Lady in the Dark, in which the frustrated magazine editor Liza Elliott keeps humming a childhood tune to herself at times when she is lost in thought or is overcome with panic. She can't recall the words to it ("My ship has sails that are made of silk...") until she relives her childhood in flashbacks with the help of her psychoanalyst. Lyricist Ira Gershwin compared the importance of "My Ship" to the show to that of "a stole necklace or missing will to a melodrama."
• In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche has the Varsouviana polka stuck in her head. This upsets her because this was the song that was played when her husband shot himself.

Video Games

• Garnet's song in Final Fantasy IX, which ends up as the game's main theme and vocal Theme Song, "Melodies of Life".
• The Hymn of the Fayth in Final Fantasy X also counts, for Tidus; he finds himself humming it in a flashback, but its connection to Spira is only made clear later. (The track title for Tidus's murmuring is called Hum of the Fayth.)
• And this is how you get the Good Ending in Chrono Cross, to free Schala from Lavos, you must use Elements in correct order. Each color of the Elements is keyed to a note, and the tune is played in many places in-game but especially in the fake Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Will in Illusion of Gaia has his grandmother's lullaby, which turns out to be the key to revealing her village of origin, and an identifying call. Also, a couple dungeons have background music that turn out to be versions of other melodies important to the plot.
• The Victory Hymn in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is sung as a memory aid by Sunny and whistled by the Resistance member Snake has to stalk. It's heard again at the end in an awesome Ennio Morricone-Spaghetti Western-style arrangement — maybe the characters can see the game's happy ending?
• The Tsukimori Song from Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Bits and pieces of the song are the only things that protagonist Ruka can remember from her childhood.
• Remember11: Kagome, kagome...
• A twelve-note sequence in Aquaria is heard throughout the soundtrack, and Naija sings it in Musical Gameplay to progress through the game. The origin of this tune is revealed after beating the Creator—a child who remembers the tune from his lost mother's lullaby.
• In To the Moon: "For River". An unusual case in which we see the origin first.
• In Mother trilogy, the Eight Melody is a lullaby sung by a mother to her son and how her love can both plunges the son into evil or redeems him back into the light. You have to collect each line of the melody from individuals and places with great personal sorrow, so you can play it to the son to stop him from embracing the dark side of their great psychic power.

Western Animation

• In Futurama, Fry has an intimate association with the song "Walkin' on Sunshine", recurring as his favorite song, a fact given unstated but Tear Jerker Fridge Brilliance when it was revealed his old dog Seymour could bark to the tune. Often implied to be a short-cut reference to Fry's old life in the 20th century.
• The Little Mermaid (1989) uses the opening bars of "Part of Your World" as this trope, notably when Eric hears mermaids singing, Ariel gives up her voice to Ursula, and Ursula disguised as Vanessa uses said voice to hypnotize Eric.

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